A&P heroics

"W P Dixon" wrote in
:

Of course that is taking it for granted the pilot had the skill to belly
it in without killing everyone on board. Dang leave it to you guys! An
A&P saves a pilots butt and the poor A&P still can't get a break!
When someone knows the outcome could very well be their own
death,...hmmmm does hero come to mind? Ya'll are sure a hard crowd to
please......

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech
and you can bet your sweet bippy , you would have crashed if you were
waiting on me to pull your gear down riding in a truck!


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:K00Ce.157526$_o.60441@attbi_s71...
These guys did an excellent job.

Sorry, but I agree with Kyle. I'm glad it came out okay, but...

...those guys are dumber than a box o' rocks. A plane is nothing but
a tool, and it sure ain't worth risking lives to save -- and they put
several lives at risk with their silly stunt.

Belly the plane in, jack it up, fix it, and everyone walks away.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


Perhaps the problem prevented them from bringing the gear back up?

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism

Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Blog: http://www.skywise711.com/Blog

Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

Mike Rapoport wrote:
The coffin corner is where the Mach limit and the stall speed come together
at extremely high altitudes.


Well, then... a poor choice of words. Is "behind the power curve" better? My
point is you'd be flying close to the ground with no altitude to trade for
airspeed. I can't imagine trying to fly right off the ground like that without
carrying power... and maybe you won't have enough excess to climb out if you get
to wallowing too much. Remember, it took these guys 10 tries to get both gear
down. There was no reason to expect it not to take another few tries to get
them both down.

I think they flew an appropriate airspeed. I'm not sure why they didn't carry
any flap unless they were afraid they'd sink when the flaps were retracted on
the go-around.

I had one other thought on the matter: lucky for them they weren't flying an
older C-210. Those had the huge clamshell gear doors that had to cycle after
the gear came down and locked. Dropping the gear on those resulted in a huge
increase in drag that would push you against the shoulder harness for a few
moments.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

Jay Honeck wrote:
Belly the plane in, jack it up, fix it, and everyone walks away.


Maybe yes, maybe no. I've mentioned before I've crashed twice. The first one
was a C-210 with a main gear that collapsed. It started with a dead stick
landing and me holding off dropping the gear until I cleared the trees at the
approach end of St. Lucie County (FL). As it was I brushed them slightly, then
put the gear down. Those giant damned gear doors opened, the plane fell out of
the sky, the gear came down and the left one didn't lock. I touched down with
the gear doors still hanging out and immediately started an uncontrollable turn
to the left. When we came to a stop, we were facing 180° the other way. No
prop strike, but I dragged the left wing, the left gear door got trashed and the
empennage got canted about 15-20°... some major structural damage.

Nobody got hurt but if I'd hit a drainage ditch along the way it would have
turned out much worse.

It's real easy to second guess these guys. I'm just not sure it's appropriate.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 04:27:22 +0000, Jay Honeck wrote:

...those guys are dumber than a box o' rocks. A plane is nothing but a
tool, and it sure ain't worth risking lives to save -- and they put several
lives at risk with their silly stunt.

Belly the plane in, jack it up, fix it, and everyone walks away.

You've got it completely correct.

A gear-up landing is no big deal. Shoot for the concrete rather than
grass. Land slow. Slide a bit, and climb out. Call the insurance
company - that is what you pay premiums for.

Despite what you see on TV or what breathless reporters suggest, landing
gear-up does not automatically cause the plane to flip over and explode in
a fireball. It is a real shame that we all, as pilots or CFIs, don't seem
to be able to convey this piece of information to our peers or students.

This has been discussed since the dawn of avilation, and for at least the
last 15 years on Usenet (see http://makeashorterlink.com/?B36F2507B ).

The classic example of this was the flight that killed about 6 people,
including the senator from Pennsylvania. Rather that simply landing with
a gear-unsafe indication, the result was a midair. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It's real easy to second guess these guys. I'm just not sure it's
appropriate.

You're probably right. All's well that ends well, and those guys
accomplished a very difficult thing.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

These guys did an excellent job.


Sorry, but I agree with Kyle. I'm glad it came out okay, but...

...those guys are dumber than a box o' rocks. A plane is nothing but a
tool, and it sure ain't worth risking lives to save -- and they put several
lives at risk with their silly stunt.

Belly the plane in, jack it up, fix it, and everyone walks away.

Nah, some things are worth doing just to see if you can do it. Your
statement could easily be said about sky diving, rock climbing or any of
myriad other activities. I'd give something like this a try in a heart
beat. If all of the participants are volunteers, then I add nothing
wrong with giving this a try. Sure, things may go awry, but that is life.

I wouldn't do this with kids in the airplane or anyone who didn't
understand and accept the risks, but if I wasn't risking the life of
anyone other than myself and other volunteers, then I see no issue.


Matt

Maybe you got a point here. As long as those people knew the risks, I don't
see any reason to call them stupid. I wouldn't do that myself. It is not the
first time I heard about that kind of attempt. I have seen it before on
clip.

Look at this way: a fireman walk into a burning house in order to save the
house from burning down. Is it stupid? Let the house burn down?

Toks Desalu
PP-ASEL
Dyin' to Soar!



"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Jay Honeck wrote:

These guys did an excellent job.


Sorry, but I agree with Kyle. I'm glad it came out okay, but...

...those guys are dumber than a box o' rocks. A plane is nothing but a
tool, and it sure ain't worth risking lives to save -- and they put
several lives at risk with their silly stunt.

Belly the plane in, jack it up, fix it, and everyone walks away.

Nah, some things are worth doing just to see if you can do it. Your
statement could easily be said about sky diving, rock climbing or any of
myriad other activities. I'd give something like this a try in a heart
beat. If all of the participants are volunteers, then I add nothing wrong
with giving this a try. Sure, things may go awry, but that is life.

I wouldn't do this with kids in the airplane or anyone who didn't
understand and accept the risks, but if I wasn't risking the life of
anyone other than myself and other volunteers, then I see no issue.


Matt

"Toks Desalu" wrote in message
news:Qo9Ce.1295$ij3.636@trndny06...
Maybe you got a point here. As long as those people knew the risks, I
don't see any reason to call them stupid. I wouldn't do that myself. It is
not the first time I heard about that kind of attempt. I have seen it
before on clip.

Look at this way: a fireman walk into a burning house in order to save the
house from burning down. Is it stupid? Let the house burn down?

Toks Desalu
PP-ASEL
Dyin' to Soar!



"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Jay Honeck wrote:

These guys did an excellent job.


Sorry, but I agree with Kyle. I'm glad it came out okay, but...

...those guys are dumber than a box o' rocks. A plane is nothing but a
tool, and it sure ain't worth risking lives to save -- and they put
several lives at risk with their silly stunt.

Belly the plane in, jack it up, fix it, and everyone walks away.

Nah, some things are worth doing just to see if you can do it. Your
statement could easily be said about sky diving, rock climbing or any of
myriad other activities. I'd give something like this a try in a heart
beat. If all of the participants are volunteers, then I add nothing
wrong with giving this a try. Sure, things may go awry, but that is
life.

I wouldn't do this with kids in the airplane or anyone who didn't
understand and accept the risks, but if I wasn't risking the life of
anyone other than myself and other volunteers, then I see no issue.


Matt

The issue is that the pilot is making a decision that has an immediate and
consequential impact on the probablility of several people getting hurt or
killed. I think it is fine if you skydive, do aerobatics that your airplane
isn't designed for, do nighttime acro inside the clouds in icing conditions,
etc. as long as you are certain that you're not going to take anyone else
with your if your number comes up.

In this case, how many lives were put at serious risk? - maybe a 1 in 10
chance of up to 5 people getting hurt or killed - 2 in the plane and 3 in
the truck. A gear up landing has a very, very high probability of having no
injuries whatsoever, and in this case, a belly landing would have only put
two people at risk.

KB

Kyle Boatright wrote:

You're taking a real chance of a plane vs pickup truck accident, and that's
likely to result in fatalities. Belly the aircraft in with the prop turning
and let the insurance company deal with it.

With that ridiculous Cessna gear half down, a belly landing is a real good way
to kill everybody.

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

Skywise wrote:

The picture clearly shows the flaps up. Is the aircraft more
controllable?

Both of my aircraft were more controllable with flaps up, especially in ground
effect. You also need more power with flaps down; that and the effect of the
flaps would make it a bit turbulent for the guys in the truck.

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.