It was a Comanche. Not as dramatic as an air horn - “there would be a light on in the cockpit”. The Comanche has no audible stall warning.
Didn't realize there were GA aircraft with no audible warning. Personally, I would want one, you can miss a light depending in where you are looking, however an audible alarm gets your attention no matter where the eyes are.
That's why i think this one will get interesting. Maybe there was some mechanical failure on the aircraft, or maybe he just stuffed too many people into the plane. Just don't know. In any event the reports will be interesting.
PA-28s and PA-32s had red stall warning lights on the panel -- no audible horn -- until the mid 1970s or so.Didn't realize there were GA aircraft with no audible warning. Personally, I would want one, you can miss a light depending in where you are looking, however an audible alarm gets your attention no matter where the eyes are.
If the problem was an aft CG, how did they get a mile north of the airport? The aft CG means can put you in a situation where the elevator cannot provide enough force to keep the nose down. Right? I'm thinking of the 747 crash in Afghanistan. That plane barely made it off the runway.
An exceptional pilot would have managed to nurse that plane around a really wide pattern and land back at the airport. This plane was flown by passengers in the front seats.
I can somehow understand how the young kid got this wrong and stuffed all the cute girls he could muster into 'his' plane. I don't get how a UND aviation graduate and ATP could get on board with this suicide mission.
This will be a really boring NTSB report.
They did it for the kitty
Yeah and no, I just don't understand how an ATP rated CFII would have gone along with this. Unless he was blinded by the kitty.
Didn't realize there were GA aircraft with no audible warning. Personally, I would want one, you can miss a light depending in where you are looking, however an audible alarm gets your attention no matter where the eyes are.
Neither of the planes I currently fly have stall warning systems. I haven't missed them
Let’s talk about what the tower saw that would make him ask if everything was “OK”
Do we know if the plane was in the air when the question was asked?
Do we really know it was over weight? They didn't look like big people.
Who knows, maybe they can retrieve a w&b from one of his 'apps' in the ''cloud' where he carefully calculated how much fuel he had to offload if he filled all six seats with anorexic ballerinas.
An exceptional pilot would have managed to nurse that plane around a really wide pattern and land back at the airport. This plane was flown by passengers in the front seats.
I can somehow understand how the young kid got this wrong and stuffed all the cute girls he could muster into 'his' plane. I don't get how a UND aviation graduate and ATP could get on board with this suicide mission.
I think the simple fact that the tower asked this is pretty telling. In my limited time as a pilot I’ve found that ATC interaction is pretty objective. Comfortable and maybe at times relaxed, but objective. I find the statement “everything ok?” to be somewhat alarming. In my view, tower would only say that if they were pretty certain something was very wrong. I am curious to know what specifically initiated that question.
I really doubt it’s commonplace for any tower controller to ask a question of that nature.
The news story implies that the plane was off the ground when the question was asked, but that may not be accurate.
I've been asked that question once, after being cleared to depart an unfamiliar Delta at night. It was my first experience with lots of green lights embedded in the runway centerline, and I taxied slowly away from them before starting my takeoff, prompting Tower to ask if I was alright. Turns out that lining up dead on-center isn't always a great idea . . . .
It's one thing to speculate about the cause of a crash. It's quite another to pronounce a dead person responsible for the incident and death of five other people.
Your post is odious and unfounded.
A lot of early airplanes only have a light.Didn't realize there were GA aircraft with no audible warning. Personally, I would want one, you can miss a light depending in where you are looking, however an audible alarm gets your attention no matter where the eyes are.
It also depends on the airplane’s stall characteristics and certification requirements.Me too. The stall warning is when you feel the buffet...and I don't mean the all-you-can-eat buffet. or Warren.
Really, just pay attention to the airspeed and don't load up the wings and/or use crazy bank angles in the pattern and you'll be fine. The only time I stall, or get really near one, is in the practice area 3000' up, or 5' off the runway when landing.
Do we really know it was over weight? They didn't look like big people.
The Comanche C would typically have a useful load +/-1275 lbs. Assuming the so-called FAA standard adult weight of 170 lbs x six, leaves about 255 lbs for fuel and baggage.
Not sure where but I thought I remember reading the plane was full fuel at departure. Give them each a VERY conservative 10 lbs baggage and that would allow for about 33 gallons of fuel.
Of course as it’s been noted here that plane can fly over gross if within CG... but given full tanks it could have easily been 200-300 over gross AND aft CG.
With precision it may have been able to do it.
It's one thing to speculate about the cause of a crash. It's quite another to pronounce a dead person responsible for the incident and death of five other people.
Your post is odious and unfounded.
Doesn't hurt my feelings. I've stood at the crash site where six people I knew died. Internet forums are for anonymous bluster like yours.
I've stood at the crash site where six people I knew died.
Sounds to me like failure to comply with 91.103 killed six people.
My guess is that the CFI wasn't all that familiar with the aircraft loading in question, and the pilot was new to his ownership of the aircraft.
When I first got checked out in a 206, the club required a checkout flight with enough brave souls and ballast on board to bring the plane up to gross weight....But this instructor decides to teach with six aboard? It’s a “training flight” he says on the recording? Mmmm?
The photos don’t back that up. You don’t train with six on board. What are you training? How to be absolutely 100% distracted?...
When I first got checked out in a 206, the club required a checkout flight with enough brave souls and ballast on board to bring the plane up to gross weight.
I think they dropped that policy at some point. They don't have a 206 on line anymore, but when I got checked out in a Centurion a few years ago, they didn't require it.
Not really. Number of people land gear up with gear warning horn blaring
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Just because gear-ups happen doesn't mean an audible warning isn't better then a light, just means it isn't a perfect warning system. How many gear-ups would we have if there was only a light with no horn?
What is quickly apparent is that even though they're within 60 lbs of the max gross in this conservative no-overnight bag for 6 people scenario (again, yeah right), they're 2/10" from the aft CG limit. This is a much more critical effect for that takeoff in terms of pilot technique, than the fact they were at almost max gross. That airplane is going to be very cantankerous on rotation, and pilot technique will be of critical importance, especially if any flap use was made. This is probably what the tower saw as squirrely enough behavior to pipe up about.
If your plane gives sufficient aerodynamic buffetting you don't need any sort (aural or visual) indicator.Didn't realize there were GA aircraft with no audible warning. Personally, I would want one, you can miss a light depending in where you are looking, however an audible alarm gets your attention no matter where the eyes are.