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Old September 2nd 19, 12:00 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Jonathan St. Cloud
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Default Kawa rough landing?

On Monday, September 2, 2019 at 2:03:39 AM UTC-7, krasw wrote:
On Sunday, September 1, 2019 at 9:43:04 AM UTC+3, Mike the Strike wrote:
On Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 11:10:50 PM UTC+1, Andrzej Kobus wrote:
On Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 3:31:32 PM UTC-4, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Not sure how accurate FB translate is, but it appear as if Mr. Kawa had some sort of incident with an electric motor not working and a rough uphill landing. Gas, electric or jet be careful guys!
Link?


I only found a brief report on his Facebook page - a short description with half-a-dozen photos. My reading is that he got stuck in a long valley and deployed the motor at about 1,000m AGL, the boom deployed but the motor failed to run. He landed on what looked like the best field but found it was rougher than it looked as well as steeply uphill. After touchdown, a hump sent him airborne, but because of the uphill landing was unable to regain flying speed and it fell in from about 2 meters, breaking both wheels.

He says that all major airframe components were undamaged apart from the gear. The tone of his post sounds a bit embarrassed, but this is exactly the sort of accident that can happen to any one of us in a field landing.

Mike


Seen it million times during big competitions, flying into unlandable terrain trusting you find next thermal or engine works. Of course everything is fine 99% of the time. And then bad day happens and you end up with that 1%. It shouldn't and definately doesn't happen to anyone of us, if you follow the very basic principle of all gliding flights: YOU GOT TO HAVE A PLACE TO LAND. This is hammered so hard to the brains of every flight student that it takes hundreds of flight hours to forget.


Mr Kawa is an awesome pilot. If he can make a mistake anyone of us can too. Maybe we should all take a few moment stand down and ask ourselves, have we attempted an engine start not over laudable terrain, have we flown into a corner with only one option that must work or else?