Smyth Sidewinder crash..fuel valve to blame !

[First time Juke]

Young lady from my town dies in a crash in New Zealand !

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3879446a11,00.html

She just graduated as a math teacher. Plane had done an emergengy landing on the beach the day before.

Here is the Smyth Sidewinder: http://home.clara.net/acf/scale/scal...yth/smyth.html

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Smyth Sidewinder crash..fuel valve to blame !

fuel valve to blame !

Read the news report.. sad...

As a somewhat "savvy" passenger, I'm always relieved when my pilot is through to the point of being anal!

When I flew with Tom Dwelle down in Vegas a year ago, I think his preflight lasted hours to be honest. Then once everything was checked on the outside, he went through EVERYTHING he was seeing/doing verbally on the intercom while doing it..

Spoke out loud, every move he made, every thing he saw. Mag drop... etc etc etc.....

I think someone once said "it's the little things that will get you"...

Fuel valves don't set themselves in half off position.. maybe it happened during the impact.. maybe it was something totally out of the pilot's control...

It's always very sad when folks are hurt doing things they love...

When we do extraordinary things, extraordinary care can go a long way...

Wayne

[Leo]

Re: Smyth Sidewinder crash..fuel valve to blame !

I agree with you Wayne.
Back in the day, I would fly with ANYONE just to fly. Had a few exciting rides I realized much later were just pure luck. Some were with pilots that I know should have known better than to do the things we did. Several of the people I flew with are no longer with us.
Now I'm like you. I watch, and if I'm not completely at ease I don't go.

[First time Juke]

Re: Smyth Sidewinder crash..fuel valve to blame !

I agree with you Wayne.
Back in the day, I would fly with ANYONE just to fly. Had a few exciting rides I realized much later were just pure luck. Some were with pilots that I know should have known better than to do the things we did. Several of the people I flew with are no longer with us.
Now I'm like you. I watch, and if I'm not completely at ease I don't go.

I once hopped onboard an ultralite when the owner pilot went to test if his equipments were a ok after a repair. It was a pusher type with a Rotax behind.

First at take off the windscreen got all icy and we had zero visibility forward...secondly the speedometer that he fixed broke. So we had no indication of the airspeed..except the wind sounds.

After a 360 we landed safely. There was no feeling of danger, but it was unpleasant to fly.

Sometime after that I was about be next one to go with a sailplane that had an engine on it ( motorsailplane ? ) Taifun called...unfortunately the folks who flew before me ditched the plane to a march when engine quit after taking off from a forest field. They were little shooked up but made a lucky landing. Cannot recall why their engine quit..run outa gas..valve bad..or something. Wait a minute..the owner had done his own couplings in the electrical system that failed..IRC.

**** may happen if not careful.