danny_galaga

It's definitely Denso, and pretty much down to one or two models. Just the question of rotation. Surely someone must have a loose Rotax starter they can chuck some jumper leads on?

Also, I've lost interest in the whole thing. I doubt I'll own my plane long enough for there to be any problems

I'm still convinced my BMW starter is the one so I'm staying out of this discussion 😄 Other than to say all of these motorcycle starters should have an oil seal because they all have the shaft going into the gearbox

I saw Brian today at the airfield. At first I didn't recognise him. I said "Christ almighty Brian! Did they have to remove your moustache as well as your wings to get you out of the wreckage?" He's in good spirits. Sold the wreck already. Apparently it will be used as some sort of static display. I've seen the video now. He tells me he climbs at about 1000fpm as it's a pretty spritely plane. The video shows that was roughly his climb rate that day. The engine quits only a second or so after he establishes the climb. He did a long take off so to some people it might look like he's just hauling it into the sky, but he's going pretty quickly by then. He MAYBE got 300 feet AGL. Within a second he had already pitched the nose down. I feel that's an impressively quick reaction. Unfortunately he says the glide is ball park the same as a Drifter, roughly 5:1. He disappears from view behind a large tree at that point. When all is said and done I think he did a good job. He kept flying the plane, there's not much you can do from there other than try not to hit the biggest trees as it's a pretty rough paddock. A few hundred feet higher and he could have made the next paddock, which is much more undercarriage friendly. Pic shows view from end of the field, at the road. Trees centre left I THINK is where he ended up. I sometimes have a chat with the horsies to right. I must remember to bring them carrots one day. Look at the lovely flat, green paddock just a few hundred metres too far away. Apologies for quality of the pic. Cheap phone plus overcast day equals 1999 webcam quality 😄

The most important thing is he is safe, and you have video that could be helpful. Being Ra Aus that's the end of the line investigation-wise. It would be instructive to see the video. Or at least contact Brian so he can view it and comment on it. Not remembering what happened doesn't mean he did anything wrong. Don't make it about you. Enlighten us, but don't get upset that we are finding it hard to follow your posts. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a video worth? Why describe it when you can just show it?

Thanks for the detail. Are you saying you observed two problems? That he pulled up violently/prematurely and that after he did his engine also failed? Could it be then that he could climb at that steep angle normally, but this time the engine quit on him? Incidentally, I just bought Divinyls - What a Life on vinyl. Been getting into LPs again and that was one of my favourite albums back in the day 🙂

I feel your pain!

Hi Richard, I don't want to bust your balls about this, since you are a very rare thing- a witness who knows about aircraft and who filmed it. The devil is in the detail here. How far do you reckon he was from you when you hear the engine quit in the video? If he was say about 300 metres away from you, you have to wind back the video pretty much a full second. That is where the engine actually quit. I don't know enough about this configuration of biplane. Could it be that trimmed for takeoff under full power, it would be inclined to pitch up with an engine failure? Or maybe when the engine has quit, he has pulled back to gain height and then pitch down for glide?

Hopefully I can get back to the airfield this weekend and I can see how he's going

Good point, hadn't even thought of that.

Hi Richard. Do you think the pilot may have had some sort of problem? Either airframe issue or perhaps maybe a medical drama of some sort? Having watched a number of flights it doesn't seem like something he would deliberately do? Was the engine running smoothly through the whole thing?

And there it is. Some people just can't see someone else's point of view. I think you've just invented the 'triple down' 😄

I Think a simple apology to him would have been nice, instead people, including you just doubled down. A simple apology and move on. The original thread has been edited but you can see he had a valid point.

Indeed, not too long ago a guy joined up on this forum purely to inform everyone he had not died in a crash like some people were saying..he was not best pleased and I don't blame him for being upset about it.

Important thing is he is alright. That fuselage sure gave him some crash protection 😲