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Pilot avoids crashing
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Awesome 60seconds of high drama in the sky


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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [triguy101] [ In reply to ]
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He must have edited that video. I didn't hear the first "Oh Shit!"

He did well, it looked like he was seconds away from an unpleasant landing at best.
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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [triguy101] [ In reply to ]
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Looked like he was flying a Pitts Special. That guy was very cool. I was really surprised he got the motor started again. When you're getting pilot lessons, they constantly drill into you to be constantly on the lookout for a decent place to put the aircraft down if the engine suddenly quits. Way back in the day when I was working towards my single engine, land rating, my instructor would just randomly pull the throttle all the way back and tell me to land...

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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [triguy101] [ In reply to ]
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Is he trying to gain some airspeed to maybe restart the engine right after it fails? Was this staged and he could have restarted the engine anytime?

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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [rick_pcfl] [ In reply to ]
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I knew the outcome from the title of the thread and I still had a clinched stomach.

My old commute was 65 miles, straight up a north/south highway, which crossed lengthy stretches of open fields and farmland, with a handful of small airstrips that are used for crop dusters (not the crop duster variety like my 7 year old son). The roadside was littered with police cars and fire trucks and down to one lane as I approached one of the airstrips. As I slowed and glanced over, there was debris scattered all over the place, the ditch and part of the field charred, a FedEx trailer on the edge of the road with a big hole in the top. And a dead pilot was apparently there somewhere. I saw far too many "ghosts" on that dangerous stretch of the highway, growing used to seeing the aftermath of fatal accidents; fortunately don't have the commute anymore, but that was a scene that stuck with me.


rick_pcfl wrote:
He must have edited that video. I didn't hear the first "Oh Shit!"

He did well, it looked like he was seconds away from an unpleasant landing at best.
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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [len] [ In reply to ]
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len wrote:
Is he trying to gain some airspeed to maybe restart the engine right after it fails? Was this staged and he could have restarted the engine anytime?

No, I don’t think so. The prop doesn’t really windmill when he’s got the nose pointed seriously downhill. The view over the nose of a Pitts isn’t that great; my guess is he was looking for a place to land while trying to get the motor restarted, in addition to gaining some airspeed to avoid stalling while he tried to restart.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [len] [ In reply to ]
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len wrote:
Is he trying to gain some airspeed to maybe restart the engine right after it fails? Was this staged and he could have restarted the engine anytime?

Others with more hours than I have will probably disagree but it looked staged. He didn't wait to see if the engine was going to cut out again before he was in an aggressive banked climb..
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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [alltom1] [ In reply to ]
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alltom1 wrote:
len wrote:
Is he trying to gain some airspeed to maybe restart the engine right after it fails? Was this staged and he could have restarted the engine anytime?

Others with more hours than I have will probably disagree but it looked staged. He didn't wait to see if the engine was going to cut out again before he was in an aggressive banked climb..

Hmmm....not sure. That didn’t look too aggressive to me, and after rewatching, it looked like he was trying to gain altitude and turn downwind on the same road he was about to land on. I get your point though...why not just gently climb straight ahead to gain as much altitude as possible?

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [rick_pcfl] [ In reply to ]
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I had the exact same thought.

“Read the transcript.”
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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [len] [ In reply to ]
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len wrote:
Is he trying to gain some airspeed to maybe restart the engine right after it fails? Was this staged and he could have restarted the engine anytime?


Watch the video again and look at the bottom left, you can see glimpses of his hand doing things (choke or throttle?) , don't think it was staged
Last edited by: 50+: Mar 22, 18 17:59
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Re: Pilot avoids crashing [50+] [ In reply to ]
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unless this guy is certifiably insane, it's not staged. no one in their right mind shuts down a pitts for a stunt. they dont glide. then post it on youtube.

in a general aviation plane the very first thing you do when you lose an engine is pitch for best glide. he was vertical when it quit so his airspeed was deteriorating as it is, and since the engine quit after some time in the climb he was about of speed as it was. the first, immediate thing he did was drop the nose cuz like i said, those things dont glide and he wanted to get to best glide now. best glide in this single seat pitts, which is what i believe this is, is 110-115 kts. the top left instrument you can see is the altimeter, he topped out about 2500'. below it is his airspeed indicator, his needle was at the bottom of the gauge so he didn't have time to doddle lest he get into a stall, so then he loses altitude without gaining airspeed, which is a waste of energy and waste time, which is what you want in a crisis.

if you notice, even when the plane was pointed down the prop wasn't turning. the compression in some of those engines is so high you may or may have the prop windmill.

i'd bet the switch he flipped with his left hand was an elec fuel pump. there is a quick little checklist you run through with an engine failure. depending on the plane the list varies, but youre trying to remove any known possible broke components and use all avail emergency backups, then you try a restart. it's the most efficient way to spend your limited time.

this guy may have been in an aerobatic box that he's flown in hundreds of time and already knew before he took off that, in the case of an emergency, what a few of his options were. he seemed pretty decisive where he was going, which is exactly how it should be done. i think he did a great job.

a good article about best glide speeds.
http://www.rapp.org/...013/03/speed-to-fly/

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