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Old 15th Jul 2007, 21:52
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Fuji Abound
 
Join Date: May 2001
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I have read the report and most of the comments on this thread.

I am unable to express the sadness I feel that the young man should have lost his life in this accident.

I was interested to read that the investigators tested a similiar aircraft.

"As is stalled the example aircraft rolled quickly to the left adopting a bank angle of 60 degress within one second, simultaneously the nose dropped approx. 45 degrees below the horizon and a high rate of descent developed .. .. .." They go on to discuss the recovery.

Some training aircraft are benign in the stall. They mush down and must be really forced into dropping a wing.

This aircraft did not fall into that category.

The events before may have contributed to the reasons why the pilot stalled the aircraft, but the accident did not become unavoidable until the pilot found he did not have the skills to recover.

Given the characteristics of this aircraft, I wonder whether in the training enviroment more time needs to be spent on stalls and recovery in this type than in other types. Recovering from a pronounced wing drop at this point in your training has to be completely automatic. It is surprising when you do aeros with pilots who havent flown them before how poor their recovery skills from a wing drop and incipient spin are, and yet they will do just fine in anything benign that nods a nose down and dips a wing gently - and they may have several hundred hours or more.

I appreciate the aircraft would seem to have been at only around 300 feet when it stalled so recovery would always have been a challenge. However another pilot on another day might find himself with more height on his side and yet still not have the skills to recover.
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