Canard of death?

wabower said:
Do you have stats for unprovoked structural failures?
Click to expand...


72 records meet your search criteria: "AERONCA, FATAL, ANYWHERE, SINCE 1962"

Not one was an in-flight breakup.

The majority were low altitude stalls preceded by various stupid pilot tricks.

Several included alcohol. A typical cause: "The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from an object while maneuvering and alcohol impairment. "
 
how about pilots who run out of fuel during an overhead break? while texting
 
how about pilots who run out of fuel during an overhead break, while texting in a PA-28 or C-152.....?

I doubt if Ron is going to waste much time answering these silly questions. :rolleyes2:

Sure do appreciate his work and the series in Kitplanes was great!
Thank you!!
 
steingar said:
Ron Wattanja has performed extensive analysis on the GA accident record. However, the hot spot for Lanceairs and Glassair "fast glass" aircraft was reported to me (and a roomful of other people) by the President of the EAA, so I suspect its correct. Whether a linear arrangement exists between stall speed and accident rate is an open question.
Click to expand...

I respect Ron's experience in the field. But as R Franklin posted, mechanical problems in the first 50 hours account for more problems than pilot error. That is the area I was speaking to. I was only speaking to the first 50 hours and trying to find a way to alleviate that accident rate. I was not speaking to a certain type of experimental. Van's column a couple of months ago about lowering the accident rate points to mechanical issues as major area that needs to be turned around.
 
Morne said:
As to the cruise speed vs. fatality graph - what's the high wing production bird with the 220-ish mph cruise and 20% fatality rate?
Click to expand...
Cessna 210. My 1998-2007 database shows 381 total accidents, 71 with fatalities.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wabower said:
Do you have stats for unprovoked structural failures?
Click to expand...
Relatively rare, even for homebuilts. Looking at my database, out of ~2000 accidents, 43 are listed in the are listed "Mechanical Failure- Airframe" category. In almost half the cases, the cause is traceable to the pilot exceeding the limits of the airframe, bad workmanship, faulty maintenance, etc. In addition, only about 55% of the instances resulted in fatalities (some of the failures were in landing gear, some airplanes were still controlable, etc).

Ron Wanttaja
 
No surprise there, eh?

wanttaja said:
Relatively rare, even for homebuilts. Looking at my database, out of ~2000 accidents, 43 are listed in the are listed "Mechanical Failure- Airframe" category. In almost half the cases, the cause is traceable to the pilot exceeding the limits of the airframe, bad workmanship, faulty maintenance, etc. In addition, only about 55% of the instances resulted in fatalities (some of the failures were in landing gear, some airplanes were still controlable, etc).

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...
 
I bet the Zenith 601XL is the largest object of that catagory too.:sad::sad:
 
How does that compare with the other big singles? Back when I followed the Aviation Consumer accident tracker, it seemed as though the various airplanes rotated through the accident-leader position. PA-46's had their problems for a while, as did others. A few years ago we lost 4 Cessna 180's and 11 lives in a 15-day period during July. It was clearly an abberation, but reflected poorly on the fleet.

wanttaja said:
Cessna 210. My 1998-2007 database shows 381 total accidents, 71 with fatalities.

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...
 
I'm not going to read all five pages.

My views on the canards are as follows.

I've helped build a velocity FG/SUV from crate to engine start. I've flown in a Velocity RG and a one-of-a-kind Rutan camera ship that a local COA guy owned for a few years.

They land fast. Much more kinetic energy. The sink rate comment on
Page one is valid.

You can stall a canard aircraft. You cannot stall the main wing of a properly designed and built canard aircraft that is operated with CG within limits and in non-aerobatic flight. The distinction is important.

The seats in a velocity or SQ are a joke. They will NOT absorb energy safely They will break.

Seat breaks then the firmly anchored belt no longer holds you in position and the occupant is free to move (traumatically) about the cabin. This has been fatal to the occupant.
 
Chip_pilot said:
I respect Ron's experience in the field. But as R Franklin posted, mechanical problems in the first 50 hours account for more problems than pilot error.
Click to expand...
Not according to my analysis. Certainly there's a higher rate of mechanical problems in the first 50 hours, but that's coupled with pilots who (by definition) don't have much time in type.

Overall, about 39% of homebuilt accidents are due to what I call "Pilot Miscontrol," basically stick-and-rudder errors (overshoot, undershoot, stalls, groundloops, etc.). This rises to about 43% for the first flight, and drops only a percentage point over the first 50 hours.

The attached PDF shows how the incidence of given types of accidents varies with aircraft hours.

Ron Wanttaja
 

Attachments

  • cause comparison.pdf
    3.6 KB · Views: 6
N801BH said:
I bet the Zenith 601XL is the largest object of that catagory too.:sad::sad:
Click to expand...
My database actually pre-dates the spate of wing failures on the 601XL, so most of them don't show up. However, some of the failures were on SLSAs (not Experimental Amateur-Built, and thus not included in my analysis), some were on foreign aircraft overseas (ditto), and in some, the NTSB ruled it pilot error.

Ron Wanttaja
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top