Originally Posted by
meleagertoo
That company seems to have a grim record - using banners too big for the tug to pull safely perhaps? Even ATC were concerned enough about his RofC to ask if he was OK.
From moment one in that clip it was obvious what the nature of the upcoming accident would be, ridiculous angle of attack and the aircraft wallowing excessively. It may well have been turbulent, but that a-of-a was crazy. Poor guy.
Fully concur with Juan Browne's observations re inexperienced pilots hours building like that, and the wrongness of the 1500hr minimum.
edit. Fascinating link here discussing the technical aspects of banner towing - I had no idea it was so hazardous - or that this ridiculous permanently almost in the stall at full power activity was going on at ultra low level over a densley populated city! I'd naturally assumed this was just off the beach. What is the FAA doing, allowing single engined airrcraft to stooge around over cities at Vst+5 and a few hundred feet where it's unsafe to pickle the banner? It's utter madness!
Poor kid was only 15hrs on type too.
https://youtu.be/d3Jkd3ce5lo
I did some banner towing although, never the big banners(just the letters). Engine would run hot as it was high power at low airspeed. Single handed takeoff as I was holding the grappling hook in my left hand out the window, to be let go once airborne.
One would think that the company would use the 260 hp Pawnee instead of 235hp.
Interesting that the pilot had just been checked out on the aircraft. That is exactly what I was wondering when it came to nose slope-down with a low time guy on an aircraft with an abnormal sight picture. I got in a heated discussion on a thread once about the importance of monitoring airspeed. Others insisted that pitch attitude was good enough. Well, different aircraft can have different sight pictures.
By the way, flap extension on the Pawnee will not help as they are strictly drag on this aircraft and not to be used for takeoff.
As for needing 1500 hours to pilot an airliner......I kind of like that idea from a pax point of view. This guy could have taken action long before but did not. No need for that to happen on an airliner. Let my airline pilots be 1500 hour guys that have had a few more scares and survived with lessons learned . Maybe the solution would be that one should have a minimum number of hours to do more risky flying rather than stuffing newbies in an airliner as the potential solution to this kind of accident.