This Velocity was purchased just over one week ago and was being flown
by a co-worker and personal friend of mine. He did not build the
airplane. The pilot was picked up by a farmer, (also an acquaintance)
who saw the airplane was in trouble and went to investigate. My
friend was medi-flighted to OKC. He suffered broken ribs and severe
facial injuries, and will lose his left eye. He lost a lot of blood
and was extremely lucky to have survived. It is a miracle that there
was no fire, as he and the immediate vicinity were soaked in fuel. He
smelled the fuel, crawled out of the airplane and lost consciousness.
Then he regained consciousness and stripped his coat and shirt and was
stumbling around a wheat field in frigid weather trying to use his
cell phone to summon help when the farmer drove up. He faces another
surgery Monday and possibly many more reconstructive surgeries
afterwards.
The pilot was practicing slow flight to familiarize himself and get a
better feel for the airplane. It pitched up instead of down and
entered an unrecoverable stall. He tried varying throttle position
and tried rolling out with aileron but the airplane came down flat
with little forward momentum from about 4500 feet agl. It did not
spin. According to my friend the main wing stalled. The canard must
have kept flying? I believe one of the original prototypes may have
been lost in the same way, with the test pilot surviving? I believe
that this may have been an early kit without aerodynamic improvements.

I would appreciate any information those of you in this group could
provide on the early Velocities and their development history. This
airplane did not have vortex generators installed on the canard.
Would that have helped or made the situation worse?

After the initial investigation and with approval, we loaded the
wreckage onto a trailer behind my pickup and hauled it to WWR today.
It was a very sobering experience that hasn't ended yet.

Please, please, be careful out there.


"Jerry Springer" wrote in message
k.net...

Richard what happened that the Velocity did not recover from a
stall?
I belive this is one you built?

Jerry


IDENTIFICATION
Regis#: 57V Make/Model: VEL Description: EXP
VELOCITY
Date: 11/06/2003 Time: 2345

Event Type: Accident Highest Injury: Serious Mid Air: N
Missing: N
Damage: Substantial

LOCATION
City: FARGO State: OK Country: US

DESCRIPTION
AIRCRAFT CRASHED WHILE PRACTICING STALLS AND WAS UNABLE TO
RECOVER, OTHER
CIRCUMSTANCES ARE UNKNOWN, FARGO, OK