Live prop nearly kills a pilot

[rick morawski]

Saw this on YouTube, nearly pooped myself!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFqDZagVeJU

 

 

[pylon500]

Welcome to impulse magneto's...

 

 

[SSCBD]

Yep - thought it hit him on the hand. Very lucky boy.

 

 

[Robbo]

Now to the person who posted the question about the BAK exam, http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/bak-questions-thread.148145

 

this is why you treat all props live.

 

 

[Spooks]

Now to the person who posted the question about the BAK exam, http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/bak-questions-thread.148145this is why you treat all props live.

While waiting for my lesson last week, I saw a 'qualified pilot' just turn the engine off when he returned to the school. No mag checks on shutdown

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

While waiting for my lesson last week, I saw a 'qualified pilot' just turn the engine off when he returned to the school. No mag checks on shutdown

You probably don't want to be too quick to judge. Although I always do mag checks after landing you'd never know it unless you were in the plane with me because I do them while taxiing back to save time. Consequently as soon as I reach the apron I can pull the mixture and shut down.

 

 

[Nobody]

This was originally posted on the CASA facebook page and there is a good description of the circumstances in the writeup on the Australian flight safety website.

 

http://www.flightsafetyaustralia.com/2014/03/properly-clear-of-the-prop/

 

In this instance the mags were left live by the pilot. It wasn't a mechanical failure that lead to a hot mag.

 

 

[Yenn]

Always check mags off before touching the prop, and even then be ready for it to start.

 

I have never hand propped my RV4 and I would think that it would take some doing. I still havn't worked out how to get it to fire with less than about 4 blades with the starter.

 

Part of the mag check should be to turn both of for an instant to check that they both ground. I think Lycoming say you can stop the engine with the mag switches if it only to be stopped for a short while, but I have found that mine tends to run on slightly and have been told that it is a good way to break a crankshaft

 

 

[facthunter]

The best way is to run it out of fuel (Carb models). There should be nothing left to burn unless the fuel rooster seeps. Nev

 

No one asked what a fuel "rooster " is. You aren't allowed to write fuel c ock or you are rude.

 

 

[Romeo Juliet Whiskey]

Now to the person who posted the question about the BAK exam, http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/bak-questions-thread.148145this is why you treat all props live.

That was me :) Good advice!

 

 

[ian00798]

While waiting for my lesson last week, I saw a 'qualified pilot' just turn the engine off when he returned to the school. No mag checks on shutdown

In the military we used to do a dead cut during the mag check. Nothing mechanical can ever be 100% certain, but it was a pretty good indicator that the mags were grounding correctly in the off position. However the military also had the budget to deal with the increased maintenance burden too.

 

 

[Spooks]

You probably don't want to be too quick to judge. Although I always do mag checks after landing you'd never know it unless you were in the plane with me because I do them while taxiing back to save time. Consequently as soon as I reach the apron I can pull the mixture and shut down.

He has only recently qualified and was using the school aircraft so I doubt it.

 

 

[rankamateur]

Looked a bit like the 50Hertz dance my electrician friends describe.

 

 

[harrison]

Saw this on YouTube, nearly pooped myself!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFqDZagVeJU

Saw this on YouTube, nearly pooped myself!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFqDZagVeJU

Happened to me once.

Comanche 260. 1959. 12 Volt starter motor, good for about 3 tries

 

Dodgy left mag. Impulse mag. No Sparks. The way to fix it is to hit it with a short metal bar, then turn prop backward once and then one turn normal rotation. This method confirmed by Comanche Owners Club USA.

 

Anyway, long story short version, in a hurry to get to a business meeting jumped out, did the mag bit and turned it once normal rotation and it started. Stupidly I had left the ignition on and throttle slightly open. Grass airfield and wet grass. Aircraft started to move towards me and the spinner hit me in the chest.

 

The only thing that saved me was the long spinner on the prop, but it caught my trouser leg and inflicted a cut or two.

 

I managed to get out of the way then had to run around the entire aircraft as the door is on the other side as it was taxiing towards a building. Just made it in time before a complete disaster took place, as opposed to chopping me into bits.

 

Lots of embarrassment but it was a really crappy day and an instrument rating day, and there were no witnesses, at least no one owned up.

 

Gave me a lot to think about. I promised not to kill any more chinamen

 

 

[Happyflyer]

 

This could happen if you are not careful.

 

 

[Litespeed]

The famous VH-KBZ attacked by a giant angry can opener

 

 

[rankamateur]

The famous VH-KBZ attacked by a giant angry can opener

I have always wondered if the giant can opener was piloted at the time of the attack, or did it act alone?

 

 

[SDQDI]

Not sure how correct this is but it's a good yarn anyway.

 

This is apparently the story of VH KBZ

 

A doctor surgeon from Whyalla found his battery dead in his Piper Saratoga (a powerful single-engine aircraft) at Parafield Airport, South Australia, on the night of Aug. 26, 2001. He then proceeded to hand start the engine by

 

turning the prop. While this is actually not illegal, it should be approached with the utmost of caution and is really

 

only used in remote areas where there is no help or decent pub within a long walk. The pilot, by himself, did not chock the wheels or check that the handbrake was engaged …. Anyway, the engine fires up at about

 

2,000 rpm and the aircraft starts taxiing to the runway on its own. The only problem with that was there were

 

four piper warriors and a twin-engine Seminole (the sliced plane in picture) in its way. The pilot somehow managed

 

to avoid certain death, although this may have been the better option considering what was about to unfold.

 

At a steady rate of forward movement similar to a fairly upset hippo during breeding season, the Saratoga

 

proceeds to destroy anything in its path. With approx. 350 liters of avgas spewing out of the damaged aircraft,

 

the pilot must surely realize that an appropriate timely death is about to occur….The result is he lived, and the

 

University of Adelaide lost one plane and the use of the other four for some time to come, all because of a flat

 

battery and a really bad decision. The cost—$1.5 million and absolute embarrassment for the rest of the pilot’s life.

 

You can just imagine the pilot, after being run over by his own plane, hanging on to the tail of his aircraft trying to stop it going any further and watching in horror as it bit by bit shreds the tail of the most expensive aircraft in the vicinity and thinking any minute the engine will stop. Just when he thinks the nightmare is going to come to an end, his aircraft then makes a sharp right-hand turn and without conscience heads to the second-most expensive aircraft in its way.

 

 

[Litespeed]

Pilot is thinking out loud " I wonder how to check how many inches of pitch I am running on the prop"

 

Aircraft ghost thinks "I show you"

 

Viola- just measure the gap between slices

 

 

[kasper]

clipped ... You can just imagine the pilot, after being run over by his own plane, hanging on to the tail of his aircraft trying to stop it going any further and watching in horror as it bit by bit shreds the tail of the most expensive aircraft in the vicinity and thinking any minute the engine will stop. Just when he thinks the nightmare is going to come to an end, his aircraft then makes a sharp right-hand turn and without conscience heads to the second-most expensive aircraft in its way.

Remember George Markey and the ultrabat at managlore ... not grabbing the tail but being knocked over twice by the wing trying to get control before it took off for the crowd

 

 

Every time I watch this I get the smell and sounds if it all happening in front of me ... that's me at the start of the clip on the right (behind the barricade).

 

 

[Litespeed]

Everyone was very lucky it was a pusher.

 

That would have been a lot of human sashimi with a tractor prop.

 

 

[Oscar]

The Battack is famed in myth and legend.... but actually, there are some serious lessons here.

 

That video is speeded up and the engine sound is superimposed, not the real one.

 

What ACTUALLY happened, is this:

 

The 'Bat was properly chocked, facing into an about 20 knot headwind. When George set the throttle, the wind knocked the canopy down and his hand hit the throttle, taking it from just cracked to about 50% power. Just as the thing fired, a Victa about 10 metres ahead of the 'Bat ran its engine up, and the combined windspeed lifted a wing sufficiently to let the wheel over-ride the chock - and that's when the fight started..

 

CASA took George to Court, and lost. They argued that there should have been another 'experienced person' in the cockpit when the thing was started - but the only experienced person on Mangalore at the time was Grahame Swannell who was unavailable at the moment, and almost nobody else could FIT into the cockpit - George was a bantam rooster and the 'Bat cockpit was built by and for George. I'm about 172 cm and 67 kgs - and the 'Bat (2) cockpit was a fairly tight fit on me. ( I never flew it - unqualified - but I did get to sit in it and help work on it).

 

The 'Bat was hand-propped anyway, so that start was routine - except for the combination of circumstances. What happened was NOT the result of someone trying something they did not understand, nor bad judgement - it was a genuine accident, as the Court found. Sh#t happens.

 

I've hand-propped a Gypsy Major plenty of times - and never feeling complacent about it!. It's not something a thinking person gets complacent about; you check the feel of the ground under your boots to be sure you won't slip, you mentally run through the swing action... every blade.

 

 

[kasper]

Yep that was the sequence ... and Graham S was unavailable I recall because he was up flying in his little aerobatic plane at the time and I recall him taxiing back in later ... I took a series of shots as he taxied out just before walking back to the ultrabat just as George came out and started it up.