Cle Elum crash on NTSB

On Nov 3, 11:00 am, Steve Leonard wrote:

Our example. Pressure from the film crew to "just do it".

Not to mention that the pilot undoubtably signed a contract that he
would "do it".

So stepping away at the end of the second day (last day?) of shooting
for the "big shot", breaking the contract, and potentially stepping
away from the paycheck, would really take some cahones.

I am glad I was not in this particular pressure cooker situation.

- John

PS (Uneducated opinion alert) - I think that the glider should have
taken off only to 5-10 feet for a long shot from the departure end,
run to the half way point, then settle back down onto the runway.
Going to 100-200 feet takes the Caddy out of the picture - what good
is that? And I would have had a fellow glider pilot driving the tow
vehicle who knows that an aircraft doesn't have wheel brakes until it
is back on the pavement (something non-pilots don't think about).
Worse thing that might have happened would have been a crunched nose
cone from impacting the bumper of the tow vehicle. My $0.02.