Originally Posted by
Flying Binghi
Of interest from the link you supplied we have this fatality of a 21,000 hour pilot:
"...Track data for the accident flight indicated that the airplane was flying between 300 and 600 feet above ground level (agl) when it encountered a wind farm with several 400-foot-tall wind turbines. The data showed that the airplane made a 90-degree course change, which was followed by a figure-8 turn at varying altitudes between 800 and 1,500 feet agl..."
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Re...ry&IType=LA%20.
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That report concludes
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:
The pilot's continued visual flight into an area of known instrument meteorological conditions in an airplane not equipped for instrument flight, and his failure to maintain control of the airplane while maneuvering at low altitude.
He was scud running in a vintage Cessna 140 that he had purchased that very day. It was not IFR equipped (I doubt many C140s would be). Sweet little aeroplane but not much in the performance or equipment stakes. Full fuel and one average size bloke and you would be pushing MTOW.
The conditions at the crash site were listed as "Instrument" with a cloud base between 400-600' AGL and under that vis 1.5 to 2.5 miles in mist (assuming statue miles so varying between ~2500-4000m). Wind speed 6 kts.
The towers were 400' AGL. It sure sounds like he was trying to avoid hitting the towers by climbing and lost visual reference - the base was 400-600' and he was tracked doing a lazy eight at between 800 and 1500'. Sounds like a classic loss of control in IMC.
Poor bastard. No matter how many hours he had, he was in deep pooh. Really sad but how many times has this happened - VFR aircraft entering cloud and soon after hitting the ground at high speed?
Which is my point - put 500' towers really near an airfield and you make the site more hazardous in poor vis/bad wx. I still am not convinced turbulence is the major issue (providing you stay a few hundred metres away) but like I said - happy to be shown wrong. Surely if it is an issue it we would have some concrete evidence by now? Most of the aviation studies on it date from more than 10 years ago and even then are vague.
The real issue (and where all the "empirical" evidence points - ie actual aircraft loss) seems to be the collision risk.