Seaplane down in China

[180]

He was clearly on the step and on the move if you watch the video shot from a distance. What you're seeing in that close up clip appears to be a pilot trying to yank a float plane off the water by pulling up, which experienced guys know not to do. Trying to yank a floatplane off the water simply digs the heels of the floats into the water and actually slows the aircraft down. Pitching forward a little bit, keeping it on the sweet spot on the floats is the proper technique. And like I mentioned before, while keeping it on the sweet spot, apply full aieleron and lift one float off first. Then you will know exactly when you're going to fly.

A 30,000 hour captain...I'd be interested to know how many hours he had on floats?

RIP

[SuperchargedRS]

I'm assuming this wasn't an expat crew?

"The plane’s captain Zhang Fuquan had a surgery on his right leg but his condition remains serious, said Shen Jie, a doctor at Jinshan Hospital. Zhang remains in intensive care unit."

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/metro/soci ... aily.shtml

Ahh

If he declares his "hours" are anything like how china does with many other things, currency in particular, I wonder how many hours (like we count them) he really had.

[porcsord]

Well it might be 30,000 hours in a Triple Seven and it's not going to do you a lick of good on floats.

Okay.... maybe a little good... but not nearly as much as a few hundred on floats...

As to the 20 degree thing, the only airplane I have ever flown that wouldn't turn prior to being on the step was a Garret baby caravan, but even that would hold a perfectly straight line on the take off run... you just had to be on the step to turn to the left (results may very with a 20kt direct cross wind). For comparison though:

Grand Caravan EX 876SHP, which has a maximum torque of 2230ft/lbs

Texas Turbine Super Van 900SHP, which has a maximum of 2971ft/lbs

The Grand is longer with less torque on better floats. Trust me after flying both, that 20 degree of center starts are not required on the EX. Mind you, I've never flown the stock baby van on floats, Just the EX and the Super.

[floatman]

Grand Caravan EX 876SHP, which has a maximum torque of 2230ft/lbs

C208 EX Max Torque is 2397 ft/lbs

The rudder on the EX Amphib is plenty for directional control. Running out of leg (poorly positioned Captain's seat) would be my best guess as to why this "unexpected" left turn happened.

The sad and truly tragic part is that it was unexpected which speaks to the company's experience on floats in general. Should never have happened but it was just a matter of time with all of the international start ups in motion.

Too much pride in these country's homegrown pilot's ability to conquer the lowly SE floatplane. Just a wee Cessna, a toy to the hallowed 777 driver with 10,000,000 hours of experience. Tell that to the insurance company.

[PilotDAR]

Yes, after watching the longer video, I agree he was on the step. That said, he was effectively pulling it back off the step trying to force it off the water, so the effect was about the same. Using time as a reference, that was much too short a distance to attempt a takeoff anyway - few floatplanes can clear a substaial obstacle ten seconds after power application. Putting the power up with the intent of takeoff there was silly, not pulling the power off very soon after was just plain horrible lack of judgement/awareness.

[phillyfan]

Shoulda bought a Turbo Otter.

[Its What I do]

should have learned to fly it . probably would have crashed the otter tooooooo....

[SuperchargedRS]

Shoulda bought a Turbo Otter.

The silly Chinese would never buy such a "old" aircraft, "old" = unsafe.

Yet a brand spanking new 208 with a guy at the yoke who probably can't even parallel park without sharing paint, that's way safer!


Personally I'd never board a Chinese aircraft with a Chinese crew, maybe that makes me a bad guy, but at least I'll be the bad guy who's not picking concrete out of my teeth.

[crazyaviator]

And like I mentioned before, while keeping it on the sweet spot, apply full aieleron and lift one float off first.

Few floaters can do this with any level of dexterity, mostly the procedure ends up sloppy, a little dangerous and never leads to any improvement in TO distance!! A couple secs. of single float ( with the lifted float NOT too high,) followed by a levelling, combined with pull back to "kicK' the A/C into the air with the rear of the floats acting as a pivot, simultaneously applying copious flaps until airborne, then bleeding off in ground effect does the trick!! ( DISCLAIMER---not for all A/C ) Those who would disagree don't know what the F___ they are talking about!!

[geodoc]

Been asking around, but still can't get an informed answer re: local or expat pilot.

Shoulda bought a Turbo Otter.

The silly Chinese would never buy such a "old" aircraft, "old" = unsafe.

Yet a brand spanking new 208 with a guy at the yoke who probably can't even parallel park without sharing paint, that's way safer!


Personally I'd never board a Chinese aircraft with a Chinese crew, maybe that makes me a bad guy, but at least I'll be the bad guy who's not picking concrete out of my teeth.

['97 Tercel]

Well someone mentioned earlier the pilot's name is Zhang Fuquan

[geodoc]

And that article added that he was 24. Then there are a couple other articles that say the pilot was 63 with 30,000 hr. Maybe Zhang was the copilot and the 63 YO guy was pilot? Don't see any newer info searching the news out there.

Well someone mentioned earlier the pilot's name is Zhang Fuquan

[floatman]

And like I mentioned before, while keeping it on the sweet spot, apply full aieleron and lift one float off first.

Few floaters can do this with any level of dexterity, mostly the procedure ends up sloppy, a little dangerous and never leads to any improvement in TO distance!! A couple secs. of single float ( with the lifted float NOT too high,) followed by a levelling, combined with pull back to "kicK' the A/C into the air with the rear of the floats acting as a pivot, simultaneously applying copious flaps until airborne, then bleeding off in ground effect does the trick!! ( DISCLAIMER---not for all A/C ) Those who would disagree don't know what the F___ they are talking about!!

Say again… you're coming in stupid.

[180]

I never said rolling a float improves take off distance.

What I said is rolling a float takes the guess work out of "when will this bloody thing fly?"

When one float lifts, you know you will be flying within the next few seconds.

Yes, it takes some skill and correct rudder, aileron and elevator inputs, but if done correctly, it's no big deal.

If you're light, have a good breeze on the nose, or tons of water in front of you, then don't bother. But in tight spots, high altitude lakes, or if you have tall obstacles on your departure path, then the roll a float technique isn't just invaluable, it might just save your life, or like one poster pointed out so eloquently, it might save you from picking concrete out from in between your teeth.

I'd suggest you practice the technique solo, so you can get the hang of it before doing it fully loaded in a critical situation.

[CID]

Yes the cultural background is important. You need a Canadian pilot to be perfectly safe. That's because we have a an awesome system and real Canadian blood in our veins!

http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 8&t=109868
http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 8&t=109895
http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 8&t=109975
http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 8&t=109916
http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 8&t=108286
http://globalnews.ca/news/1333790/fatal ... -tsb-says/

Nobody does anything stupid here!

[floatman]

Yes the cultural background is important. You need a Canadian pilot to be perfectly safe…...
Nobody does anything stupid here!

I don't recall anyone saying that without a CDN pilot at the controls, this or any other flight is doomed.

The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of highly experienced, international float pilots are Canadian.

The fact that this particular Captain was not Canadian is not the cause of the accident, rather the apparent lack of appropriate experience seems to be.

A fully loaded C208 EX Amphib is not a toy and can be a handful, yet a lot of highly experienced professional aviators tend to consider it a piece of cake to operate. This is the tragic result of that line of thinking.

I'm not sure how that guy ever got insured to sit in the left seat. Maybe time will tell and the facts will come out. Maybe not.

[SuperchargedRS]

I'd wager because the government wanted a Chinese to be piloting this thing on its maden PR flight.


Insurance companies are just like casinos, they'll take any bet as long as the $$ is there.

[PilotDAR]

The more I fly off the water, the more I realize how lucky I was to have the minimum skills to get me through the early years, and hopefully continue to grow skills to handle the challenges I accept. Simple fear plays a part in this, and reaction to that fear probably keeps me more safe. I could never afford the cost of an accident, and valued safety, and wholeness of airplane too much to take risks. I still can't afford the cost of an accident, and value wholeness of airplane more (as it's mine, and now I'll have to fix it), but I also have the fear that if I bugger it up, you lot here will be writing pages about my poor decision.

I have worked in China, and flown as a part of a Chinese crew. I have witnessed what appeared to me to be a different philosophy toward flying. Much more mechanical: Pilot does this, airplane will do that. Find a curriculum, and train the pilot, once done, that pilot is ready for anything, and will not require assistance, help or mentoring. I simply do not agree with that. No matter how well trained you are, or how experienced, you can always learn something, and it might simply be that you rethink what you were about to do. Solo refresher training, so to speak. But that is based upon experience.

Perhaps this Caravan pilot had not had the opportunity to "learn" on his own. A few dozen circuits in that environment, just to get used to the feel of the place, and the landmarks. A few close calls to remind himself that there are variables, and you'd better allow for them. In my opinion, that was not a crash on the "nearly could have made it" side of things, it was not even close. That takeoff should have been an abort 5 seconds earlier, even after the mistake of even attempting it.

My fear is that culturally, most of the people associated with that accident will move on, without really learning anything which would be applied to making things better for the future. Insurance companies will pay out, but it will happen again. Enough money, and cultural business courtesy (pressure) will be applied, that another pilot will be insured to do this in the future. I opine that perhaps the insurer did not have/apply the resource to understand the skills verses risks in insuring this operation with that crew.

We in Canada (float flying blood in our veins and all) won't learn much from this accident - we could see it coming from the beginning - I just could not believe I was watching it! My concern is that the highly trained, low experience, have not learned to actually fear, white shirt & epaulets pilots are not seen by management as not yet having what it takes. The boss says go fly, the pilot says okay, it must be good to do, I've been told to do it! Many times in the past, the boss sent me in the floatplane to fly a run, but very often with specific task aware words of advice or caution. the difference was my boss(s) were very experienced floatplane pilots themselves. Probably, this Chinese operation lacked a boss who had done this themselves a thousand times....

[CID]

No matter what, when you bring "culture" in the ethnic sense, not the company or safety sense, into the discussion, all sorts of prejudices arise. Along with arguments full of logical fallacies. In many cases it's just a case of miscommunication or lack of translation skills. Ultimately, these arguments try to apply those fallacies to persons who "look" like they belong to a different culture and not someone who is immersed in it.

What seems to be implied here has that Canadian float pilots have better skills than Chinese float pilots simply because of differences in culture. PilotDar points out a "culture" where operation is structured. No room for what we often refer to as common sense to help improve things. I don't want to put words in your mouth PilotDAR, that's just my perception.

Meanwhile in Canada, the largest concentration of float/amphibious flying (arguably) is on the west coast. A region that is plagued with wrecks caused by bad decisions. Accident rates well above rates in other segments and even other countries. Those free thinking pilots seem to think nothing of taking off and entering IMC in a Goose or a Beaver. As long as they have their trusty Garmin 295! OK...way too generalist but TCCA officially acknowledged there is a problem and it's easy to find an examples of very bad, even stupid mistakes made by Canadian seaplane pilots that cause an over representation of float operators in accident statistics. I don't want to create the impression that I think EVERY Canadian float pilot is inept.

So what would induce a Chinese operator to draw float/amphibious pilots from a country that has such a dismal record in that sector? Is it because we're so good at it or is it because we'll be willing to take bigger risks or is it because there a so many seaplane pilots in Canada that you might just get a good one if you look hard?

Culture is for petri dishes.

[trey kule]

I'd suggest you practice the technique solo, so you can get the hang of it before doing it fully loaded in a critical situation.

I'd suggest you take some time to learn how to make proper decisions so you do not need to use this technique. If you have gotten yourself in a critical situation, your decision making sucks. This is the kind of thinking that results in the accident here...I can save it instead of aborting with some super technique.

One of the most difficult things in training float pilots is having them understand when to use certain techniques.
They seem to always find circumstances where they are needed or just like to practice them solo to add them to their bag of tricks.
of course when things go wrong occassionaly and they are faced with the what were you thinking question, they rationalize it every which way they can.

I have to agree with you CID. Some of the comments about China posted here would be laughable except I think maybe the posters actually believe what they are posting.

[180]

I'd suggest you take some time to learn how to make proper decisions so you do not need to use this technique. If you have gotten yourself in a critical situation, your decision making sucks. This is the kind of thinking that results in the accident here...I can save it instead of aborting with some super technique.

I roll a float all the time, not just in "critical" locations or situations. There is nothing crazy or reckless or super human about the technique.

Some guy ripping around the corner at Brockton Oval who's not expecting to see an Otter taking off towards the shoal marker, or an ugly line of swell rolling towards you that wasn't apparent when you began your slide, or a 40 foot chunk of old growth deadhead suddenly looming in your not so distant future are just a few examples of where knowing exactly when you will become airborne comes in very handy indeed.

My float is lifting, nice, I will be flying in the next hundred feet. Great. Or, my float is still heavy on the water, I won't be flying anytime soon and I won't be clearing whatever is looming in front of me, good thing to know, max reverse, push the nose forward, full stop within a hundred feet or so, no damage done, no harm, not foul, it's all good.

I'm as safety conscious as they get and I can assure you, my decision making does not "suck".

[Meddler]

Well said. Also there are floatplanes that will not fly at anywhere near gross weight without rolling a float. So better learn it and get proficient before graduating from the empty trainers.

[porcsord]

Also there are floatplanes that will not fly at anywhere near gross weight without rolling a float.

Really?

[PilotDAR]

there are floatplanes that will not fly at anywhere near gross weight without rolling a float.

The rolling the float out trick works well, and I think should be a required skill. I do it commonly. However, an aircraft will not be certified on floats at a weight so great that with normal pilot skill, it cannot be flown right off the water on both. Though I have not flown a Caravan floatplane in passenger commercial service, I can imagine the operator discouraging rolling and yawing the plane on the water, and alarming the fare paying pax in the back.

[floatman]

If you have gotten yourself in a critical situation, your decision making sucks. This is the kind of thinking that results in the accident here...

A bit harsh IMO.