FalconWings

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thanks Eddie, that should be it. Can't see the slicing.

I dismiss my case with prejudice.

Have Blue

lucky this did not fall in people



http://www.propnuts.net/Videos/B52_bomber_2.wmv

Wayne22

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It was not lucky for the 4 people inside....

CARBUNCLE

what is that coming off of the b-52? parts?

causeitflies

That is the co-pilot ejecting. It was too late. Video from a different angle shows his chute just starting to deploy before disappearing in the flames. There is a sad story behind this.
Oops I see it is somewhat explained in this video.

FalconWings

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That was some last flight!

EASYTIGER

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There is this really interesting monograph on what led up to that crash with the B-52 somewhere on the internet. How the failure to discipline the pilot earlier lead to four deaths. Kind of germaine to what is going on in our turbine world nowadays...it's worth reading. Maybe it's time we actually showed some discipline before someone really gets hurt...

jonkoppisch

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Wow!!! All that I know is that I'm glad I wasn't the guy holding the 2nd video camera [:'(]

Added, referring to the mig crash vid..

EASYTIGER

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The b-52 crash is particularly horrible, the way the thing just crumples up.
You know, all four of those guys who died were officers, their kids played together and stuff. "Sorry my dad killed your dad!"
Many enlisted men refused to fly with that pilot.
The guy was a very hot pilot...but so what? Everything that could be done with a Buff had already been done back in the Fifties, he proved nothing at all with his antics. So sad.
Just for the record, the crash was totally pilot error, he was hotdogging, nothing more.

FalconWings

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Sad enough the USAF only cares about property damage. Must have been sad for the Materiel Command, they lost a $40M Bomber.

EASYTIGER

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You can bet the Air Force WAS concerned to have four fairly high-level officers killed, too...

EASYTIGER

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" This was a result of Lt Col McGeehan's unsuccessful efforts to have Bud Holland "grounded" for what he perceived as numerous and flagrant violations of air discipline while flying with 325th BMS aircrews. Colonel Robert Wolff was the Vice Wing Commander and was added to the flying schedule as a safety observer by Col Brooks, the Wing Commander, on the morning of the mishap. This was to be Col Wolff's "fini flight," an Air Force tradition where an aviator is hosed down following his last flight in an aircraft. Upon landing, Col Wolff was to be met on the flightline by his wife and friends for a champagne toast to a successful flying career. The radar navigator position was filled by Lt Col Ken Huston, the 325th BMS Operations Officer. "

His wife and kids were watching. And they all knew he was flying with a guy he tried to have grounded. And it was his last flight. His wife and kids saw him eject unsuccesfully. That's pretty grim.

Look up "Darker Shades of Blue:
A Case Study of Failed Leadership" on Google.

Look at that situation, and then look at our situation with turbines and such...when we fail to discipline ourselves. There have been too many events as of late, some look at the stats and say "perfect safety record for turbines" but others will look and say "fatal accident long overdue." There is a lot of wink and nudge stuff going on, too.

FalconWings

My Feedback: (57)

Yes, but only because they are an investment.

causeitflies

The one officer, I think it's Lt Col McGeehan, was from Chester, WV. which is pretty close to me. They have been trying to get a decommissioned B52 put on display in the small offramp cloverleaf at the town. It was all set up and ready to be transported when the highway dept. nixed the plans because of the size of the plane which would have just barely fit the area. I believe they are now looking for a new area for the display.

David Gladwin

ET you're absolutely right. it really IS time we got our act together before the big accident which IS heading our way if we continue the way we are going. It IS long overdue that we just stand back and take a long hard look at what we do and how we do it and do a proper, focussed, objective and unbiased risk assesment. I have made numerous suggestions and proposals based on lesssons learned and best practice in the fullsize world, attracted more than a few sneers and jeers for my trouble, generally from people who wouldn't recognize the risk if it hit them in the face.

I have just returned from a couple of days as guest of the RAAF including flyiing in their latest Hercules (J models with glass cockpits) and hearing about the new C17 order, yes the RAAF have BOUGHT four. Whilst with 37 Sqn I noticed in their crew room the new safety policy from the new Chief of Air Force, Air Marshall Geoff Sheppard, he summed it up very succinctly: "We do dangerous things, we must do them as safely as possible " (or words to that effect) . Couldn't help thinking about the attitude and conduct of some, most certainly not all, operators in our hobby.

Of course we COULD just carry on as we are and wait for the inevitable or we COULD start to take safety in our operations as seriously as professional aviators of all types do, and stop paying lip service to it.

Have a go at me personally (not you ET, I know) if you wish, but I believe, passionately, that the time to take action and put our house in order is BEFORE the horse has bolted.


Regards,

David Gladwin.

EASYTIGER

My Feedback: (119)

The total lack of consequences for major violations is pretty disturbing. 18 guys flew without waviers at Florida Jets? Well, gosh, he said he was SORRY! I think that does not cut it.
Too many "55 pound" and "199mph" aircraft, too.
What about the guy who got jets banned from Prado? Any consequences? Nope.

Lots of denial about fires, too.

What scares the most is guys saying "oh, it's just another engine". Dude...if you THINK that, you should not be flying a turbine.
And "but pylon racers go faster!" Don't worry about THEM. They are not our problem.

I truly belive a really bad accident is long overdue, and only afterwards are people going to wise up. Oh, well.

David Gladwin

Lets hope we can "wise up" BEFORE it happens, sure as hell beats waiting for the aftermath.

Just off to town for an evening out but on return I'll give some bullet points for discussion.

............................... and no I have no hidden agenda, I just have too much time, money and passion invested in this hobby to just stand by and watch some guys take serious risks, either through recklessness or incompetence, with our freedom to operate almost without restriction, and risk injuring or even killing a third party.

Regards, David Gladwin.

PS the Sukhoi crash DID happen, it wasn't insane but it was utterly tragic, and not the first time the Russians have done it, remember Fairford and Paris, fortunately without loss of life.

EASYTIGER

My Feedback: (119)

I tend to doubt we WILL wise up. I think it will be more like the B-52 crash, where AFTERWARDS everybody said they saw it coming. I mean, the pilot in question was in charge of Standards for the squadron, how insane is that? And here we have CDs clearly disobeying the rules, and we just give it a pass. Something is wrong here.
The Russian(Ukranian, maybe?) crash shown above, several people went to jail for a long time over this, including the pilot and his superior, if I remember correctly.

I don't have a hidden agenda, either, I am just flabbergasted sometimes at the attitudes by some people.
And it is by no means everybody. I think the vast majority of pilots and events are safe and thoughtful.

EddieWeeks

First of all.... There is no such thing as "Over Due".. Every time a plane takes off there is risk involved.

Just because you flip a coin 10 times and every time it comes up heads, has nothing to do with the next flip.. !!!

To my knowledge, there has not been a major problem with a jet here in the US since the first wavier was issued. (what was the Date ?)

All you can say, out of the 250,000 turbine flights (500 pilots, 50 flights / year, 10 years… just a guess) that none of these flights

Have caused anyone any harm. They have crashed into houses, burned fields, burned lots of planes but no one was hurt)..

The best way to minimize any risk these planes pose, is to fly them further away from people. If a plane goes in a random direction,
%100 out of control, every time you double your distance from the start of the problem, you are 4 times less likely to get hit.

Right now planes do low passes ~50-75 feet away from the pilots.. If you simply make all planes do low high speed passes at
100-150 feet away, you have just made the most dangerous part of that flight FOUR times safer.

Because jet fly so far out, they on average, crash much further out than all other model planes, thus making them that much safer.

Another easily solvable safety issue, is pilot skill…. I have seen, pilots (Some in this thread) who do not have the skill to fly model Jets.
The CDs need to step up and put an end to that..

EddieWeeks

Robert Wagoner

My Feedback: (1)

Hold on - ET phone home. How did you miss this thread, it's already happened wth a scale B-52
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_22...tm.htm#2245157

--RW

EASYTIGER

My Feedback: (119)

I was one of the very few guys who dared to criticize the first model after it crashed...that the nature of his construction(add more balsa and ply) was unsuitable for a THREE HUNDRED POUND model. I remember being told to "take a chill pill, it's a cool model!" The second one came out ONE HUNDRED pounds lighter. What does that tell you about the "engineering", or lack thereof, in those models? The first one was flown fifty times, and crashed due to pilot error, but it seems to me that a crash was likely anyway, probably due to fatigue. Lucky nobody got hurt.
But the guy built and flew within the confines of the LMA, which is under the auspices of the CAA. He did all the right things. But the LMA decided no third B-52, and in the UK, it's different. He cannot fly the model. Period. Becase the LMA is not the same as the AMA. They CAN tell him NO, he cannot fly a certain model. Why they reached this decision? Ask them. I have heard that Gordon Nichols has a long history of crashing LARGE models in front of crowds, so I guess they felt they were doing their job.

AMA has absolutely NO power to tell you to do jack-squat. The can only insure you or not. It's a free country, still. I feel we ought to stop worrying altogether about what people are doing outside the AMA. If you want to go to the desert and do 300mph with a 400 pound B-1, have at it. It's a free country. And we have ZERO enforcement power over someone who wants to. None. So why not concern ourselves with actual AMA type stuff that gets violated all the time? I mean, all this energy devoted to stopping eddie weeks' and butch sickel's event...ZERO energy spent enforcing known violations at major events. Even when the CD ADMITS it. Total hypocrasy.

" First of all.... There is no such thing as "Over Due".. Every time a plane takes off there is risk involved.

Just because you flip a coin 10 times and every time it comes up heads, has nothing to do with the next flip.. !!!

To my knowledge, there has not been a major problem with a jet here in the US since the first wavier was issued. (what was the Date ?)

All you can say, out of the 250,000 turbine flights (500 pilots, 50 flights / year, 10 years… just a guess) that none of these flights

Have caused anyone any harm. They have crashed into houses, burned fields, burned lots of planes but no one was hurt).."

Now you are scaring me. That logic does not work for me. 250,000 turbine flights. That's nothing. There must be 250,000 prop plane flights EVERY weekend. And every once in a while, someone gets killed. Space shuttle flew, what, 86 times, before there was a problem?

Woketman

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24 successful STS missions prior to the Challenger accident, STS-51L (25th flight).

EASYTIGER

My Feedback: (119)

To me, "250,000 flights with no problems, therefore they are perfectly safe" is like "24 shuttle flights, therefore it is dead reliable!"
No bookie and no insurer is going to accept that logic! There is risk even when everything is done right, we need to manage that risk better.
Eddie points out one of the real basics...flying needs to be further away from people. This may be incompatible with the needs of paying spectators.
Another thing is flying towards the pits. I see it ALL THE TIME, scares the daylights out of me.

Eddie P

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I hesitate to post now but I feel compelled to chime in about the safety issue. I've flown full scale models for my food money for many years, and in this capacity I've managed flight operations departments and flight safety programs for outfits large and small. The one thing that defines a long lived organization where life and limb is at risk is standardization and a culture dedicated to safety.

One very small step in this direction could be where the AMA - JPO wing takes a leadership role in safety. I'm absolutely NOT suggesting the AMA - JPO make made up policy or an arbitrary rule. I'm suggesting the AMA overhaul their core group of safety guys to provide them with the benefit of real aviation type safety education. These guys would NOT be a super secret safety police society - rather, they could educate the local branches of the AMA, or assist the JPO, IMAA, whatever. It would be nice if we could develpo a core curriculum that was standardized that everyone at least had exposure to. The more educated each club officer is, the more likely the B.S. flag gets held up when a situation begins to get out of control. Lets be honest, preventable accidents are known well ahead of time before the accident happens. It's a chain of events often occuring weeks or months before the event. We need to get on watch for the event chains, and break at least one link in the chain before the problem results in an injury if it were to be heading that way. I know this sort of exists now, but really, it's lip service and the growing turbine groups could benefit from the added support.

Safety does not "prohibit" fun flying. It educates on how to do it in a repeatable way. Think Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, or your favorite demo team. You think they are extremely dedicated to safety? You better believe it. They play it smart every day they go to work. It's still quite a bit of fun to watch. Safety didn't inhibit anything - it just made it very repeatable and minimized smoking holes.

Real safety is not measured in how long an accident hasn't occured. It's measured in how well we buffer our everyday mistakes (we are human afterall) with the consequences. We want to make normal mistakes and be able to recover from them in an environment that has some "pad" before the consiquences become intolerable.

To those of us who react with the reply - "This is a hobby guys, let's not make this too complicated..." I suggest the following. Flying jet powered models became less of a hobby and more of a passion when you had to buy a fire extinguisher, when you felt the need to get a 10 channel radio, when you paid three large for a "motor", when your knees shook the first time you went airborne with this type of model becasue of all that was involved. Lets be honest, if you wanted easy, you'd be flying a park flyer.

Self police work is always more tolerable than outside forces imposing regulation or taking away freedoms.

EASYTIGER

My Feedback: (119)

That's a great contribution. I think the beginning of a cultural change should be A)not treating AMA as adversarial, but on OUR side...remember...we get insurance for $58 a year, how bad can that be? and B) actually implementing the rules we DO have, and having actual real-world consequences for what we already have.