Icon A5.. another crash Jul 27

FastEddieB said:
I’m not jesse, but to clarify...

Do you think a plane “turning into a tailwind” is more likely to stall than one “turning into a headwind”?

Gusts and shear notwithstanding.
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At low airspeed, absolutely.

But here's what I'm curious about.

The builders of the A5 spend a lot of time talking about how gentle the stall is, but are they a saying it can not spin? I don't recall them expounding on that.
 
FastEddieB said:
I’m not jesse, but to clarify...

Do you think a plane “turning into a tailwind” is more likely to stall than one “turning into a headwind”?

Gusts and shear notwithstanding.
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That was my point. In the video, it is very gusty. I understand the concept of moving in the airmass, but that assumes a steady state airmass. In this video, the mic on the cam gives away, not to mention the water chop. Flying flight around stall speed turning from a headwind to a tail wind, that gust component, or shear if you will is what I was looking at.
 
Unit74 said:
Flying flight around stall speed turning from a headwind to a tail wind, that gust component, or shear if you will is what I was looking at.
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Gusts and shear always complicate these discussions.

Would you agree with this modification of what you just posted?

Flying flight around stall speed turning from a tailwind to a headwind, that gust component, or shear if you will is what I was looking at.

The fact that the turn was downwind has nothing to do with random gusts or shear.
 
wanttaja said:
That's about right. I see 102 in the online registry, with another five on the "Deregister" list.

Believe five is the number of accidents as well. From what I've seen, though, none of the accidents have had mechanical causes. At least two have involved stalling at low altitude, which might lead to questions about stall characteristics. The Icon received an exemption to the Light Sport weight limit specifically because of supposed stall-resistant features.

<snip>

Ron Wanttaja
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I've seen two of them at the local composite repair shop. Both were landed gear up and repaired. One paid another visit to the shop following an impact with a dock that caused minor (IMO) damage to the nose. I don't think any of those accidents were the airplane's fault. I don't think the incident under discussion here was an airplane problem, nor do I remember any of the other accidents being "airplane" problems.
 
May have done that takeoff before and possibly usually solo with no ill-effects. Add in a 200 lbs passenger (hypothetical), takeoff will be a little different. Agree that he wasted a lot of “runway” with that turn from the dock.
 
Banjo33 said:
Add in a 200 lbs passenger (hypothetical), takeoff will be a little different.
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I was thinking that on the take off. Took forever to get up on plane and barely at that. Me thinks there was a gross issue.
 
Unit74 said:
I was thinking that on the take off. Took forever to get up on plane and barely at that. Me thinks there was a gross issue.
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It looked like he began the takeoff with a crosswind and was trying to turn into the wind with the rudder. So he was side loading the hull, which causes a lot of drag. I thought the "get off" performance was reasonable for an LSA flying boat in those conditions.
 
Always difficult to arm chair judge from a video. Does seem the plane was near max weight (easy to be near max on this plane) and winds were not favorable for a lake that small. Initially thought pilot turned towards the lake before hitting the tree, but instead stalled and started to spin towards the lake.

Looked like he would have been OK to keep flying up wind towards the notch in the tree line. Stating the obvious... better to be struggling into a departing head wind for altitude than a cross wind or tail wind.

Just hope everyone is OK from their injuries and lessons can be learned.
 
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How hard can it be to fly a $400,000 “jet ski with wings?” Sheesh!
 
Sundancer said:
blame the airplane
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actually I agree with you, for all intents and purposes this plane objectively should be one of the safest out there however my issue is with the overall demeanor and laissez-faire style of the company themselves in the marketing of this plane.. that was kind of my point in a pseudo sarcastic way with my post
 
Icon's issues are totally cultural
 
kyleb said:
It looked like he began the takeoff with a crosswind and was trying to turn into the wind with the rudder. So he was side loading the hull, which causes a lot of drag. I thought the "get off" performance was reasonable for an LSA flying boat in those conditions.
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That's what I saw too, the taking off crosswind part, if you watch he is coming at the camera, which appears to be downwind, then turns crosswind. You can see the spray blowing to the left of the airplane. I don't know why he didn't turn another 90 degrees into the wind. After he lifted off, I think he pitched up too much and didn't correct by lowering the nose. An unnatural act for a non pilot, but one that every pilot needs be able to do without hesitation.
 
texasclouds said:
I think the pitch up was to avoid those trees.
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Looks like it to me too. If anyone ever wonders why power on stalls are practiced in flight training, this is why. Sometimes the only safe option is to lower the nose and fly around the tree or through the tree line.

As far as the size of the lake goes, it looked big enough. It did however look pretty windy (rough water), and if they were heavy or the icon is underfloated it could have taken much longer to get up on step and out of the water than they expected. In turn, that could have put them closer to shore (and the trees) than anticipated.

It is amazing how much difference different floats and different weights can make on the amount of water needed to get off. I don’t have any experience with flying boats but I imagine it is similar.
 
kyleb said:
It looked like he began the takeoff with a crosswind and was trying to turn into the wind with the rudder.
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That would be a common confined space takeoff procedure. Without seeing the whole lake I couldn’t say for sure, but it seemed like the lake was big enough that they could have just gotten the plane pointed into the wind and sailed backward until they had as much room as they needed, then began the takeoff. That might not have occurred to these guys for one reason or another though.
 
Unit74 said:
Maybe they should mandate an "MU-2" type of program? Type specific training requirements......
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The MU-2's challenges were procedural where pilots needed to be trained on procedures that are different than what would be appropriate for other twins.

Icon's problems seem to be related to decision making. An airplane isn't a jet ski or a dirt bike where when you crash you upright the vehicle, climb back on, and continue the ride. With airplanes, crashes have a lot more consequences and hitting the "reset" button isn't as easy.
 
PaulS said:
After he lifted off, I think he pitched up too much and didn't correct by lowering the nose. An unnatural act for a non pilot, but one that every pilot needs be able to do without hesitation.
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Many pilots struggle with the ability to do that too. If people could fight their internal desire to climb away from things by adding pitch I think we’d cut the number of hard landings, stalls, Vmc accidents, etc. by a large amount.
 
A bit of flying r/c sailplanes upwind and downwind of tree lines leads me to expect strong sink just on the downwind side near treetops. Just adding to the accident chain.
 
Unit74 said:
Maybe they should mandate an "MU-2" type of program? Type specific training requirements......
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You’d think the company pilots that have crashed these would have had sufficient type training.
 
I would have thought it a bit alarming to have used up pretty much the whole length of the lake before breaking free of the water. That should have been a warning that there was insufficient room to depart with that loading under those conditions. The departure turn probably did not help by lowering the effective stall speed. After that turn to avoid terrain, the plane looked to be on the edge of a stall, with the wings rocking back and forth prior to collision with the treetop. They were very lucky to have avoided serious injury.

It is easy to get complacent, but you have to respect aerodynamics. When it ain't working, it ain't working. There is no shame in aborting a takeoff. Better to re-rack and try again, or wait for better conditions or adjust loading.
 
PaulS said:
...After he lifted off, I think he pitched up too much and didn't correct by lowering the nose. An unnatural act for a non pilot, but one that every pilot needs be able to do without hesitation.
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mondtster said:
Many pilots struggle with the ability to do that too. If people could fight their internal desire to climb away from things by adding pitch I think we’d cut the number of hard landings, stalls, Vmc accidents, etc. by a large amount.
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Salty said:
You’d think the company pilots that have crashed these would have had sufficient type training.
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I suspect they have as much general and type specific training as many private, recreational pilots; in other words an adequate amount to fly the plane safely under most circumstances. And on the face of it, difficult to understand how one could pitch this plane up "too much" when it has an AOA front and center in the sightline. But maybe @PaulS and @mondtster are correct...what people (including pilots) do instinctively isn't necessarily the correct or best action (including the ones they've been trained to take) in a given circumstance. Isn't that why commercial and military pilots do recurrent training on a frequent basis. To reinforce and institutionalize what they have already been trained to know and do. To increase the probabilities they will execute the correct actions in every conceivable situation.

Decades ago I used to work in sour (H2S) gas processing. H2S is deadly. The industry went through a bad stretch of fatalities in the early 1980s, and there were several consecutive instances where a safety man responded to a worker knocked down by charging into the hazard zone to rescue their buddy without first putting on their own SCBA mask. Double fatalities. These were "trained" people, not rookies (think of them as having passed their PPL). It took a dramatically increased recurrent training frequency across the industry to stop that behavior - and there hasn't been a fatality in decades.

My kid brother is an ex-military fighter pilot who now flies 787s. He's in the sim every 6 months. I know I'd be a better and safer pilot in an emergency or unusual situation if I did recurrent training every 6 months.
 
I could see this being ruled to be more along the lines of pilot stress and poor judgement exacerbated by circumstances. If the guy was really trying to sell the plane there might be financial stress and a desire to “sell” the aircraft on its capabilities. That can put you in a spot to make poor judgment calls. The plane was obviously capable of getting airborne in those circumstances but he didn’t use all available “runway” and it sure doesn’t look like the best kind of day to fly on the lake being choppy like that. Of course, there’s also the possibility that the prospective buyer was actually flying the plane and the owner didn’t take effective action.
 
SToL said:
If you turn into the wind (Headwind) you will have an increase in airspeed, placing you above MCA.
If you turn away from the wind (downwind) you will have a decrease in airspeed, placing you below MCA.
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The above quote is where your argument goes off the rails.

Remember, wind direction is defined relative to the ground. The only effect it has on an airborne airplane is to change the ground speed. Air speed is not affected at all.
 
Palmpilot said:
The above quote is where your argument goes off the rails.

Remember, wind direction is defined relative to the ground. The only effect it has on an airborne airplane is to change the ground speed. Air speed is not affected at all.
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Unless it shears.....
 
FastEddieB said:
The actual answer is absolutely not.
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I disagree but open to learning something new.

Lift and airspeed both will increase with a headwind and both will decrease with a tailwind.

This is one of the simplest methods used to determine wind direction. Turns that reduce airspeed or require increased power, are downwind turns, where as, turns that increase airspeed or allow reduced power, are into the wind.
 
benyflyguy said:
Hard to say but look like if they would have just stayed the course into the wind they could have climbed out of it. The takeoff “rollout” just seemed to be an afterthought.
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Agreed. From the comfort of my recliner it looked like he had it made until he turned to stay over the lake.

Not by a wide margin but it seemed to be climbing well enough to unclench the seat cushion.

Is it still a good landing if you swim away from it?
 
Palmpilot said:
I didn't think that was the situation we were discussing.
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Its what I was dix-cussing though..... That was my though on it. He turned downwind in gust conditions with barely enough airspeed to fly. Looses 5 knots of air on the nose and the wing drops.
 
SToL said:
Lift and airspeed both will increase with a headwind and both will decrease with a tailwind.
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Wind direction is defined relative to the ground. The only effect it has on an airborne airplane is to change the ground speed. Air speed is not affected at all.
 
Unit74 said:
Its what I was dix-cussing though..... That was my though on it. He turned downwind in gust conditions with barely enough airspeed to fly. Looses 5 knots of air on the nose and the wing drops.
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OK, but that's due to the gust, not the direction that the air is moving relative to the ground.
 
Palmpilot said:
Wind direction is defined relative to the ground. The only effect it has on an airborne airplane is to change the ground speed. Air speed is not affected at all.
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This is a completely incorrect statement.

So you've only ever flown in air where your airspeed has always remained constant? You've never seen your airspeed fluctuate with gusts or turbulence??
 
SToL said:
This is a completely incorrect statement.

So you've only ever flown in air where your airspeed has always remained constant? You've never seen your airspeed fluctuate with gusts or turbulence??
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It's wake your donkey up on short final!! Dats for durn shure.....
 
Unit74 said:
Its what I was dix-cussing though..... That was my though on it. He turned downwind in gust conditions with barely enough airspeed to fly. Looses 5 knots of air on the nose and the wing drops.
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Turning downwind is not really relevant. The effect of a wind speed variability can affect an aircraft on any heading relative to the absolute wind direction. That is, a decreasing headwind will have the same effect as an increasing tailwind during a gust. To encounter systematically changing wind speeds usually requires changing altitude, e.g. flying into the prevailing wind, one typically encounters an increasing wind speed with altitude. Airplanes fly in the relative wind, not the absolute wind over the ground. This whole "downwind turn" thing is like a vampire that cannot be killed with a thousand wooden stakes through the heart. A level "downwind" turn would not normally be expected to be accompanied by any change in the relative wind. In a climbing downwind turn, it MAY be possible to encounter an increasing tailwind (shear) with gain in altitude, but this would typically be relatively insignificant to safety of flight.

Sailors understand the idea of relative wind, but pilots seem to struggle with this concept for some reason.
 
Palmpilot said:
The above quote is where your argument goes off the rails.

Remember, wind direction is defined relative to the ground. The only effect it has on an airborne airplane is to change the ground speed. Air speed is not affected at all.
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I think there can be changes in airspeeds. Yeah, the airspeed isn't going to be different when flying with a headwind vs flying with a tailwind. But when you make the turn from one to the other there can be changes until your established. There is some inertia to be overcome. It would be momentary and would have to be a very tight turn to be significant. But if you're on the edge of a stall it might make the difference. The extreme example is you're flying into a headwind and the wind makes an immediate shift to a tailwind. You're airspeed is going to change until the plane overcomes it's inertia and gets stabilized.
 
SToL said:
This is a completely incorrect statement.

So you've only ever flown in air where your airspeed has always remained constant? You've never seen your airspeed fluctuate with gusts or turbulence??
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Gusts or turbulence are a different subject. When you're talking about wind direction, you're talking about the direction that the air mass is moving relative to the ground. The movement of the airplane is controlled by thrust, drag, lift, and weight, not ground speed.
 
Palmpilot said:
Wind direction is defined relative to the ground. The only effect it has on an airborne airplane is to change the ground speed. Air speed is not affected at all.
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I thought every pilot knew this.

Flying in no wind, your airspeed and your ground speed will be the same.
Flying into a headwind, your airspeed will be greater than your groundspeed.
Flying with a tailwind, your airspeed will be less than your groundspeed.
 
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