Air Commodore Owen Truelove

Today's Daily Telegraph has an obituary about Truelove who died in New
Zealand
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../20/db2001.xml
on 14th November flying his Stemme. He was a very experienced
pilot. Does anyone have any further news about this?
TIA
George Emsden

Try this site:

http://www.topix.net/city/mount-pros...ull=7b6d4453e2

According to some reports they were caught on the down wind side of the
ridge.

kestrel254 wrote:
Today's Daily Telegraph has an obituary about Truelove who died in New
Zealand
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../20/db2001.xml
on 14th November flying his Stemme. He was a very experienced
pilot. Does anyone have any further news about this?
TIA
George Emsden

I see one of the articles mentions the ELT did not activate...

Disturbing how often one hears this. But I still have one myself, as
the do sometimes work

-Tom

This is a sad episode. I had the chance to meet Ex-RAF Commander Owen
Truelove on a visit to Omarama a year ago when I went to do two weeks of
soaring at Gavin Wills' Glide Omarama operation. Owen had flown his Stemme
S10 on an epic journey from UK to New Zealand not long before I met him. I
found him to be personable, friendly and easy to talk to. My condolences go
to his family and friends.

At the time of the accident, Owen was competing in the South Island Soaring
Contest. A renowned local glider pilot, Billy Walker, was quoted in one
newspaper as saying that Owen was approaching a ridge from the downwind side
and either misjudged the clearance or got caught in a downdraft. It was not
clear from the article whether these comments were informed speculation or
were made after an examination of the Stemme's flight data recorder.

For me, Owen's accident has some unsettling parallels with the fatal crash
of Peter Masak a couple of years ago on an Allegheny ridge near Mifflin,
Pennsylvania. In both cases we have a very experienced glider pilot
approaching a ridge from downwind during a contest, evidently trying to get
across to the upwind side, not making it, and getting killed. In Peter's
case the flight seems to have ended with a stall/spin at a low
(unrecoverable) altitude above the terrain, just downwind of the ridge. We
don't yet know about the final moments of Owen's flight, but the turbulence
and downdrafts that tend to occur downwind of mountain ridges are well
known.

We (glider) pilots must pay heed to and learn from what happens to others.

RJR
Ventus 2cM

"5Z" wrote in message
ups.com...
I see one of the articles mentions the ELT did not activate...

Disturbing how often one hears this. But I still have one myself, as
the do sometimes work

-Tom

kestrel254 wrote:
Today's Daily Telegraph has an obituary about Truelove who died in New
Zealand
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../20/db2001.xml
on 14th November flying his Stemme. He was a very experienced
pilot. Does anyone have any further news about this?

The Times report said that the crash happened during a comp and that the
rescue helicopter had to battle strong winds and driving rain. The
Omarama club spokesman described the weather as demanding but not bad
enough to cancel the task.

The crash was described as being on a high scree near Mt. Prospect, 30
km west of Omarama, and reported that the fuselage was intact but that
the wings were in three pieces.


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