Plane down at Dayton Airshow

smack300 said:
Wow that was hard to watch. But I am not really sure what happened.
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The first thing I notice is that it looks like the flightpath after rolling inverted is at the crowd instead of down the show line. It looks like there is a big right rudder input to try and straighten out the line right before the roll into the dirt.
 
ZapBrannigan said:
Anybody know a pilot's name? Buddy of mine named Brian from college flew a Stearman to Dayton for the show...
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That's why I asked - it looks as if "Brian" was primarily a ferry-pilot from her website - but there are three or four pilots and some look to be the airshow guys and "Brian" looked to be a ferry pilot. FWIW - just going off the website, not sure how accurate that is.
 
Since Danny Clisham (the announcer) says "Charlie" on the video just before the crash, my bet is that the pilot was:

http://www.wingwalk.org/styled-5/index.html

Charlie Schwenker, Pilot

Charlie started flying sailplanes in 1975 and went on to earn a FAI Gold badge with one ‘Diamond’ for a flight of over 300 kilometers (nearly 200 miles) and has climbed to 18,000 feet MSL - All without a motor. He instructed in Sailplanes for several years and has almost the same number of hours flown in Sailplanes as Power Planes. He started flying competition aerobatics in 1990. Competition results include winning the Canadian National Aerobatic Championship and regional International Aerobatic Club contests up and down the east coast. Charlie’s current passion is aerobatics and he can usually be found flying a Pitts S-1T or an Extra 300. But today he gets to enjoy flying aerobatics with a wing walker in a beautiful Stearman 450. When not busy flying an airshow elsewhere, Charlie can be found at the Flying Circus in Bealeton Virginia most Sundays in the summer.
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I have to agree with hacker - looked like he was coming towards the crowd and put it in. What we don't know if he was uncomfortable and got discombobulated and wanted right side up and out or if there was another factor that played a part of him wanting to get away from the crowd.
 
I'm wondering if the pilot had some kind of medical issue during those last few moments, causing the loss of control. We'll see...
 
Man, that's bad stuff.

I was just in Dayton on Thursday, witnessed the twin crash into the grass while we were taxing to the gate. Thankfully everyone in that survived but now this... Ugh.

RIP
 
DPApilot said:
Uhh, that wasn't a stall....
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Yes, it was.

Snap roll, skidded base-to-final spin, departure out of a Vmc roll, its all the same thing..... He just did it inverted and instead of a dead engine, he had somebody on his wing.


Hacker15e said:
The first thing I notice is that it looks like the flightpath after rolling inverted is at the crowd instead of down the show line. It looks like there is a big right rudder input to try and straighten out the line right before the roll into the dirt.
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I noticed that too, that might be where he lost his energy. Biplanes aren't very forgiving, all they want to do is go down and slow down.


All that rudder was being used to counteract the adverse yaw caused by her body. For what ever reason, it looks like he didn't have enough energy going into the 1/2 roll and got himself into a bad place. Once he got inverted he was already in the "mush". The nose "up" attitude was pretty high, meaning was having to push quite a bit. With parasite drag from her body, her sitting on the bottom wing in front of the aileron, at that speed he was probably running out of aileron authority. If he went full power at the last second, rudder was being applied in the wrong direction to counteract the p-factor. The combination of the slow airspeed, drag of her body, all the push and opposite aileron input. It was a skidded base-to-final scenario, only inverted with someone sitting on the wing.

It would be interesting to see how much experience the pilot had flying a wing walker. His reaction was appropriate for flying a Pitts or high performance mono-plane. Even a 450 Stearman probably could have powered out of that. A conventional low recovery doesn't work when someone is sitting on your wing.
 
This is really sad. :( RIP to all those involved. A good reminder that Airshows are serious business for the ones putting on the show.
 
Hacker15e said:
The first thing I notice is that it looks like the flightpath after rolling inverted is at the crowd instead of down the show line. It looks like there is a big right rudder input to try and straighten out the line right before the roll into the dirt.
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I kind of agree with you.

He was coming toward the crowd inverted, maybe loosing altitude too, and he turned so he didn't kill any spectators. Could have been a control failure but it looked more like a stall to me.
 
I have zero aerobatics experience, but I see the wings unloading very quickly, either by stall or pilot releasing the push needed to hold that attitude... that's about all I can contribute. RIP to the fallen and condolences to the affected families.
 
While any number of factors could be possibilities here, I'd like to see what the investigation rules in or rules out first. Because in accident investigation, one thing I've learned over the decades is that things aren't always as obvious, or as straightforward, as they may seem at first glance. Any of the ideas put forth by persons here could have some, much, or even no percentage of factor to this accident. But just remember, nothing is 100%; and it can't always be said that things "have" to be a certain way or occur in a certain way; because when it comes to accidents, things don't necessarily "have" to be anything or "have" to occur in any particular way. Just saying, be careful with instant conclusions..
 
Very sad.

From a quick glance on my iPhone, I am assuming this was supposed to be a half-roll with an inverted fly-by. It appears that he lost energy in his slow mushy roll and found himself slow and hanging on the prop. Slow, high alpha, big rudder input. Does anyone think this looks like an upside-down snap roll?

Of course, video only tells part of the story. Many other factors could be at play. Very sad.
 
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