I’m sure he’ll enjoy the 709 ride
Agree
Lots of premature condemnation by folks it seems to me. While those observations MAY be correct…. there are possibilities which may exist… such as Flight Control problems, shifting cargo, (I once had a passenger use the yoke to pull herself forward in-flight…lucky I got her to release it before things went too badly)…… my point being… let’s give the guy a needed break before we condemn his piloting skills, at LEAST until we hear from the investigation, heh?
Ummmm… No
I’m fairly certain that if there were flight control problems or passenger interference the pilot would have immediately blamed that instead of tacitly admitting fault, which is what you do by saying you were trying to correct for weather that by all rights you should have taken into account before departure. It’s pretty clear there’s too much AOA from the video even if airspeed is tough to judge in video. Even when the winds are nice and steady it costs you nothing to give yourself a little extra margin in case of a gust instead of maneuvering and attempting to climb aggressively.
I take accidents like this very serious. The pilot here made several mistakes, some mistakes we have all made at some point but maybe never at the same time, at least not for me. I’ve read all the material I can find on this accident and have even spoken with the pilot. I find several inconclusive statements in his report and I hope people who have flown out of here can help me clear them up.
The first one, the Pilot (Smith) claimed they were departing to the southeast but from the video it would seem more like the pilot was departing more to the south via the south landing lane. One report I saw said the pilot unanticipatedly left the water after a 3 second roll and the aircraft weathervaned into the wind and continued to turn into the wind. I find this very difficult to believe because the observer in the video was to the south east of the takeoff and the plane turned towards them then continued turning. The winds that day have mixed reports of being out of 180 and 200. This would mean the plane turned downwind rather than weathervane into the wind since their takeoff was heading 180 or less and they did a left turnout. This is also evident in the video by the water and the grass blowing from left to right. This indicated to me that the pilot upon liftoff and at a low airspeed had a headwind with a slight x wind component on takeoff and then immediately turned downwind losing his airspeed and attempting to keep the plane flying by pulling back on the yoke rather than riding out the subsequent loss of altitude to regain airspeed.
Another issue I had is Smith, in two reports, said the winds were in the 20s and it was a gusty crosswind on takeoff. The reported wind is fairly consistent between reports at 10G16, the direction is debated between the aforementioned 180 and 200. If the winds were out of 200 that would give the greatest crosswind component so I’ll use that for the examples I am about to set forth. If the winds were 200 and he was taking off to the south as I believe the video shows, his crosswind would darn near be negligible, especially for a 1700 for pilot. If he was taking off on a southeast heading of lets say 140, this means his crosswind would only be 9G14 which would require a bit more skill to perform a safe takeoff but to a 1700 hour pilot, it wouldn’t be an issue. I am not sure of the procedures at Lake Hood but it seems there is plenty of takeoff lane to orient an aircraft into the wind perfectly and if anyone has any input on that I’d love to hear it because I am not sure why you would need to take, as Smith put it, a gusty 20know crosswind.
I have been told the Beaver can be an interesting plane to fly so It would be nice to hear more about it as well.
The final problem I had is the left turn out and aggressive pitch. As mentioned, on one of the reports, Smith claimed the aircraft uncontrollably weathervaned into th wind but the video and the runways and meters show a different story. A downwind turn is never one someone desires, especially when heavy and slow. The loss of lift not only from the loss in airspeed but the turn itself makes it a maneuver I try and avoid if I can. I have however done and have scared myself doing so. When turning downwind in slow flight, you will lose airspeed or altitude, there’s no way around it except, in the name of james Pumphrey, “Mo Powr Baby”. The risks can however be mitigated by doing a long slow turn on course and pitching the nose down if you start getting too slow. My personal belief is that Smith, felt the slow airspeed and then noticed the aircraft settling and losing some altitude as he turned downwind, he panicked and attempted to avoid the loss in altitude by pulling back on the controls and slowing the aircraft even further to the point of the stall spin. As an instructor, I see this often. If a pilot has never encountered such a feeling, when the aircraft starts losing altitude, their first reaction is to pull back on the yoke. It is very hard to get students to do the right thing to either hold the nose where it is or even lower it slightly to maintain or gain airspeed as they feel they may strike the surface again. I recommend doing this technique over trying to salvage your masculinity and forcing the aircraft to maintain altitude. I would rather hit the ground in a semi-controlled manner than stall spin the aircraft and pile drive it into the water or ground as we see here.
My concern is that this pilot is now, just 7 months after this accident, the Captain at another seaplane company.