Plane crash in the solent

[MrB]

Bloody hell that's quite a story!!! When I did my first parachute jump in Swansea the instructor said " I won't bother telling you how to land in a tree, the nearest one is over a mile away" He then dropped us out in the wrong place so I crossed a main road, a barbed wire fence, a pond and hit THAT tree! They had to send a car to get me, I left the chute in the tree. That is why I said in post #32, "If it has it's wings I will land it!!"?

 

[jrudge]

Graham Hill was a friend of my dads. Both flew from Elstree.

i remember going into my parents bedroom and they told me he had died trying to land and got the golf course instead. I flew from Elstree for 15 or so years. Finding it at night pre GPS was not difficult but not so easy either. Capital Radio transmitting from the end of the runway was always helpful!

 

[Alfie168]

Graham Hill was a friend of my dads. Both flew from Elstree.

i remember going into my parents bedroom and they told me he had died trying to land and got the golf course instead. I flew from Elstree for 15 or so years. Finding it at night pre GPS was not difficult but not so easy either. Capital Radio transmitting from the end of the runway was always helpful!

I had been at the British Grand Prix earlier in the year when GH officially announced his retirement and did a solo lap in one of his Embassy cars without his helmet and how everybody cheered him. It's amazing looking back. I had no money at all but I managed to go to Grand Prix and go parachuting.......life of Reilly on threepence halfpenny

 

[SolentDavid]

There is a training programme on chute deployment that Cirrus have in place and if you log on to the Cirrus site you can see it in action.
This must be a more recent action as when I did my transition training at the Cirrus factory in Duluth about 17 or 18 years ago there was just a fairly brief explanation of the process.
If the aircraft gets into a spin the chute deployment is the recovery option.
Yes the chutes are not always the answer but the fact remains that they have saved around 175 lives.
The danger with all these developments like chutes and "glass cockpits" is that they can give the pilot a false sense of security and tempt the more fool hardy pilot to fly in conditions they are not qualified or trained for.

Just out of interest Silvercloud, what reasons do you have for saying "glass cockpits" give a false sense of security? The aircraft type I fly is latest gen, all glass, and it improves situational awareness no end, and makes scanning simpler compared to traditional cockpit instruments.

 

[nicho]

Steeds
I have just purchased my Fairline Turbo 36 from some one at the Rochester Cruising Club and it is now up here in Norfolk.
I did most of my flight training and then several years of flying from Rochester so flew over the Medway many times

Rochester. Not a place to get an EFATO?

 

[mil1194]

Bloody hell that's quite a story!!! When I did my first parachute jump in Swansea the instructor said " I won't bother telling you how to land in a tree, the nearest one is over a mile away" He then dropped us out in the wrong place so I crossed a main road, a barbed wire fence, a pond and hit THAT tree! They had to send a car to get me, I left the chute in the tree. That is why I said in post #32, "If it has it's wings I will land it!!"?

Ex-Mrs Milli has done some tandem jumps from that airfield - they seem to be to better as they always seem to land perfectly with large smiles and she always had a satisfied expression on her face,

 

[jrudge]

Just out of interest Silvercloud, what reasons do you have for saying "glass cockpits" give a false sense of security? The aircraft type I fly is latest gen, all glass, and it improves situational awareness no end, and makes scanning simpler compared to traditional cockpit instruments.

I have only flown steam gauges ( I stopped flying some 10 years ago when I got into boats after 15 years.

I suppose the issue is that there is now a high level of automation ( including I read the other day emergency auto land) that is could be seen to encourage people to fly beyond their ability.

I would have loved the situational awareness and also the iPad flight planning software friends use now.

the most advance we had was a Garmin 495?? Panel mount gps for about £10k with a screen smaller than an iPhone that was hard to use.

the kit is seriously clever.

 

[Silvercloud]

Yes you have "hit the nail on the head"
All these new systems are fantastic but they can lead the unwary to maybe fly in conditions they are not trained or qualified for.

 

[nicho]

Three weeks before I did my parachute training course in 1975 a parachute got wrapped round the tail of a Cessna 182 at Ashbourne in Derbyshire on what I am led to believe was the last day of operation of the club which was being shut down because of noise objections. Nobody could get to the suspended parachutist and the aircraft was struggling for stability towing him around...then the suspended parachutist's reserve canopy popped and upended the aircraft. There were three in the aircraft, and the outside parachutist above the now descending aircraft.

When it impacted (nose down and semi inverted) the three in the aircraft suffered quite serious injury, but survived and made full recoveries. The student whose reserve they all came down on was relatively unhurt. Remember this is all suspended from a 24ft diameter small reserve canopy. The student went on to have a career in the RAF as a navigator/WO.

There is a somewhat grainy photo somewhere of the incident but I couldn't find a copy on line. Only the pilot qualified for a golden caterpillar badge as he had no parachute, and was the only occupant of the aircraft with no intention of jumping...but his life was saved by a parachute.

I think the cause was deemed to be excessive air speed at the point of exit from the aircraft (You stood on a step on the wheel and held the wing strut before release). When the apex of the canopy deployed from the static line deployment bag it whipped back and got wrapped round the tailplane.

Incredibly, a pal of mine at the time was the pilot. His wife made him give up Formula Ford racing because it was too dangerous! His hair when white within a few weeks. Nasty accident. Story goes that the student panicked and grabbed hold of the wing spar. Tiring, as my mate tried to get some altitude, he deployed the chute which wrapped around the tailplane. He then let go, so now he was being dragged along behind the aircraft. The instructor was trying to tell him to cut the chute and deploy the spare. Sadly he got it the wrong way round and deployed the chute while still attached to the tail plane. Of course the aircraft stalled, and there was indeed an incredible photograph of the “outfit” coming down vertically. Ken the pilot broke his jaw and had other serious injuries, but survived. His wife saw the whole incident from the ground.

 

[nicho]

That’s it...well done!

 

[nicho]

Incredibly, a pal of mine at the time was the pilot. His wife made him give up Formula Ford racing because it was too dangerous! His hair when white within a few weeks. Nasty accident. Story goes that the student panicked and grabbed hold of the wing spar. Tiring, as my mate tried to get some altitude, he deployed the chute which wrapped around the tailplane. He then let go, so now he was being dragged along behind the aircraft. The instructor was trying to tell him to cut the chute and deploy the spare. Sadly he got it the wrong way round and deployed the chute while still attached to the tail plane. Of course the aircraft stalled, and there was indeed an incredible photograph of the “outfit” coming down vertically. Ken the pilot broke his jaw and had other serious injuries, but survived. His wife saw the whole incident from the ground.

Wrote this before seeing the above. I got most of it right?

 

[nicho]

I have only flown steam gauges ( I stopped flying some 10 years ago when I got into boats after 15 years.

I suppose the issue is that there is now a high level of automation ( including I read the other day emergency auto land) that is could be seen to encourage people to fly beyond their ability.

I would have loved the situational awareness and also the iPad flight planning software friends use now.

the most advance we had was a Garmin 495?? Panel mount gps for about £10k with a screen smaller than an iPhone that was hard to use.

the kit is seriously clever.

I use Skydemon on a gps iPad. SkyDemon is simply fantastic, and costs a mere £89 a year. Makes our panel Garmin 430 redundant, though I still have my trusty Garmin 296 as back up

 

[Nauti Fox]

I used to have a workshop at Farthing Corner airstrip and got a lot of free flying ferrying a cub to and from Rochester when they were using it for training (Farthing Corner is unlicenced) but not good for getting work done....