ORIGINAL: Jascat100
ORIGINAL: invertmast
The thing that pissed me off the most about that video, was the complete LACK of thought put towards the people in the Biplane that had 2 lives in it. I mean damn, the punk kid and his buddy were more worried about his Toy and how the guy in the biplane was responsible for his loss of $8,000. Who cares if the pilot and passenger would of been killed, just as long as all of his buddies knew who's fault it was by posting the video on youtube.[:@][:@][:@][:@]
I do not think you would be well pleased if having been cleared to fly, you had $8,000 wiped out through no fault of your own.
You also may have wanted to have a word with one of these two people & it would not have been ''I hope you are ok''.
I've lost over $15,000 in a less than 1 month while in this hobby, and don't even want to think about how much i've spent over the years.. Personally, In the 21 years i have been doing this i have learned that "***** happens", and loosing an airplane doesn't bother me at all. yea it sucks, but i don't mope around and whine like a 10 year old not getting his ice-cream because of it. As both an Rc AND Commercial Pilot who routinely operates under 500' AGL (legally) If i was flying an RC model and I just had a mid-air collision with a full-scale airplane with people on board, my first thoughts would be going towards them.
And It was just as much the RC pilots fault as it was the full-scale pilots and the Air-boss'. At most uncontrolled airports (which the one they are operating at surely was) it is not a Requirement to have a 2 way communication radio in the full-scale airplane. And most pitts airplanes only carried a hand-held comm radio to keep weight down. So Where i come in saying it is JUST as much the RC pilots fault, is because he is responsible for making sure flying HIS aircraft is done in as safe a manner as possible. When you are operating it at any time where there could be heavy congestion or un-expected issues, you SHOULD have a spotter and make sure that spotter knows he is responsible for 2 things. IN this case, it should of been Scanning for traffic in the airport vicinity and coordinating with the air-boss of the event. A pitts is a small airplane and not easy to see, but as soon as the smoke was noticed (which in the video was a pretty long time) and with the guy "hovering" directly over the runway, he should of had a bail out plan to land ASAP, which is not a difficult thing to do with as much room that he had and the altitude and airspeed he was carrying, not begin climbing into the flight path of the impending airplane.