Accident involving a friend.

gismo

gismo

Touchdown! Greaser!
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I recently learned that an old friend was killed in an airplane accident a year and a half ago. He was one of my partners in a Starduster Too for several years, provided me with transport in his Thorp many times, and shared his hangar with me for a few years for the Porterfield. He was a professor at the U of Mn but retired and moved to South Carolina about 5 years ago. He was talking about getting a Questair Venture (the plane he crashed in) when he was here but told me he'd decided that the fact that insurance was pretty much unobtainable made that unlikely. I guess he changed his mind. He had a cottage on Crystal Lake near Frankfort Michigan and I tried in vain to hook up with him last summer when I was in the area, now I know why no one answered his phone. Looks like he ran the plane out of fuel with a totalizer indicating an hour's fuel remaining. The report didn't mention any evidence of a leak but it had to either be that or he didn't top off the tanks yet still entered full fuel on the totalizer.


http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=CHI06LA243&rpt=fi
 
lancefisher said:
I recently learned that an old friend was killed in an airplane accident a year and a half ago. He was one of my partners in a Starduster Too for several years, provided me with transport in his Thorp many times, and shared his hangar with me for a few years for the Porterfield.
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I'm sorry to hear about your friend Lance. :(
 
I'm sorry for the loss.

Unfortunately, a totalizer shouldn't be depended upon any more than fuel gages. Performance charts and a clock are still the best tools.
 
Sorry for your loss. That must be a strange feeling - find out so much later.

KennyFlys said:
Performance charts and a clock are still the best tools.
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Why not? They're accurate to .1g, and basically fool proof, unlike performance charts and fuel gauges.

-Felix
 
I'm sorry to hear that Lance.
 
KennyFlys said:
I'm sorry for the loss.

Unfortunately, a totalizer shouldn't be depended upon any more than fuel gages. Performance charts and a clock are still the best tools.
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Unless you have a fuel leak or lose a fuel cap, in which case the totalizer and clock are worthless and the gauges become important. Use ALL the tools you have.
 
Sorry to hear about this, Lance.

It seems that if you stay involved in general aviation for any significant time - you end up knowing too many dead people. Everybody be careful out there, OK?
 
Thanks everyone. Strangely this doesn't feel very bad, probably due to the extended time since I last saw my friend. Still sad though.
 
It's always sad to lose someone you knew, especially if he passed doing something you shared. It brings our own mortality into focus. Hopefully, this makes us more conscientious, if not better, pilots.
 
Lance,

I am sorry for your loss.

Tim's message struck a chord with me,
TMetzinger said:
Sorry to hear about this, Lance.

It seems that if you stay involved in general aviation for any significant time - you end up knowing too many dead people. Everybody be careful out there, OK?
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John & Martha King talk about "The Big Lie." That bit we say about the most dangerous part of flying is driving to the airport.... It is a lie!!!

I have done some research the Bureau of Labor statistics reports workplace fatalities for a presentation I do annually at the National Warbird Operators Conference. Flying has been the first, second, or third most deadly career in America for many years. This is a dangerous business.
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm#charts

You can do the reserach, but the short version is, flying is usually second only to Commercial Fishing. Anybody watched "Deadliest Catch" lately?????

It is more dangerous than power line work, farming, and the one that clears it up for me, usually about 4 times more deadly than coal mining.......

We sit in our comfortable cockpits looking at our 396's with a blue blazer and khaki slacks and think we are pretty smart. We think we have this flying thing all figured out....

We do not have it figured out, we fly on fragile wings in a violent sky and when we start to think we are the master of the sky we get hurt.

My list of dead friends is a long one. The aviation games that I play Warbirds, and homebuilts are on the really dangerous end of the spectrum and more than once I have wondered if it was worth it. I quit hauling freight because I knew someone would get hurt and most likely it would be me.

The Oshkosh crash this year that took Gerry Beck was a really tough one for me. I was flying the Yellow DC-3 with the skydivers when the accident occured. We could see Gerry's airplane on it's top. It was a long flight until they let us land and when we got on the ground and I found out that Gerry was gone, I wondered then if I should hang it up.

I spoke at Gerry's funeral and Max Haynes made an internet photo a wonderful photo essay with my words. I have heard from many folks that it help them with the same question.

http://maxair2air.com/07AIR/BECK/O01.html

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal


PS If you subscribe to Max's mailing list you will recieve a notice each time he posts a new essay, they are incredible!!!
 
B25Flyer said:
John & Martha King talk about "The Big Lie." That bit we say about the most dangerous part of flying is driving to the airport.... It is a lie!!!

I have done some research the Bureau of Labor statistics reports workplace fatalities for a presentation I do annually at the National Warbird Operators Conference. Flying has been the first, second, or third most deadly career in America for many years. This is a dangerous business.
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm#charts
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Doug, you are very right about this. When the Kings were considering developing a Risk Management course, John and I had a very long talk over dinner in DC. We were on the same page that too many pilots think in terms of risk AVOIDANCE when they should be thinking in terms of risk MANAGEMENT. The two are different things. The bottom line is that there is inherent risk in flying, and there is also operational risk in flying. Those two are also different. Inherent risk can be managed only minimally, while operational risk can be managed more effectively.

The fact is that risk management is usually glossed over by boilerplate statements about "legal does not equal proficient" or some such. But coping with risk is something that changes every time you fly, as you make new sets of risk/reward equations that define how you -- not someone else -- will manage that flight. It's a topic that gets short shrift all the time.
 
B25Flyer said:
John & Martha King talk about "The Big Lie." That bit we say about the most dangerous part of flying is driving to the airport.... It is a lie!!!
Click to expand...

I've had more close calls and mishaps in cars than in airplanes, but this is true.
It's not the statistical hazards that can get any of us, it's the small margin for error.
 
I have wondered what the "odds" are for a recreational pilot flying a reasonably well equipped light twin with 1800 time in type and annual recurrent (sim) training. We all like to think that "we" won't make the same mistakes as the guy who's crash made the local headlines, but I'm well aware that I make plenty of mistakes, flying and otherwise.

-lance
 
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