Trees Fear Him

[Colonel Sanders]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... neAEo#t=98

[costermonger]

Well, he gets some points for hitting the biggest tree around and walking away, I guess.

[Beefitarian]

Uh? I am confused. Now taking into account my extraordinary lack of flying experience here, maybe I see it different than someone who is a current pilot.

If that tree was not there, that looked to me like the plane would have hit the ground.

Can anyone explain to me what happened there?

[CFR]

Maybe the pilot was Charlie Brown! The sequence started with an engine failure (maybe only partial) but the AC started to descend immediately. There was not a lot of time to make a decision as to where to land, but there seems to have been a number of better choices without the requirement for radical maneuvering. At least he didn't try and extend the glide and end up in a stall/spin to the ground.

[Beefitarian]

Ah, I did not realize the engine failed. I thought he was just way too low and continued descending because he needed to throttle up to increase power.

Time for some more dual I guess, because I have no idea where he was trying to glide to if he lost power.

[CFR]

Actually it looks like "straight ahead" (well slightly left) as taught would have been correct in this case.

[xsbank]

Looks like he was just along for the ride, not attempting any maneuvering, but he apparently walked away from it so...

[CFR]

Looks like he was just along for the ride, not attempting any maneuvering, but he apparently walked away from it so...

... GOOD JOB!!!!

[CpnCrunch]

If you're in a small plane with a low stall speed and low kinetic energy and you're wearing a harness, you can usually walk away from an encounter with trees as long as you don't stall it. When you do the same thing in a larger plane you're much less likely to walk away.

[CFR]

I read an interesting article on crashing which basically said the more noise you make (bang, bangitty, bang, bang, bang) while crashing is better than one big noise (BANG) with each bang bleeding off energy. The articles comment on trees was, as you suggest, mostly survivable unless your first hit is directly low down on a large trunk OR a secondary fall from high up in the canopy gets you. Having said that, I'm not certain that this particular tree landing was planned.

[looproll]

Love the title of this thread. That was a nice looking road near that gigantic tree.

[Redneck_pilot86]

I bet that nice looking road is where he initially tried to go, then realizing he wasn't going to make the road, he seemed to just quit trying.

[pelmet]

I guess it is a good example for those who advocate landing near straight ahead if possible. That road is very tempting. So wide and uncongested. Fortunately, most of us have not had to make that sudden decision but it shows that even a quick 90° turn is not necessarily as easy as it sounds. Obviously each situation is different and in this situation, there does appear to be a reasonable landing area almost straight ahead. But it is not as nice as that tempting road.

[Colonel Sanders]

Does anyone know how the tree is doing?

On the subject of hitting the One Big Tree right after takeoff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Croce#Death

On Thursday, September 20, 1973, during Croce's Life and Times tour and the day before his ABC single "I Got a Name" was released, Croce, Muehleisen, and four others were killed when the chartered Beechcraft E18S he was traveling in crashed while taking off ... the plane crashed on take off after clipping a pecan tree at the end of the runway. The plane failed to gain enough altitude to clear the tree and did not maneuver to avoid it, even though it was the only tree for hundreds of yards.

[Shiny Side Up]

Maybe its just me, but it doesn't sound like that engine was making very good power from the get go, that said, maybe it just doesn't make a lot of power to begin with what with that abortive exaust set up it seems to have. Either way, looks like the type of plane that every take off might result in the results, so one might really, really need to have a good EFATO plan, at least one better than steer for the biggest tree.

[Doc]

Three or four TC inspectors/employees were killed in southern Ontario many years ago when their Twin Otter hit a tree while practicing engine failures. Pretty sure JM and GP were two of them. Only tree in the field.

[single_swine_herder]

I recall that accident Doc ..... JM did a few of my rides when I was still on the Ontario region before I was able to escape that office having anything to do with my aviation career.

JM was one of those "old style, helpful good guy" Transport Canada Inspectors and the Toronto office lost a fellow who could actually pull the right strings to get something done for a person without it taking half a year to process the simplest of requests.

Oh, and staying on topic, it looked like an easy 20 degree heading change left would have put him into an open field with just a little bit of a sideslip. But, I wasn't there.

[Beefitarian]

The road he couldn't make it to, is it the one he flys over to hit the tree or a different one?

[Shiny Side Up]

The one he flies over I would assume, which it looks like he's attempting to turn to.

Some things that one notes after watching a second time.

1)He takes off a pretty long runway by the looks of it. I would guess in the range of 4000' or greater, but only makes about 3-400' agl by the time he passes the end, but looks like he's airborne within the first 1000'. Again either the airplane doesn't have good performance to begin with, or wasn't making full power during the take off and initial climb to begin with.

2) At about 2:40, airborne, one notices that from the pilot's eye view he's already fixating on making a right turn. He glances left only once. He's looking for that road already after being airborne, you get the sense that he feels that something ain't right, somewhat before the engine loses power. He waits to do something though, well after he has the ability to do so. Noticably though, he doesn't see the open green space to the left of the nose in the middle of the tennis racket shaped park area, about the same gliding distance as the tree.

[Sidebar]

Well, he gets some points ...

... for maintaining control and not stalling while trying to turn or stretch the glide.

[Taco Joe]

Noticably though, he doesn't see the open green space to the left of the nose in the middle of the tennis racket shaped park area, about the same gliding distance as the tree.

Reminds me of something I saw on Canada's Worst Driver (not to say this guy was Canada's Worst Pilot...or whatever country he's from) where the drivers had to do an avoidance maneuver left or right depending on which way was blocked. Some of them headed straight towards the blocked entrance and avoided the clear once, obviously because they were fixated on it. So maybe he saw the tree and fixated it on in the heat of the moment and subconsciencely headed towards it.

[Beefitarian]

The scetchy edits are messing with me still. I've watched it a bunch of times. I'd like to see any of the cameras footage uncut. I'm still not sure but it seems that thing is puttering and sputtering along as soon as it's taxiing. Even toward the end it's making sounds that should keep it level with more throttle.


Maybe that tree did a good thing stopping him and his broken glider. What if they hit one of those defenseless buildings?

I think I'm going to pretend he did everything perfect and that broken plane and mean old tree ganged up on him. Poor little fella.

[willow burner]

I thought maybe he just decided the plane belonged next to those old rusted backyard wrecks you see go by in one of the slo mo shots....

[Rookie50]

We don't know the airspeed, perhaps he was wary of a steep right turn to the road if too slow.

[CFR]

http://kdhnews.com/news/article_9d91ead ... l?mode=jqm

Ironically the pilot was a "Federal Aviation Administration airframe and powerplant mechanic"

Here's the type of aircraft - VW powered.

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