Wires!

A club I was in back about 10 years ago had a -172. Club CFI and student were doing touch n gos one day and some how got too low turning base to final over a small hill off the approach end of the runway and snagged a power line with a gear leg. Plane flipped and fell killing the student and severely injuring the CFI. I think what probably saved this guy is landing tail first..lucky indeed!

Found a news article:
https://www.wlbt.com/story/22573305/1-dead-1-hurt-in-plane-crash-in-east-mississippi/
 
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Those wires look way above any normal glideslope to the marked threshold.
 
A low pass to clear the deer might have improved his day. Displaced thresholds are for important reasons, good to take a look first, then return to land.

A careful scan of the airport environment on his down wind leg could have made a difference, too. Too many pilots flying the pattern are primarily looking for other planes, and do not do the proper assessment of the airport itself.
 
geezer said:
A low pass to clear the deer might have improved his day. Displaced thresholds are for important reasons, good to take a look first, then return to land.

A careful scan of the airport environment on his down wind leg could have made a difference, too. Too many pilots flying the pattern are primarily looking for other planes, and do not do the proper assessment of the airport itself.
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powerlines are very difficult to see from the air. Yes the towers 1/4 mile apart are pretty easy to spot.
 
Some people are critical of steep approaches. I love them, that's what I learned first, in an aircraft that was a bit prone to carb icing. I still like them, because it gives me more energy and more options. That I don't have to worry at all about wires that aren't really close the to airport? Yet another bonus. Flying along the treetops like I'm trying to avoid SAMs on final never made sense to me.
 
Albany Tom said:
Some people are critical of steep approaches. I love them, that's what I learned first, in an aircraft that was a bit prone to carb icing. I still like them, because it gives me more energy and more options. That I don't have to worry at all about wires that aren't really close the to airport? Yet another bonus. Flying along the treetops like I'm trying to avoid SAMs on final never made sense to me.
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My first CFI was a crusty retired Nam F4 Phantom jock. Taught me the high approach as well. He preached having altitude/airspeed as long as possible in case of engine failure or any number of things on final. It does make for a more challenging landing IMHO. But anything else feels like I’m dragging it in. Like everything in aviation. It’s a trade off. As a Skylanner, seeing that breaks my heart. Very happy the pilot will be okay. Stay safe my brothers and sisters! Stay safe.
 
Airport or power-line planning was not well thought out on this one. And, like someone said, no red balls identifying the danger?
 
I've known four people who have struck wires. All totaled the plane but weren't hurt too badly.

I live on a 30-mile long lake with some decent amount of seaplane activity. The local pilots have been trying for a long time to get one set of lines marked with balls because they cross over the main channel but emerge from the woods on each side below the tree line and aren't as visible as the ones down the lake with the big metal high tension towers. Even after a Bonanza (admittedly a boneheaded stunt by the pilot) hit them and they had to be restrung, Duke wouldn't mark them.
 
I've had friends working for NYS's public service administration. Some power companies are OK, but some are terrible. I love a competitive market, but monopolies are a different animal. If they had the choice of putting balls on, or burying the line, I know which they'd pick. Underground/submarine high voltage lines are possible, but they are not cheap.
 
Or you can do like Duke and do nothing.
 
wanttaja said:
Wire strike a while back at my home field. Yes, landed successfully.
View attachment 117070
Ron Wanttaja
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Looked through the logbooks of an old Cherokee 140. A terse entry sometime in the first year of its life: Replaced tail plane assembly in accordance with Piper repair manual using PN from attached list.
Someone had used the plane to chase starlings out of a safflower field and snagged a powerline from below. Apparently the rudder is somewhat optional on the hershey bar Cherokee and he landed without the vertical stab and rudder.
 
Albany Tom said:
I've had friends working for NYS's public service administration. Some power companies are OK, but some are terrible. I love a competitive market, but monopolies are a different animal. If they had the choice of putting balls on, or burying the line, I know which they'd pick. Underground/submarine high voltage lines are possible, but they are not cheap.
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Are they really possible? Consider the ****storm that a proposal to install underwater high voltage conductors across a lake or river would produce. The protests and lawsuits would go on for years. It's the world we live in.
 
3393RP said:
Are they really possible? Consider the ****storm that a proposal to install underwater high voltage conductors across a lake or river would produce. The protests and lawsuits would go on for years. It's the world we live in.
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Yep! I believe one of the largest connects part of Ireland to England under the Irish Sea, about 100 miles long. I can see protests, but that didn't slow down high pressure gas pipelines running straight through NY state a few years ago. The big reason power companies don't like them is that they're crazy expensive compared to lines in the air, from what I understand.

Most of NYC power in Manhattan is underground, and that might as well be underwater as far as the cable itself goes.
 
Albany Tom said:
I can see protests, but that didn't slow down high pressure gas pipelines running straight through NY state a few years ago.
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Compare a few years ago to the new reality. Opposition to a pipeline in New York on which several hundred million had already been spent caused the firm building it to abandon the project in February 2020.


Williams Cos Inc said on Monday it canceled the proposed Constitution natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New York following years of opposition from politicians and environmental groups in New York.

"Williams ... has halted investment in the proposed Constitution project," the company said in a statement, noting "The underlying risk adjusted return for this greenfield pipeline project has diminished in such a way that further development is no longer supported."

That decision followed Williams' announcement last week that its fourth quarter and full year 2019 earnings were negatively impacted by a $354 million impairment of the Constitution project.

Constitution and other gas pipelines in the U.S. Northeast have been stuck in a battle between energy companies supported by U.S. President Donald Trump, who wants more pipelines and other energy infrastructure built, and environmental groups and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who favor investment in more energy efficiency and renewables projects.

https://pgjonline.com/news/2020/02-february/williams-cancels-ny-constitution-pipeline


Just five days ago, New York passed a law which bans natural gas piping installations and natural gas appliances from being installed in new buildings.


May 3 (Reuters) - New York has become the first U.S. state to pass legislation banning the use of natural gas for heating and cooking in some new buildings, a plan designed to reduce carbon emissions but opposed by industry groups as excessive and costly.

Both the Democratic-led Assembly and Senate late on Tuesday approved the provisions, which are included the state's $229 billion budget. Governor Kathy Hochul and lawmakers agreed to the outlines of the spending package last week.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-state-bans-natural-gas-some-new-construction-2023-05-03/


In just five or ten years, highly populated states will experience routine blackouts due to insufficient baseload electrical power generation capacity and the forced adoption of electric vehicles and all electric homes. The resultant price increases will cripple the poor and elderly.

A similar situation will occur when extreme winters place demands on natural gas and heating oil supplies that can't be met, and greatly increased prices will decimate the economy of those areas.
 
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Stupidity knows no bounds. Pipelines are dramatically safer than trucking or rail. Easy to monitor, easy to shut down a section for repair.

I wonder if restaurants will be given an exemption for their natural gas stoves and ovens? Electric can't replace gas in a commercial setting.


3393RP said:
Compare a few years ago to the new reality. Opposition to a pipeline in New York on which several hundred million had already been spent caused the firm building it to abandon the project in February 2020.


Williams Cos Inc said on Monday it canceled the proposed Constitution natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New York following years of opposition from politicians and environmental groups in New York.

"Williams ... has halted investment in the proposed Constitution project," the company said in a statement, noting "The underlying risk adjusted return for this greenfield pipeline project has diminished in such a way that further development is no longer supported."

That decision followed Williams' announcement last week that its fourth quarter and full year 2019 earnings were negatively impacted by a $354 million impairment of the Constitution project.

Constitution and other gas pipelines in the U.S. Northeast have been stuck in a battle between energy companies supported by U.S. President Donald Trump, who wants more pipelines and other energy infrastructure built, and environmental groups and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who favor investment in more energy efficiency and renewables projects.

https://pgjonline.com/news/2020/02-february/williams-cancels-ny-constitution-pipeline


Just five days ago, New York passed a law which bans natural gas piping installations and natural gas appliances from being installed in new buildings.


May 3 (Reuters) - New York has become the first U.S. state to pass legislation banning the use of natural gas for heating and cooking in some new buildings, a plan designed to reduce carbon emissions but opposed by industry groups as excessive and costly.

Both the Democratic-led Assembly and Senate late on Tuesday approved the provisions, which are included the state's $229 billion budget. Governor Kathy Hochul and lawmakers agreed to the outlines of the spending package last week.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-state-bans-natural-gas-some-new-construction-2023-05-03/


In just five or ten years, highly populated states will experience routine blackouts due to insufficient baseload electrical power generation capacity and the forced adoption of electric vehicles and all electric homes. The resultant price increases will cripple the poor and elderly.

A similar situation will occur when extreme winters place demands on natural gas and heating oil supplies that can't be met, and greatly increased prices will decimate the economy of those areas.
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Geez Didn’t know the 182C came with rear crumple zones. Absorbing all that energy slowly saved these guys
 
3393RP said:
...
Just five days ago, New York passed a law which bans natural gas piping installations and natural gas appliances from being installed in new buildings.
...
A similar situation will occur when extreme winters place demands on natural gas and heating oil supplies that can't be met, and greatly increased prices will decimate the economy of those areas.
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Yeah, maybe a tangent topic, but all electric houses are a horrible idea in the north. It's a fraction of the efficiency of natural gas or oil, and it puts people at risk of dependence on the electrical grid, which absolutely routinely fails in parts of the north in the winter. What we really need is a plan for people who want to be environmentally friendly to move themselves off grid. I don't like government incentives for alternative power, but if we're going to do them, do them at the micro level, not the macro level. Not to tilt at windmills, so to speak, but this isn't about doing what's right for the environment, it's all economic based, to put it nicely.

If NY wanted to fix the CO2 problem, they wouldn't have pushed to shut down Indian Point. Plenty of cooling water in the Hudson for another plant, and they're way less of a blight on the landscape than wind turbines. They produce a pretty good amount of power, too.
 
Albany Tom said:
Yeah, maybe a tangent topic, but all electric houses are a horrible idea in the north. It's a fraction of the efficiency of natural gas or oil, and it puts people at risk of dependence on the electrical grid, which absolutely routinely fails in parts of the north in the winter.
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I am sure this administration is doing all it can to strengthen the power grid.

Biden administration announces plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants - CBS Miami (cbsnews.com)
 
Albany Tom said:
Yeah, maybe a tangent topic, but all electric houses are a horrible idea in the north. It's a fraction of the efficiency of natural gas or oil, and it puts people at risk of dependence on the electrical grid, which absolutely routinely fails in parts of the north in the winter. What we really need is a plan for people who want to be environmentally friendly to move themselves off grid. I don't like government incentives for alternative power, but if we're going to do them, do them at the micro level, not the macro level. Not to tilt at windmills, so to speak, but this isn't about doing what's right for the environment, it's all economic based, to put it nicely.

If NY wanted to fix the CO2 problem, they wouldn't have pushed to shut down Indian Point. Plenty of cooling water in the Hudson for another plant, and they're way less of a blight on the landscape than wind turbines. They produce a pretty good amount of power, too.
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Electrical house are more efficient if they use heat pumps.
 
Even if it's warm enough to run a heat pump, there's a decent amount of loss from energy source to the house via wires, especially if the power generation is gas turbine. Natural gas to the house is consistently efficient and more reliable. As MauleSkinner points out, once you have to revert to I2R heating, efficiency goes out the window and goes screams up. But they're cheap to purchase, so that's what many cheap apartments use, where the tenants that can't really afford it are paying for it.

So yeah, another way they could fix the problem would be to ban resistance heating as a primary heat source in new rental property in any state above about 39 north.
 
benyflyguy said:
Geez Didn’t know the 182C came with rear crumple zones. Absorbing all that energy slowly saved these guys
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Back in helo trainining, we were instructed to deal with an engine failure over a forested areas to pull the nose up and descend into the trees tail first. 40 feet of aft fuselage to act as a crumple zone. I knew a retired USAF pilot who survived two of these in Alaska without a scratch. One was an H-21 "flying Banana" and the other a Sikorsky H-34. A big radial that is now above the pilots head would give me concern. Motor mounts can handle a slow motion crumple.
 
kyleb said:
The local ultralight guys say "cross the lines OVER the towers"... They are easier to see.
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The Army "Nap of the Earth" training program teaches this. I had an OEI experience that required an approach to a landing in a confined area. Approach was over a highway with power lines. No go around considered. PIC (Navy Reserve Captain) and I (Flying pilot) discussed this and I lined up the power pole and the planned touchdown spot and it was a done deal.
 
Maxnr said:
Back in helo trainining, we were instructed to deal with an engine failure over a forested areas to pull the nose up and descend into the trees tail first. 40 feet of aft fuselage to act as a crumple zone. I knew a retired USAF pilot who survived two of these in Alaska without a scratch. One was an H-21 "flying Banana" and the other a Sikorsky H-34. A big radial that is now above the pilots head would give me concern. Motor mounts can handle a slow motion crumple.
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The + Gx axis is good for body absorption of impact Gs as well. Older Naval aircraft were designed to arrange seats facing aft for better survivability in a crash.
 
What about geothermal? I've seen some people install this for their greenhouses..
 
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