Aeronca 11AC Chief Project FS

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:20:26 -0400, clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada
wrote:

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:10:15 -0700 (PDT), Victor Bravo
wrote:


Have a look at the Zenair 601XL, where an airframe KIT costs you $20K.
Now look at the unfortunate and tragic problems the 601 is having with
the wings folding in flight, and compare it to an airplane with a 60
year safety record, full commercial FAA certification, and tell me
that this is not a reasonable bargain.

Wings folding in flight??
New one on me. The ONE I'm aware of had bolts not properly installed.

Hmmmm. I presume this one is NTSB # LAX06LA105, but the online report says,
"Eleven of the main spar attach bolts were found in their normal position and
remained connected by their respective retaining nuts and washers. Recovery
personnel had disassembled the twelfth bolt during retrieval of the airplane."
Nothing mentioned about improper assembly.

The other one, the wings were torn off when a couple of
drug-compromized idiots put it into a dive or something that GREATLY
exceeded VNE and tried to pull it out, or something like that.
The Aeronca Champ would have suffered the same fate in both cases.

DFW07LA102 combined wing failure with the detection of some prescription meds in
the organs of the sole occupant...doesn't sound like the one you're referring
to. Was it a foreign crash?

In any case, I think the Fly Baby has the Zenair 601 beat. Out of 51 Fly Baby
crashes, 13 involved wing failure.

Ron Wanttaja

Ron Wanttaja wrote:
On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:20:26 -0400, clare at snyder dot ontario dot
canada wrote:

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:10:15 -0700 (PDT), Victor Bravo
wrote:


Have a look at the Zenair 601XL, where an airframe KIT costs you
$20K. Now look at the unfortunate and tragic problems the 601 is
having with the wings folding in flight, and compare it to an
airplane with a 60 year safety record, full commercial FAA
certification, and tell me that this is not a reasonable bargain.

Wings folding in flight??
New one on me. The ONE I'm aware of had bolts not properly installed.

Hmmmm. I presume this one is NTSB # LAX06LA105, but the online report
says, "Eleven of the main spar attach bolts were found in their normal
position and remained connected by their respective retaining nuts and
washers. Recovery personnel had disassembled the twelfth bolt during
retrieval of the airplane." Nothing mentioned about improper assembly.

The other one, the wings were torn off when a couple of
drug-compromized idiots put it into a dive or something that GREATLY
exceeded VNE and tried to pull it out, or something like that.
The Aeronca Champ would have suffered the same fate in both cases.

DFW07LA102 combined wing failure with the detection of some
prescription meds in the organs of the sole occupant...doesn't sound
like the one you're referring to. Was it a foreign crash?

I may be mistaken, but I suspect that clare may be mis-remembering a CH-801
accident as one involving a CH-601. The following "drug-compromised
idiots" accident may be the mistaken one:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...12X00321&key=1

I found it notable for the simple fact that it is the only CH-801 fatal
accident I could find in the NTSB database.

"Jim Logajan" wrote in message
.. .

I found it notable for the simple fact that it is the only CH-801 fatal
accident I could find in the NTSB database.

Yes, but I recall that it is difficult to rely on the NTSB database for
homebuilt model statistics because model designations for like aircraft are not
reliably the same. For example: somebody's CH-801 could be a "Smith 801 Rocket"
or whatever.

Vaughn

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:19:42 GMT, "Vaughn Simon"
wrote:


"Jim Logajan" wrote in message
.. .

I found it notable for the simple fact that it is the only CH-801 fatal
accident I could find in the NTSB database.

Yes, but I recall that it is difficult to rely on the NTSB database for
homebuilt model statistics because model designations for like aircraft are not
reliably the same. For example: somebody's CH-801 could be a "Smith 801 Rocket"
or whatever.

I looked in my 1998-2006 database and found five CH-801 accidents, of which this
one was the only fatal. The five planes were registered as:

Zenith 801
CH-801
STOL CH 801
Zenith CH801
CH801

"*801*" as a search team would have picked these up. I ran "*801*" against the
total FAA registration database (Jan 4 2008 edition) and got 53 hits. Only
three planes didn't have either "CH", "Zenair", or "Zenith" as part of their
model name, and just one was obviously not a Zenith 801 (certification date in
mid-80s).

Ron Wanttaja