fiveoboy01

My Feedback: (3)

I disagree completely. If this topic were posted in every forum, and someone read it before going to the field(whether they are a jet/large prop/parkflier/trainer pilot/pylon racer), and it caused that person to take more precautions because of what they just read, it could very possibly prevent an accident. And that would make it pretty much irrelevant whether or not it belongs here or not.

This type of thing scares the hell out of me, and I now have a label on the dash of my truck that says "BE SAFE TODAY". I see it whenever I get out of the truck to unload my airplane, and it keeps me conscious to be safe and aware of what I'm doing all the time. I don't want to hurt myself, and I really don't want to hurt someone else. I don't have a jet, and my giant scale Edge won't be done till spring, but even my 1.00 4-stroke with a razor sharp APC blade on it is certainly capable of causing serious injury. I do everything I can to keep this on my mind whenever I'm doing anything with an airplane.

On another note, I hope Casey has a speedy recovery. What a horrible thing to happen to someone.

I'd be interested to hear exactly how the airplane went out of control, if it was an interference issue or radio equipment failure(dead battery?), failsafe issue, or if it was a hotshot pilot flying something that was above his skill level, in an unsafe manner..?

seanreit

My Feedback: (60)

I own a construction company. In 1997 my company won "Contractor of the year" FOR SAFETY from the Corp. of Engineers. If anyone does any work with this branch of the government, they know how the Corp. operates and how seemingly impossible it would be to win that particular award. My companies have never had a loss time accident. Ever. And all I do is the stuff that no one else wants to do.

I employ a Safety Engineer amongst dozens of other people. Don't think for a second that I don't support noteworthy safety informatoin. And don't think that I don't support the concept of this thread.

My statement is simply that to remove that other thread, and leave this one, is a direct contradiction by the moderators of this forum. And I doubt this thread will be removed and I want my voice related to the contracdiction to be heard. And I've received a few emails to support that there are other less public opinions that the lack of clear line this "grey area" as a top level RCU employee calls it is BS.

Carry on,

Sean

fiveoboy01

My Feedback: (3)

I think I must have somewhat misread your post Sean.

I agree that there seems to be a double standard around here, and I'm not just talking about the jets forum.

As an example:

I used to race the car in my avatar in a sanctioning body. We had classes and rules for each class. BUT, even though there was a rulebook set in stone, things were twisted by officials to fit whatever they saw fit to do. It all came down to the "intent" of the rule, which is a BS excuse to twist the rules around to penalize/reward a certain racer(s). Much of this had to do with money and sponsors that supported this sanctioning body, and those that didn't. I even saw it go so far as to have certain engine/power adder combinations penalized or even BANNED because a certain manufacturer wouldn't buy ad space in their magazine or pay contingency $.

Not whining, just stating the facts of life. Just about everything revolves around money(or lack thereof) these days. Sponsorship and advertising are kings. Some of the things I have seen around here lately are pointing to the type of situation above, whether anyone denies it or not.

patternflyer1

My Feedback: (11)

I think this thread has been taken in the wrong direction!!!! This started out to be a great piece of information for a warning to flyers. I fly pattern and I read it where???? Here in the jet forum..... Who cares where it is.. It should be in every forum. They should make it the first post in every forum!!!!!!!!!! So I fly pattern, does that mean I can't say the word in here. pattern pattern pattern. See how childish that is. Good lord. My prayers and thoughts are with Casey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XJet

I've purposely smashed a plane rather than risk hitting a child who ran out onto the landing strip as I was doing a deadstick approach. Perhaps I *might* have had enough airspeed to pull up and fly over her head but I took the safe option, just gave full down elevator and smashed that bird into a thousand pieces.

I sure hope that everyone else would do exactly the same thing -- no matter how much time, money and emotion they've got invested in their plane.

If any plane of mine looks as if it has a chance of hitting *anyone* and I can stop it by ditching it, I won't hesitate.

Sure -- it may cost me a fair whack of money if I'm flying something big and expensive, but you can always build a new plane.

I hate to think of the affect hitting that young kid might have had on my own life, to say nothing of hers and her family's.

Sometimes flying safely means being prepared to destroy your own plane.

air mail rcu

The problem is what if you are in no man's land meaning if you ditch the plane you might hit someone. So you try to fly out. Either way your screwed. The bigger and faster the plane the more damage it's going to do. If we are going to fly giant planes we must protect the people around them. This is something I've been thinking about ever since the advent of large planes. Now is the time to put our collective minds together and come up with some ideas.

P-51B

My Feedback: (5)

HMMMM.....knee jerk reactions already starting.

"damage MAY have been much less",....are you serious? A wood prop, sized for a 42% aircraft spinning at 6-7K rpm...do you honestly think the results would have been any different?!?!?!

Miguel Santana

My Feedback: (6)

Sometimes I take my kids with me to the field...and this kind of incidents makes me think a lot about that, and the security issues....
The bad thing here is that a person got real hurt....the "good" thing is that it was not a child.-
Even with a proper failsafe programming the risk still hight. Perhaps, and in adition, increasing the pits distance from the flyig zone might help...
Hope this fellow recover soon.
Miguel

J. Campbell

My Feedback: (31)

I think the underlying note here is if the AMA is going to single out jet pilots and make them obtain a Waiver , thus proving they are competent pilots, and put forth rules on everthing from rudders, to power to radio settings maybe they should branch over and take a look at other facets of our hobby which have the potental to mame or kill just as much or more than jets. Face it there are a lot more people flying BIG bird than jet, and a lot of those come directly from a pimary trainer to thier 30% or larger machine with absolultey basic flying skills or not even that, i even see it at our own club. Russ

8178

My Feedback: (17)

This thread describing this horrible and horrific event has been added to the AMA Discussions section and the Giant Aircraft section of the RCU. I find it interesting that the thread in the Giant Aircraft section has received the least number of comments, 12 comments out of 1351 views?

bob27s

My Feedback: (19)

Just for some backup information.

This event happend near here, and my fellow clubmembers were there at the time.

The plane was being piloted by an expert pilot. As is typcial of such a modler, and very typical for this form of aircraft, it was built properly and contained nothing by the best equipment. I believe most of you know how the systems are set up on most giant aerobatic aircraft.

The aircraft had been in the air a number of times previously. On that particular flight, at altitude, all radio contact was lost. It was not a loss of pilot control, rather a complete loss of radio function. The aircraft decended from normal flying altitude and from some distance way.

Bob

seanreit

My Feedback: (60)

Interesting how? That they are just keeping their mouths shut scared? Or what?

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

Not too surprising IMO. Just imagine how we would react if we were talking about a horrific accident involving a turbine with some reasonably well known turbine personalities... I imagine that we'd have a whole mixture of reactions: some people talking about it; others simply in shock; still others with personal knowledge of the people involved, and not having any idea what to say; some wanting the issue downplayed so as not to attract undue attention from the AMA, local club officers, others not wanting to say anything that might hurt the family members who might just be reading RCU as well, etc. There are many reasons why some people would not want to talk about it for a while.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to be well "removed" from the aspect of RC involved simply do not have the same perspective - we are able to look at the issue in a much more detached and impersonal way than those people whose lives and hobby are much more tied up in the tragedy. While that means that we do not share the burden of grief as those closest to the accident, I hope it does not mean we allow ourselves to be so detached that we take a "that could never happen to us" attitude. Any incident like this, no matter the type of aicraft involved, should cause every one of us to pause to think whether we can do something to make our hobby just a little bit safer.

Gordon

Nick Yuhasz

My Feedback: (11)

I would like to give you my first hand account of what happened to Casey Rowe at the Wakeman, Ohio gathering and correct some of the inaccuracies surrounding the incident.

This incident took place on Saturday, August 14th about noon. Some of us got together at a friend’s house to have a picnic and fly. This is a large estate complete with lake and large, standalone workshop. Bryon Striker was flying his father’s Miles Reed Challenger II Giant Scale Biplane. This plane had flown quite a few times before. I was spotting for Bryon at the time. BTW, Bryon is a very accomplished Giant Scale 3D flyer and his father is an accomplished Giant Scale builder. Bryon took off and flew the plane uneventfully for about 4 minutes. This quote from a previous post is not an accurate statement “Well Brian had a 42% Oracle Bi-plane as it took off he lost control of the aircraft.� I then flew the plane for about two minutes. Bryon once again took over and flew the biplane for about 2 more minutes. He was making a fairly level pass (perhaps slightly descending at about 150 feet) flying north to south over the lake when I heard the throttle go to full. I assumed Bryon was preparing to enter a vertical maneuver. Bryon immediately shouted that he did not have control. I said, “You didn’t do that?� He said no, and began shouting again that he didn’t have control. At that time I looked around and everyone outside the workshop was looking up. The plane proceeded south with the engine full throttle and level. As it passed beyond and over the workshop, it began to slowly turn east and began slowly descending. As it came back over the workshop I decided to run towards the workshop since it appeared it would continue flying towards where Bryon and I were standing. I was looking up and running when I saw the plane slowly roll over and head for the ground almost right at me. As I was running I heard a “thud� and felt debris hitting the back of my legs. I stopped and turned around and saw that Bryon was all right and then noticed Casey on the ground by the tents. He had apparently exited the tent to try to locate the plane in the air. We administered First Aid, I applied a tourniquet, and the other people called 911.

The plane had a JR 700 PPM receiver (not PCM) and I believe on Channel 50 from the Frequency Board. The receiver was purchased new just for the biplane. No other person had a radio with that channel. After the incident, I witnessed testing the battery pack under load and the voltage regulator, which checked out OK.

Just to put things into perspective, previously the closest I had ever seen anyone being in danger of being seriously injured by a flying RC aircraft was a 40 sized trainer crashing vertically into a chair that was occupied 30 seconds before the crash and a helicopter crashing approximately 10 feet from the pilot and spotter (both incidents were when the pilots lost orientation).

I just got off the phone talking to Casey and he is scheduled to return home this Wednesday. He is in good spirits and wants to thank everyone for their kind remarks.

Nick

mr_matt

My Feedback: (10)

Hi Nick,

Nice going with the first aid!

Very glad to hear your friend is going home soon. What is his prognosis?

Regards,

Matt

8178

My Feedback: (17)

Nick

Thanks for the update. What a horrific experience to go through.

Woketman

My Feedback: (6)

Nick, what were the extent of his injuries? Is he expected to make a full recovery? We all wish him the best.

sideshow

My Feedback: (11)

Yes, Nick...please let him know that we hope he makes a full recovery.

MHall

My Feedback: (7)

I understand that the prop may be turning at 7k but I have seen LG fold on take off and the plane continue running down the runway for 150ft on the prop before the pilot shut it down and only about 1 in was ground off of the ends. I would like to see a wooden prop take more than a bump on the ground before it came apart. So, do I feel that wooden props on aircraft that size are safer.....YES. Just my 2 cents. [8D]
I am very glad to hear that he is going to be ok. Thank you for the REAL story. I'm done.

Nick Yuhasz

My Feedback: (11)

Well it helped to have my Red Cross First Aid training due to being a Boy Scout Leader. You never know when you will need it.

Believe it or not, Casey plans on being a spectator at this weekend's DOGS Giant Scale Fly In at Dayton, Ohio. It is one of his favorite events. Hopefully the doctor has cleared him for that (I didn't press the issue). He is one tough guy!

Nick

Vincent

My Feedback: (61)

Gordon Wrote:

<<Not too surprising IMO. Just imagine how we would react if we were talking about a horrific accident involving a turbine with some reasonably well known turbine personalities...>>

Gordon,
IMO we (jet guys) would beat it to death just like everything else.We are a vocal bunch for sure. Lets hope we never need to have that discussion here on RCU.
V..

XJet

This is as good a reason as any for querying the safety of using RC gear that has no failsafe facility in anything larger than a 1/2A model.

I've taken all my plain old PPM receivers out of service now because they provide *no* protection against interference or idiots who dont' check the pegboard before turning on their transmitters in the pits.

When you consider that you can now buy a new generation of PPM receivers with sophisticated computerised decoders that reject interference and provide the same kind of failsafe protection as PCM, there's really no reason for anyone to be using plain old FM/PPM receivers any longer.

Hell, even a 40-powered club trainer can kill if it hits a child because it's been shot down by interference of some kind.

If the plane we're talking about here had been using PCM or a new-generation PPM receiver, the throttle would *not* have gone to full -- it would have gone to idle or cut (providing the failsafe was set up correctly) and chances are that, although the plane might have been lost, an injury of this magnitude would have been avoided.

If these newer 'smart" PPM receivers were more expensive than plain old dumb units I could understand people's reluctance to use them -- but hell, most of them are now *cheaper* than the outdated PPM receivers being sold by Hitec, Futaba, JR and a few others.

EJN

Yes. I have an amateur radio license, there was recently an interesting
post on QRZ.com about when Bush was in PA. All the repeaters in the
area were locked up by an open carrier. Even the local police & fire
dept. radio systems were experiencing interference, and cell phones
were unable to get through. Apparently intentional jamming is done over
a wide frequency range wherever the president is when traveling, I suppose
as a measure to disprupt communications of any potential terrorists/attackers.

MMallory

My Feedback: (1)

X-Jet,

I wasn't going to jump in on this one, but I do disagree with your statement "the throttle would *not* have gone to full". After reading this entire post, I don't see anything that proves interference. This seems, to me, more like a total loss of power. Unless I missed something, this may have been a simple battery switch/wire gone bad. I don't have a clue why the throttle went to full.

I must also say that I have had both "new" & "used" receivers go bad. A cracked solder joint may only show up at the worst time (or never). I've seen many switches fail. Add the vibration of a giant scale engine at just the right resonance....

The R/C car guys use a single channel failsafe unit that could be used on the throttle of our plane. A lot less money than switching all receivers.

I think the lesson here is to remember how dangerous our pastime is. Keep your kid's close and watch the air whenever you are not behind a fence. Keep first aid gear near and know the number to the closest rescue squad.



Casey,

I wish you a speedy recovery. You should play the state lottery since you've had your share of bad luck, maybe you're due for some good.

Mark M.

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

Did you read the post by Nick (who was present when the accident occurred) ? He stated:
After the incident, I witnessed testing the battery pack under load and the voltage regulator, which checked out OK

Gordon