Neil Lawson of whiteplanes, died yesterday

Jj,

given that;

a/ the tragedy happened less than 48 hours ago
b/ you werent there and know none of the facts
c/ you have only heard the vague details from somebody
who wasnt there, who heard from somebody else..

why dont you have a bit of tact, do us all a favour,
and as we say in the UK..

Wind your neck in !

There will be a full accident investigation report
into this tragedy, once thats published, perhaps then
you might consider it to be a more approriate time
to forward your views...

Now lets drop this until the investigation has been
completed and show at least some respect to Neil, and
those left grieving!

Toby

At 01:54 11 August 2005, Jj Sinclair wrote:

Well, Kirk, the first poster said the pilot was finishing.
He also said
the pilot was arrested, why? Because he committed a
homicide. That's
right he was responsible for the death of an innocent
bystander. This
tragic loss of life occured because the junior pilot
was performing the
prescribed finish maneuver. He was flying the finish
gate because
that's what we do, we sanction it, its in our rules.

The local authoraties did their job, they arrested
the guy responsible
and the competition was suspended.

How many more finish gate accidents must we endure
before this
outmoded, unneccessary and proven unsafe finish gate
is abolished and
replaced by the mandatory GPS finish cylinder?

You really don't want to argue that the pilot wasn't
operating his
aircraft below 500 feet (not in the act of landing)
and that he wasn't
within 500 feet of a person, do you?

JJ Sinclair

wrote:
Condolences to all affected by this tragedy.

But, JJ, tell me how a correctly performed contest
finish at 50 ft
(per current SRA rules) and per FARs (no overflying
of people, man-made
objects, reckless, etc) has direct relevance with
this accident?

By your logic, takeoffs should be done away with (ref
groundloop that
hit and injured spectator at Tonopah) at contests,
too.

And how do you know it was a finish - it could have
been a pre-arranged
photo op after the finish, coordinated between the
photographer and the
pilot - that went horribly wrong. Not the first time
that has
happened.

Sorry, you are on the wrong soapbox this time. Take
a deep breath and
go fix a glider or something.

Kirk
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