Originally Posted by
heretolearn
Wetcompass - Genuine question. Are you a troll? I cant imagine anyone being so wrong so often other than on purpose?
Originally Posted by WetCompass
Yeah, nah.
How does the pilot sitting in the command seat assess the damage to the wing-spar, or tail section? Do you recall the Embry-Riddle Uni PA-28R that lost a wing during circuits? That flight had an examiner on board, he couldn't tell a fatigue crack was about to break. Why do we attribute super-human abilities of x-ray vision to pilots?
Fact of the matter is, the PIC of DQJ was concerned about something, but never actually stated the nature of his concern on the radio apart from mentioning something late in the flight about the runway needing inspection after landing. The wing had struck another aeroplane and the extent of the damage to the airframe was unknown at the time. There was a suitable airport available that did not require overflying built up areas for a landing and it was not offered up as an alternative by ATC and we don't know yet if it was considered by the crew. But there was mention of Moorabbin by ATC. Why? Well, we'll find out. But for now, not a criticism of the aircrew or ATC, but could we do better if it was us? Well I think so, but we need to think about it clearly on the ground before we embark on our next flight.
The ERAU accident involved a competent and professional FAA DPER, John Azma, who I knew well,, from Orlando Executive. The failure he had was not foreseeable by the crew and was not survivable, shades of a certain Macchi loss of Willie many years ago. I had a sister ship tot eh one that was lost, but was far fewer hours and cycles, and we grounded my one from testing subject to detailed inspection. Losing a wing is a permanent mess to your day.
As far as who calls what, when the exhaust system fell off Glenn Todd and Kell Aldridge's aircraft and took out my propeller and silenced Pete Nalder for most of the rest of the flight, trimming his nose somewhat, I seem to recall that I put out the mayday for both aircraft, and funny enough, no one actually complained about that at the time or subsequently. Years later, sitting around Dave Stevensons hangar at Corona ("Dave crashes better than anyone I know...") 3 of us in the hangar had lost props in flight, and not one of us was complaining about the mayday calls that we had made.
The Mayday call gets a bit of peace on the line, and gets some attention to what the guys are going to come up with next, is is supposed to.
As far as controllability checks go, they were -1 and NATOPS standard procedures, seeing is nice but the plane will talk to the driver and suggest a course of action if they have the sense to listen and apply simple "CDF" to the matter at hand.