Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Sep 1, 8:41 am, Matt Whiting wrote:
Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Aug 31, 6:57 pm, Matt Whiting wrote:
Jay Honeck wrote:
http://fox40.trb.com/
In an amazing coincidence, a Sacramento TV station was at Cameron Park
airport filming background for a story about the crash of a plane that
had departed earlier in the day and caught a second crash on video. Go
to the web site and click on "Cameron Park Plane Crash" on the right
side.
It sure looks like the pilot was taking off from a high-density
altitude airport with no flaps, downwind.
Wow, that was ugly. It looked like he was accelerating pretty good when
he went past the camera, but just couldn't quite establish a climb. I
did hear the one witness mention it being a downwind takeoff. Another
witness mentioned an engine sputter, so it also sounds like it wasn't
leaned at all for the altitude. Very unfortunate.
Matt
Even if it was 90 degrees outside, we're only at 1200 feet so the
density couldn't have been monsterous.
Well, at 90 degrees with an altimeter setting of 30.00 inches (I don't
know what it was, this is just a guess) and a dewpoint of say 60 degrees
(again just a guess), the density altitude is 3600 ft. This gives a
substantial performance loss compared to sea level STP conditions. If
he was at gross and really was taking off downwind, this could well have
been enough to remove his margin.

I"m not sure where you fly out of but for most of us 3600' density
altitude with 4000' of runway it not considered close. I take off out
of there with 4 on board, a week's worth of luggage and enough fuel to
reach Mexico or Canada (usually downwind because the socks on each end
usually face away from each other). In short, this airport provides
*LOTS AND LOTS* of margin, this is not a short-field or a "high-
density altitude" airport by any stretch! BTW The pilot held a Comm,
CFI, and A&P.

I fly regularly out of airports varying from a low of 950' (ELM) to a
high of 1,900' (N38). N38 was less than 2,000' long when I learned to
fly there, but is now 3,600. I never said that the airport in question
was either short-field or high-density altitude. You need to better
your reading comprehension.

I don't have performance charts for an A36 and I don't know the loading
conditions of the airplane, the condition of the engine, etc., so I have
no way of knowing if there was lots and lots of margin. The video
suggests there wasn't.

Matt