Kitfox Crash

[Kitfox Guy]

This one is kind of hard to watch. The pilots comments are interesting. I'm glad he wasn't seriously hurt.

https://youtu.be/62TGrm9_Qtg

[Floog]

Disappointed. Check your post.

[Hockeystud87]

He was over shooting both his landings and was correcting at the last minute. Came in crooked and decided to plop it down anyways I guess. Then ground looped it and still taxied off? Dicey my friend....

"I was test flying the plane. I took off to the west because there are not trees or houses if I had engine failure. It was a new engine. Anyway I took off with a quartering tailwind fron the right rear about 20 mph. notice the long run and flat climb... There were several problems with the plane. The brakes were nil to inop, the airspeed needle would stick at 40 and the only way to make it work was unplug the pitot tube and then plug it back in... and the engine idle was way too high (3000) instead of 2200...anyway I came in to land and the first landing was long and not slowing down so I went around.... the second landing I was not lined up well at all. The wind blew me across the runway on down wind leg... but I tried to salvage the landing... Watch the GPS track speed. I had a 20 mph tail wind on landing and I just go to slow and it stalled about 10 ft in the air.. It had that crappy hatz spring gear which has 2" travel... I hit hard enough to bottom out the gear and bent the left gear leg and the wing spun me off the side of the runway thru a ditch....my go pro was clipped to my hat and my head hit the door adn the door opend and the camera lay in the grass.... I came back a while later looking for it....damaged the back fuselage, left gear leg adn left wing tip... had it fixed in a week. The brake pro blem is common to avids and kitfox, poor brake pedal geometry... I worked on that on my new fox and finally got the brakes to work just OK but enough to be usable...."

One of his comments. Also states he bent gear, wing and other stuff from the loop.

[Floog]

Hey,stud I really appreciate the elaboration on that YouTube clip. Go Pro fell off his head and out the door, plane seen leaving, WOW! I, too am glad he wasn't hurt and hopefully lessons learned. Thanks, from a guy whose been there and done (ground loop) that.

[Wheels]

Ok, me too, but it wasn't because I took off in a 20mph downwind, ... twice! and it wasn't a test flight in the aircrafts upper range of control, ... and it wasn't while wearing a Go Pro, and .... I didn't POST IT!!!

[jrthomas]

It's easy to be a critic pointing out other peoples mistakes. I've made my share. I'll bet we're all guilty of trying to save a bad landing. The 1st bad decision I see is an airplane with several problems that should have been repaired before ever thinking about flying it. Second, the weather conditions were not good for test flying an airplane that the pilot may not have been that familiar with and a freshly rebuilt engine he didn't feel comfortable with. But the worst decision was to take off and land with a 20 mph tailwind. That's a 40 mph difference in ground speed. He stated this plane stalled at 28 so if he had landed into the wind he would have touched down at a little more than a fast walk. Ok, it's a tie. The worst decision may have been trying to clean up that horrible approach. That approach would have been hard to salvage under the best weather conditions.

[aviator79]

The FAA is really stressing Aeronautical Decision Making and risk management. Sometimes I roll my eyes when teaching it, because it seems like a stupid number of acronyms to memorize for what equates to "use common sense". Then I see a video like this and I see why there's an emphasis. That said, I doubt this guy would have paused to consider the PAVE or IMSAFE checklists even if they had been drilled into him during primary training.

[Floog]

J U D G E M E N T D A Y. When you post it on you tube, expect critiques.

[rcbif]

Test flying a light sport airplane with mechanical and instrument problems on a day with 20mph winds...and taking off and landing downwind....hope he learned something and we dont hear about this guy on the news.

[THRC12]

Everything about that video is why we have ADM. That's about all I have to say about that. But I am not throwing a stone because it will bounce back and hit me in the head! 😁😉

[Floog]

What's A D M?

[Floog]

Never mind. I see it downstream in Brian's post. Too many acronyms.

[Paul Z]

How do you edit in the airspeed, altimeter, course track etc?

Paul