Columbia crash...opinions

Check this clip out. What does everyone think happened here?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZWC2XJYgcJU

It looks like a 182, so it had *some* muscle.

I think it must have been hot, maybe a high elevation, loaded with fuel,
people and equipment. But one passenger was a small boy so he couldn't have
been very heavy.

It also looks like a soft-field technique that was poorly executed and he
lost directional control and didn't lower the nose to build airspeed first.

Very sad,

Kobra

I don't know. It is difficult to determine, but it look as if the plane was
overweighted. If the nose drop slowly to build up the airspeed, the plane
shouldn't lose much altitude. Bottom line, I agreed that the takeoff was
poorly executed. If you pay attention to people's clothing, no winds at all,
or very little.

Toks Desalu
PP-ASEL
Dyin' to Soar


...
Check this clip out. What does everyone think happened here?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZWC2XJYgcJU

It looks like a 182, so it had *some* muscle.

I think it must have been hot, maybe a high elevation, loaded with fuel,
people and equipment. But one passenger was a small boy so he couldn't
have been very heavy.

It also looks like a soft-field technique that was poorly executed and he
lost directional control and didn't lower the nose to build airspeed
first.

Very sad,

Kobra

It's a 1977 182Q, s/n 18265867.
Gerd

during take-off, he added a bunch of flaps and it looks, to me, like he
never could get out of ground effect and wouldn't (couldn't - trees?)
lower the nose for speed.

dan

It would be interesting to get an estimate of the weight and temps etc.
I fly a Mooney through the high desert SW in the summer. The Mooney
requires a good amount of air over the wing before it really flys and
you really do need to have the stones to lower the nose and pick up
speed before you climb. Its not pitch attitude that makes you climb its
Vy.

-Robert

If you look at flap closely, you can determine that, he did follow standard
short field takeoff technique. Not like 40 degree flaps down. Also, based on
height distance between people and aircraft, I think he got out of ground
effect.

"houstondan" wrote in message
oups.com...
during take-off, he added a bunch of flaps and it looks, to me, like he
never could get out of ground effect and wouldn't (couldn't - trees?)
lower the nose for speed.

dan

Looks like he pitched up for his soft-field takeoff, and lost
directional control (through too much right rudder?) perhaps because he
lost his sight picture over the raised nose. He then ended up heading
towards the guys you see diving out of the way, so he had a choice
between staying low and taking their heads off with the prop, or
climbing over them and getting out of ground effect, after which he was
pretty much doomed.

Looking at it again, I guess he had the option of pulling the power and
veering left before he got the crowd, even if it meant hitting trees on
the other side or ground looping the plane. But once he was comitted to
flying over them or hitting them, it was never going to end well. I
guess he might have enough room to stay in ground effect while stay
above the crowd, but it would have taken some balls to try it with all
those people down there.

Kobra wrote:
Check this clip out. What does everyone think happened here?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZWC2XJYgcJU

It looks like a 182, so it had *some* muscle.

I think it must have been hot, maybe a high elevation, loaded with fuel,
people and equipment. But one passenger was a small boy so he couldn't have
been very heavy.

It also looks like a soft-field technique that was poorly executed and he
lost directional control and didn't lower the nose to build airspeed first.

Very sad,

Kobra

What kind of player does this video use? It doesn't play in my IE and
there is no link on the page to download the player.

From the video its hard to tell if the prop was turning properly as
well. It may be the scan rate of the camera but the prop looked like it
was turning slow to me.

-Robert