Head in the clouds

Tragic news, I wonder what went wrong. Condolences to family and friends. Thanks for a perfect thread title kaz3g

True ... well some of them ... Really? Actually the water is separated by a gascolator, it doesn't get delivered to the filling nozzle. If people kept getting water in their car tanks, and hardly anyone ever uses metho to absorb it - what happens to the water? Cars aren't generally fitted with gascolators. Also the lift pump pickup isn't at the bottom of underground tanks. So very little, if any, water ever reaches the pump gascolator.

I know about a series of industry tests that were conducted following fuel quality issues - some of the results were alarming. I only buy fuel from Shell these days.

That explains a lot. At Caloundra the dirt/grass each side of the runways can be extremely boggy even when it hasn't rained for quite a while. I nearly came badly unstuck, or perhaps I should say 'stuck' in my 172 when I chose to land on the grass instead of the bitumen, trying to be kind to my new tyres. I never made that mistake again ...

Just a well-intentioned note to the OP and other future posters of events that people might like to have some idea of what the thread is about ... a title like 'what happened today' tells us nothing. Suggest OP and others might in future consider a title more like 'Sling 4 crash at Caboolture 12th August 2017' ... if you like.

Looks fabulous Marty, well done! For a scratch built it's even more of an achievement, the parts look just as good as any kit parts.

Hmm, yes, well ... is the Restriction of Trade Practices Act still in force in its original form? If so then the non-sponsor needn't have worried, just turn up with a display at a trade tent and there's nothing a competitor, major sponsor or otherwise, with or without a contracted exclusion clause, could do about it. In fact one word of objection would entitle the 'injured party' to prosecute with free legal representation from the Fair Trade Commission.

Perhaps not the best turn of phrase in aviation circles ;-)

As an adjunct to my earlier post I'd like to point out that when I referred to 'Directors' I'd forgotten that the volunteers that used to be known as Area/Regional Representatives are now actually Directors of RAAus Pty Ltd - and I certainly didn't mean to suggest that they were receiving a 'good salary', in fact I'm quite aware that they don't receive any payment at all for their tireless work, for which I'd like to thank them very much ... Also - although I didn't mean it that way, on reflection I think my comment was rather unkind, I'd rather missed the complexities of the situation that led to this position, my apologies to anyone who felt offended by my post.

When arriving to foreign shores by yacht you are not permitted to disembark until you have cleared customs and immigration. To do that you fly the yellow flag Q to request the attention of border control officers (use radio or phone as well these days, of course). The history of the use of the yellow flag was originally to indicate contagion on board, hence the vessel was considered to be 'in Quarantine'. These days the yellow flag is flown to indicate that there is not sickness on board and the vessel is requesting a release from Quarantine and those on board be granted "free pratique" to visit or travel within the country. Consequently, I think that while people are 'in transit' but within the bounds of a country's jurisdiction, they are 'in Quarantine' until they have been processed through customs and immigration and granted free pratique. Similarly, goods which have arrived in the country (a shipping container, for example) is said to be 'in quarantine' until inspected by customs, bio-security, duties paid etc, before it is released to the owner. Therefore I think the answer to the OP question is probably 'in Quarantine'.

The one I posted was 42kg of carbon fibre, foam and balsa, no fatigue ever in any of that. Any idea of the materials in the OP one? From the amount of visible flex I'd doubt it is metal. It's easy to laugh at these attempts but there's a 'swimming' submarine I know a lot about, that emulates a shark and is more fuel efficient than a similar prop driven submersible. Still plenty of things to perfect though ...

Finger pointing isn't going to help, and neither is suggesting that in today's world any event could possibly be fielded without massive corporate sponsorship - to pay the bloody litigation insurance first and foremost ... I also think it's pathetic that RAA and the two potential sponsors see an early need to hang their dirty washing out so soon, shame on them all, grow up kids, work it out ... find a new major sponsor and let the competing EFB companies be even co-sponsor ... whatever works. RAA directors draw good salaries to get these things done without putting it in front of the members.

Yes, they do claim that and perfectly legitimately too ... since their claim is IAS which is the only reference a pilot has. However if one was to eliminate the pitot error at high AoA the ASI would tell a very different story. Also - their stall speed claim can be a theoretical one based on the lift coefficient of the flapped 2D airfoil but in reality only half the wing is flapped and the actual built surface condition will never match the graphs, let alone taking into account washout, tip losses, air turbulence etc ... Then there's the fact that although their theoretical stall speed might calculate as 37kts or whatever, in reality their tail volume coefficient is way too small to be able to actually stall the main plane when power-off and they get around that by saying it's a built-in safety feature ... So ... in practice the only way to get anywhere near the published stall speed numbers of most LSAs is to stall it fully flapped at full power using the strong propwash to give the elevator sufficient authority. That results in a stall at an extremely high nose angle and a resultant 45 degree inverted hammerhead when the flow attachment breaks violently. Most LSA harnesses aren't suited for that and the likeliness of head injury should be borne in mind if you'd like to test the honesty of the average toy aircraft manufacturer's claims. I say 'toy' because virtually all of these LSA types are 'self certified' by their own designer/manufacturer to comply with ASTMs rather than being FAR23 compliant. If they complied with FAR23 their handling would be a different story - much more kindly - though they might still get away with the instrument error aspect. Other claims that are similarly suspect are those of amateur fishermen ;-)

Currency is very important in many respects but just as you'd find it hard or perhaps impossible to land a plane if you'd never had any training at all, you'd probably agree that if you don't fly for the next ten years and then had to land a plane for some reason, you'd be likely to make an acceptable job of it. Even though they might have done their spin training, very few people regularly practice it physically but it doesn't stop us practicing it mentally. I wrote a bit about it on another thread a while ago, the methods I developed for myself might be helpful for some people.

I thought this one was pretty clever too -

Didn't you mean bottom rudder? "Pulled too tight" (steeply banked?) and then applying top rudder would put you into a slip which is anti-spin, whereas an overshot centreline with reluctance to bank sufficiently and trying to 'rudder it around' with bottom rudder produces the skid which is pro-spin and is the deadly culprit that results in the all-too-regular final turn stall-spin scenario.

Yes ... and what you do for the stall and/or wing drop is also the correct procedure for a fully developed spin i.e. unstall the wing BUT ... as you suggest ... without having experienced and being reasonably comfortable with the nose pointed steeply down and looking at a rapidly revolving ground it's second nature to try to haul the nose up. Only by training - by having actually been there and tamed the fear and mastered the required technique, can one reliably ensure a safe outcome.

The Hummelbird was very influential in an early design I built in 1980s so I studied its characteristics quite extensively. I'm surprised it has a tendency to drop a wing at the stall. Being a 'Hershey bar' wing planform (constant chord - not tapered) it shouldn't tip-stall even if it didn't have any built-in geometric washout. Is it possible that it's not rigged correctly? A few years ago I helped someone re-jig the centre section of a 601HD where there was an inadvertent built-in twist which caused one wing to stall first. Another possibility is arriving at the stall while yawed - I had a student that used to press a pedal when approaching a stall, they weren't aware that they were doing it ...

I'm a firm supporter of spin training for everyone but it doesn't necessarily have to be done during ab initio. I don't think you can beat learning it in gliders, IMHO, and a few glider flights also give the advantage of learning more about engine-out techniques. A good instructor will introduce the spin progressively, so that if you start out very uncomfortable with it, as I did, after four or five you get used to it and a couple more and suddenly it's no longer a problem. After that I spent years teaching them ... can't say I've ever come to enjoy them as some do, but I revel in the knowledge that I know how to avoid them by being able to recognize the earliest signs and can think and respond well during the incipient and fully developed stages. BTW - many people are uncomfortable because they disliked the incipient demo and/or training which is, in my mind, far more unsettling than the fully developed stage, which is a stable condition regardless that the world seems to be spinning around ...

Good point - rubber mounts ..?

Reminds me of an incident that happened to my brother many years ago. He was visiting England and Scotland and driving north in the late evening on a highway near Edinburgh when he and his new wife heard a loud bang which seemed to come from the left rear of the car. Suspecting a tyre problem or something similar they pulled over and had a good look at the rear wheel and found nothing amiss. About to continue the trip one of them noticed what appeared to be two bullet holes in the rear door ... Naturally their first response was to take cover, especially as they had both lived in a war-torn country where such an incident was often the prelude to car-jacking, kidnapping, armed robbery or much worse. Then one of them noticed what appeared to be a body lying a hundred metres or so behind the car. Since she was a nurse they could hardly follow their gut and high-tail it out of there so they reversed to see what they could do to help. It turned out to be a small deer that had butted the side of the car and its horns had made the holes in the door skin. The deer was unconscious and bleeding a little, so, being animal lovers they decided to take it to the nearest vet - they put it on the back seat and headed off. As you might imagine, the deer revived again after a few minutes and set about destroying the car interior ... so was duly released, quick as ... I've heard a couple of similar stories too, where a big red boomer hit by a car comes through the windscreen and sets about the occupants, and an eagle that attacked an ultralight pilot after breaking the windshield. Sorry - rambling on - back to topic if you like ;-)

I used to muster using helicopters and planes with horns and sirens, can't beat loud noisemakers for getting attention on the ground. But - if you find yourself without one when you need it, it's always worth remembering how far your own voice carries, when projected from above, and assuming there's not too much wind or ambient noise on the ground. And also assuming you can open a window ... Anyone who's spent time at a drop-zone will recall how easily canopy sounds and voices can be heard on the ground at opening from 2000ft above. And when training folks in ultralights in the 1980s it was legal and encouraged to switch off the engine and practice dead-stick landings, every 3rd landing or so. We used to switch off above 2000ft and people on the ground could clearly hear the instructor briefing the student during the descent and landing. Unfortunately not likely to help on a beach, with the noise of the wind and/or surf.

I'd agree that solely by maintaining a good lookout you won't know about all the traffic in your locale, but provided that your vision is up to standard you should most certainly be able to know about traffic that presents you with potential conflict. BTW, I'm not saying that radio isn't useful when used correctly, my previous comments were just demonstrating some of the ways that radio actually reduces safety when people concentrate on it rather than maintaining a good lookout, and in my experience, the busier the radio traffic becomes, the less time people spend looking outside.

I don't think there's any indication he was tethered. See the OP's embedded video, it shows the prep for takeoff, the towed ascent behind a quad bike, the plane almost hitting the cable at the apogee, then he takes a few deep breaths, pings off, takes the control line toggles and flies back to the landing ground. Even so, he may well have been above the plane pilot's view unless he was conducting a proper scan above and below as well as to the front and sides.

This business about - "In addition, helicopters are no longer allowed hover in the area." - is starting to make a bit more sense to me now. What kind of helicopters? Military, medivac, firefighting, spraying ...? And what's the hovering all about? They didn't land? Is it training flights?