Lancair IV-P lost near Lansing MI

"Peter Gottlieb" wrote in message . net...
"lowflyer" wrote in message
om...
(Badwater Bill) wrote in message
...

You sound like the guy to answer a question I've had for a long time.
You know the old saw about doctors and Bonanzas. I've always wondered
if it was true.

That would be a complex study indeed.

Do you know many doctors? Many of them do indeed make a lot of money, but
they also work long and stressful hours. This tends to result in pilots who
don't fly enough yet can afford expensive fast airplanes. A fast plane gets
"ahead" of you much quicker than a slow one. Now add in complex avionics

I know a lot of doctors and know what they earn, but that's another
thread. You've re-stated the mantra, which on the surface seems
logical, but is it true? In many walks of life we accept things as
truth never knowing the origen of the "truth", only to discover on
analysis that it's false.

I don't think military jets to homebuilts is a fair comparison. How many
military jets do you know that fly at 200 mph at 8 gph? I think
homebuilts operate under a much tighter equipment, budget and powerplant
constraints.


"s3" wrote in
:


"lowflyer" wrote in message
om...
(Badwater Bill) wrote in message
...


Most of the rich guys who buy them are
doctors, not test pilots. And, it's those weekend types that get
killed when the thing departs from it's normal flight
characteristics.

As a test pilot (military trained) I ended up working with a civil
airworthiness authority and have test flown about 50 hombuilt types.
There are a large number of homebuilts out there with appalling
handling characteristics in terms of stability, control, and stall
characteristics. In many cases the homebuilt community considers that
these characteristics are the price you pay for "performance".
In fact, many have characteristics that the military would simple not
accepted in their aircraft unless the performance boost so far
outweighed the flight safety issues that national defence was deemed
more important. The characteristics would certainly not be acceptable
for civil certification.
I have flown, stalled and spun high performance jet aircraft which are
pussy cats compared to some homebuilts.
The not so competent "rich" will kill themselves irrespective, but a
number of competent pilots will die in homebuilts simply because the
handling characteristics of many of these aircraft are well below that
acceptable for even hot shot military pilots.
While many people think of these homebuilts as "high performance"
don't forget that plenty of 18 -19 year old kids with a couple of
hundred hours total have successfully flown aircraft with far higher
performance than the odd Lancair or Glassair etc during military
flight training. Even a test pilot should not have to demonstrate test
pilot skill and ability just to go and have fun in a "high
performance" homebuilt. Irrespective of the above, I have no opinion
on the Lancair accident.

Cheers,
Chris

As the saying goes, homebuilts are very safe aircraft -- they can just
barely kill you.

Good post, Chris -- drop me an email if you would.

Ed Wischmeyer
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Cub is the safest airplane in the world;
it can just barely kill you. - Max Stanley
Northrop test pilot

http://half.freehomepage.com/humor.html


Barnyard BOb -

OK, I found it in my email archives:
============ =========== ==========
DIX HILLS
Safe landing after scare


BY COLLIN NASH
STAFF WRITER


March 2, 2004


Just minutes away from touching down at Rutland airport in Vermont on
Sunday, the four Long Island men aboard the single-engine aircraft
talked
excitedly about skiingdown the sun-bathed slopes of Okemo or Killington.


Suddenly an eerie quiet took the place of the drone from the
six-passenger
Beechcraft Bonanza. The engine was dead.


Gliding more than 7,500 feet above the valleys and foothills of the
Green
Mountains and losing altitude at about 700 feet a minute, the pilot, Dr.


Jeffrey Epstein, a neurosurgeon, drew on training from his high-pressure


profession. "I wasn't panicked," he said yesterday, recalling how he
calmly
radioed Albany airport for the nearest site to land the plane. "I was
more
concerned about making it over the mountains and finding a flat place to
land."


Epstein, of Dix Hills, and his three passengers, Dr. Brad Litwak, an
anesthesiologist also of Dix Hills; Ed Garger, an insurance manager from


Glen Cove, and Bob McBride of Northport, made it safely over the
mountains.
And Epstein, skirting under overhead electrical wires and a 16-foot
overpass, found his flat surface to put the plane down - the northbound
lane of U.S. Route 7 in Sunderland.


The plane, which Epstein said underwent its annual maintenance check
just
more than a week ago, blew out its tires and sustained wing damage. No
one,
including Epstein, 52, a father of three, and his passengers, was
injured,
authorities said.


Garger, 52, had agreed on the spur of the moment to join the three
others
on the ski trip when his friend McBride invited him during dinner
Saturday.
It was his maiden voyage in a single-engine aircraft, Garger said.


The takeoff about 8:15 from Farmingdale "was perfect," he said. Epstein
was
very thorough about staying in radio contact with air traffic
controllers
throughout the flight, he said. "We were all calm" when the engine died,
he
said. "I said to myself, 'This is not the day I'm gonna die.'"


His fate didn't cross his mind, Epstein said.


Vermont State Police said the Federal Aviation Administration is
investigating the incident.


Copyright C 2004, Newsday, Inc.

"Richard Kaplan" wrote

Well as both a doctor and a CFII I will agree with that...
there are good and bad doctor pilots an the same is true
of most other professions.

Hmmmm...and all of this time, I thought that you were a
physician, properly addressed as Doctor Kaplan. :-)
That's OK though, my AME, good friend, and next door
neighbor thinks that he is a "doctor" also. We get together
every two years and swap a Flight Review for a Third Class
Medical Examination. The third member of our group is also
properly addressed as Doctor Caldwell, but he is really just
an Electrical Engineer with a PhD. As for me, I'm not really
a CFII, just a Flight Instructor with an Instrument Airplane
rating on my certificate.

Bob Moore

"Rolf Blom" wrote in message
news
On 2004-06-03 14:21, Richard Kaplan wrote:
"Rolf Blom" wrote in message
...

I wonder if a parachute will do much good if you are stalled/spinning;
I'm thinking it would only twist itself up, and never deploy fully.


Spin chutes are a routine part of flight testing of airplanes in case
the
airplane is found to have unrecoverable spin characteristics.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com



I stand corrected.

I was thinking of those large parachutes that can carry the whole plane.


Actually, the Cirrus parachute was desiged specifically for deployment
during a spin.

In the Cirrus POH, it states that the only approved way to recover a Cirrus
from a spin is to deploy the parachute.

Rolf: I once opened my parachute in free fall while I was spinning so fast
the ground was a blur. The chute opened with the lines twisted together all
the way to the lower lateral band of the canopy. I almost got sick
unwinding, then overshooting, then unwinding again but the chute did open as
much as it could with the lines wound up and it did unwind coming down.
Stu Fields
"Rolf Blom" wrote in message
...
On 2004-06-03 00:59, Darkwing Duck (The Duck, The Myth, The Legend) wrote:

-snip-


Lancairs are cool planes, it's too bad this happened. I'm sure your
right on
the insurance deal. Not that it matters but I'm surprised Lancair didn't
certify the new 350 and 400 with the parachute like Cirrus just for
insurance purposes.


-snip-

I wonder if a parachute will do much good if you are stalled/spinning;
I'm thinking it would only twist itself up, and never deploy fully.


/Rolf

"Bill Denton" wrote in message
...

Take a Bonanza. Put a pilot in it, a pilot who one hour previously was
sewing somebody's heart closed...

First of all, few doctors do work that is as dramatic as you say... probably
similar to the percentage of pilots who regularly do inverted flat spins.

Second of all, self-confidence is a TERRIFIC pilot attribute. The problem
only comes in when that self-confidence is not equally tempered with an
understanding of one's limitations. As for doctors, the concept of risk vs.
benefit is very well understood. The sports analogy does not hold.


--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

Not to worry, the stall in the new 400 is supposed to be trainer like.

Can't wait to fly one of those babies. Better than a parachute is a good
stall behavior if you ask me. Besides that parachute is costing Cirrus more
in insurance if you ask me.





"Darkwing Duck (The Duck, The Myth, The Legend)"
wrote in message ...

"Badwater Bill" wrote in message
.. .

Nah, there would have been a mayday call or something if they had just
ran
out of gas.

The one article has a witness statement that I think could be telling:
"The plane appeared to be flying normally, flat, and then went up like
it
was trying to go higher, went into a spiral and crashed into the
ground."

Sounds to me like the pilot or passenger could have accidentally hit
the
control stick, pitched the plane up suddenly and set her into a spin.
(assuming the witness is reliable).


Yeah. Looks like a stall-spin scenario alright. I wonder why they
got it into a stall in the first place?

This is really sad because the ****ing insurance companies are going
to stop insuring the Lancairs because of the high accident rates.
I'll bet you most of them throw in the towel soon. Insurance runs
$12,000 a year now on the Legacy.

The Lancair's have that high aspect ratio wing with high wing
loading. The Legacy is up at about 23 pounds/sq ft, and when it
stalls, it bites hard. Most of the rich guys who buy them are
doctors, not test pilots. And, it's those weekend types that get
killed when the thing departs from it's normal flight characteristics.
I was talking to a Legacy owner yesterday and he told me he never
stalled his, NEVER. He just didn't want to pursue the flight
characteristics in a stall. So, he just flies it fast all the time.
I guess that's one way of doing it. But, I'd rather be proficient at
recovery from a stall than never try it. That's just the way I feel
about it. I'd stall and spin the **** out of it if I had one. With
the new EFIS panels, you're not going to tumble a $3000 gyro anymore.
I'd spin it until I got proficient at the recovery or proficient at
avoiding a spin if it stalled. If you don't do that, your envelope is
pretty narrow.

BWB




Lancairs are cool planes, it's too bad this happened. I'm sure your right
on
the insurance deal. Not that it matters but I'm surprised Lancair didn't
certify the new 350 and 400 with the parachute like Cirrus just for
insurance purposes.

As far as the fuel exhaustion deal, the articles did mention that
witnesses
said the engine wasn't running at times and lack of fire in the photos so
it
seems.

I did that too, from 1200 feet. My lines were so twisted, I could not raise
my head to check my canopy. I kicked and pedaled like the Tour de France!

Then I learned to tuck better when departing the plane


"Kathryn & Stuart Fields" wrote in message
...
Rolf: I once opened my parachute in free fall while I was spinning so
fast
the ground was a blur. The chute opened with the lines twisted together
all
the way to the lower lateral band of the canopy. I almost got sick
unwinding, then overshooting, then unwinding again but the chute did open
as
much as it could with the lines wound up and it did unwind coming down.
Stu Fields
"Rolf Blom" wrote in message
...
On 2004-06-03 00:59, Darkwing Duck (The Duck, The Myth, The Legend)
wrote:

-snip-


Lancairs are cool planes, it's too bad this happened. I'm sure your
right on
the insurance deal. Not that it matters but I'm surprised Lancair
didn't
certify the new 350 and 400 with the parachute like Cirrus just for
insurance purposes.


-snip-

I wonder if a parachute will do much good if you are stalled/spinning;
I'm thinking it would only twist itself up, and never deploy fully.


/Rolf