V-Twin Down Janesville

Just after taking off, reportedly. Sounds about 1 mile from the airport.
 
They fuel up there?
 
I mile from the airport, talking to the tower, I doubt they would have to fight any adverse wx(cold) very long.

If they fueled, likely used routinely, tested, & the rest. We can assume the correct fuel was added, if any. Looks like Rwy 32 for departure, lighter NNW wind. There are some open areas around the airport, one still would have to pick & choose.
 
Closed. Pending MC Review.

Edit: The thread is being reopened, but we would like to remind everyone that personal attacks violate the Rules of Conduct, as they do not encourage healthy discussion. Those who engage in this type of behavior will be warned.
 
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We're watching this closely, since we have the VTwin we've been building for a little over 2 years
in Phase One flight testing now. I remember seeing the blue and white N13VT over at the factory.
Most (all?) of the flying Twins were built at the builders center. We built ours at our hangar but
we're only 100 miles from there so we would just drive over and look at some if we had a
question. When I first heard about it I thought maybe it was misfueled and lost both engines because
I didn't see how losing an engine would end the way it did. Being intimately familiar with every
nut and bolt and piece in the plane, though, I can see some other issues that if mishandled could
lead to a bad ending. Lots of questions ... I'm sure the NTSB and factory come up with some probabilities.
 
I'll be keen to know the details of this as well. The V-Twin is my Tantalum-can-maybe-realistically-build-and-own-one-someday plane

The miss-fueling thing crossed my mind as well..
 
Got an email yesterday about a memorial gathering for the deceased from the local flight school, one of them was the head flight instructor at Appleton..
 
steingar said:
How many of those things are flying? Can't be that many.
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This was serial number 20. I personally know of about 6 that are flying. So I'll make a wag at maybe 10.

Edit: Just did a count. There are currently 6 V-Twins flying.
 
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Anyone have an idea whether something like this, regarding insurance:

- will affect other V-twins?

- will affect other Velocities?

or is E-AB its own strange game since every model is by a different manufacturer? I'd hate for the V-twin insurance market to get smothered in the cradle due to this incident. Like @Tantalum, this is on my "if I was gonna do E-AB..." short list :D
 
schmookeeg said:
Anyone have an idea whether something like this, regarding insurance:

- will affect other V-twins?

- will affect other Velocities?

or is E-AB its own strange game since every model is by a different manufacturer? I'd hate for the V-twin insurance market to get smothered in the cradle due to this incident. Like @Tantalum, this is on my "if I was gonna do E-AB..." short list :D
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I think that will depend upon what the cause of the accident is found to be.

I too am watching this one closely. One onboard was a friend.

I do know that the airplane had landing gear issues a few days before and some amount of circling the airport was done before they got the gear down. Related or not, no idea. Clearly the mains are down in the photos of the accident site.
 
velocity insurance was koo koo for cocoa puffs as it is. Can't imagine these hen's teeth would particularly be more affordable to insure. But hey, 100% chance of missing the shots you don't take. Worst they can say is no.

Personally I'm happy to go FG on the EAB side, since speed is easier to attain on less wetted area, making the RG headaches obsolete. That said, again based on velocity's insurance landscape, I just don't think the retract thing is the inflection point here, as much as the runway hog and canard layout is. Who knows these days, given we're still paying for Kobe's crash and the Boeing Maxes.
 
Turns out it was a prominent Wisconsin flight instructor and Staff Sgt. in the WI Air National Guard. I didn't know her personally, but several in the community hold her as a very highly regarded pilot. :frown:
 
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Don .. I was thinking 9 or 10 flying. There were 6 when we started ours with Ron’s being the last. It seems like 3 at the factory flew after that. And ours.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
I think that will depend upon what the cause of the accident is found to be.

I too am watching this one closely. One onboard was a friend.

I do know that the airplane had landing gear issues a few days before and some amount of circling the airport was done before they got the gear down. Related or not, no idea. Clearly the mains are down in the photos of the accident site.
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They landed at Janesville and took off not long after. I’m wondering if it was a fuel issue.
 
RogerT said:
Don .. I was thinking 9 or 10 flying. There were 6 when we started ours with Ron’s being the last. It seems like 3 at the factory flew after that. And ours.
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That's what was listed on the Velocity Owners site. Did a little more poking around and found 12 with airworthiness certs but one of them shows no flight history. So it was 11 flying and now it's 10.
 
RyanB said:
Wow... that’s sad :(
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She was a class act with a bright future, her fiancé too. It's a punch in the gut. Another immediate family member died 5 days earlier. I feel for the family....

Other pilot was a 25 year old FO flying CRJ200s for Air Wisconsin. I believe he had recently been accepted into Iowa's ANG to fly the A-10 as well.

Just a senseless loss.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
She was a class act with a bright future, her fiancé too. It's a punch in the gut. Another immediate family member died 5 days earlier. I feel for the family....

Other pilot was a 25 year old FO flying CRJ200s for Air Wisconsin. I believe he had recently been accepted into Iowa's ANG to fly the A-10 as well.

Just a senseless loss.
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Sad to hear that. I’m anxious to see what happened.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
She was a class act with a bright future, her fiancé too. It's a punch in the gut. Another immediate family member died 5 days earlier. I feel for the family....

Other pilot was a 25 year old FO flying CRJ200s for Air Wisconsin. I believe he had recently been accepted into Iowa's ANG to fly the A-10 as well.

Just a senseless loss.
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It seems a terrible tragedy, with one family already in mourning before this loss.

And it also reminds us, yet again, that light airplane GA is not without risk, even for people that fly a lot because its their vocation.
Because a twin piston airplane was involved I too am interested to understand exactly what happened.

Prayers for both the families.
 
V-twin builders - any idea what average best glide and landing speeds are on that airframe? It looks like the lowest groundspeed recorded on FR24 was 91 knots.
 
Each airplane is different. The V-twin has the same wings and canard as the XL. On my plane best glide was as slow as I could get before the canard stalled (mid 60's). So I called it at 70. But the difference in glide ratio between 70 and 90 was minor so I used 90kts to get a little cushion.

But like I said, each plane is different. I know one V-twin with a canard stall speed over 80. Builder isn't sure why though. No idea what they determined best glide speed on that plane is.
 
donjohnston said:
Each airplane is different. The V-twin has the same wings and canard as the XL. On my plane best glide was as slow as I could get before the canard stalled (mid 60's). So I called it at 70. But the difference in glide ratio between 70 and 90 was minor so I used 90kts to get a little cushion.

But like I said, each plane is different. I know one V-twin with a canard stall speed over 80. Builder isn't sure why though. No idea what they determined best glide speed on that plane is.
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As part of our testing, we've been watching the pitch/buck (canard stall) as we move the CG back from
the first flight box. Yesterday our test pilot was seeing around 66 kts while still having good roll control.
That was probably around 3000 pounds.
 
http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/02/velocity-v-twin-n13vt-fatal-accident.html

 Lots of pictures & some info. They did add fuel in JVL, reported ‘engine problems’ then plan to return to the airport. Don’t know the fuel system, I’d have to think a ‘mis-fuel’ would be in the low likelihood category, 2 accomplished pilots onboard.

Most ‘engine problems’ end up back to fuel issues of some kind. The one thing I wonder is, what would of been the outcome with no attempt to get back to any runway? Mostly just thinking out loud, didn’t look at ADS altitude & speed hits.
 
The V-twin is equipped with a 5 gallon header tank per a Kitplanes article dated 2013.

Sheer speculation on my part but if there was a misfuel incident, the header tank could have masked the problem long enough for them to fire up, runup, and get airborne.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Turns out it was a prominent Wisconsin flight instructor and Staff Sgt. in the WI Air National Guard. I didn't know her personally, but several in the community hold her as a very highly regarded pilot. :frown:
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That's an understatement. I didn't know her well, but she was a real go-getter who accomplished a lot in her way-too-short (26 year) life. Staff Sergeant at the 115th Fighter Wing with several medals to her name, Pilot and flight instructor (and a damn good one based on the number of times I've seen people recommend her and praise her skills), Founding member of Women in Aviation International chapter in Madison, was working on her A&P, already had a Bachelor's in Business... She had much left to accomplish. :(

RIP.

VineyRemington_20210221.jpgx
 
fiveoboy01 said:
The V-twin is equipped with a 5 gallon header tank per a Kitplanes article dated 2013.

Sheer speculation on my part but if there was a misfuel incident, the header tank could have masked the problem long enough for them to fire up, runup, and get airborne.
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All Velocity's have a sump tank (what some call a header tank). 5 gallons is optimistic though. Probably closer to 4 gallons. But definitely enough to hide a misfueling until you're airborne.
 
donjohnston said:
All Velocity's have a sump tank (what some call a header tank). 5 gallons is optimistic though. Probably closer to 4 gallons. But definitely enough to hide a misfueling until you're airborne.
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Fair enough. You likely know more than I do about it, which is not much:)

I was just referencing the Kitplanes article. I blame them.
 
The sump for the RG is thinner than for fixed gear. I believe those can hold 5 gallons. Either way there’s enough fuel to get you in the air before discovering the problem.
 
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