Grob Aerospace Chief Testpilot dead

[tecpilot]

Bad message,
today the 45 years old chief testpilot of Grob Aerospace died in the wreckage of the new Grob SPn Executive Jet.
The prototype of the 6 seater "Special Performance; Superior Payload and Single Pilot ability" jet chrashed short after take-off in Thussenhausen/Germany. At the moment no further informations available. The a/c is completely destroyed.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Grob_Aircraft_SPn_D-CSPN.jpg/180px-Grob_Aircraft_SPn_D-CSPN.jpg

http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/cms_media/module_bi/108729130_gross.jpg

[HOSS 1]

Any news of other crew members? They normally fly with a FTE.

Prayers to all involved.

[tecpilot]

Chief test pilot Gerard Guillaumaud was the sole occupant aboard the aircraft. Guillaumaud was a former French air force pilot and a graduate of the National Test Pilot School. Gerard was demonstrating the aircraft’s flight performance to a group of invited company guests on the ground.

[idle stop]

Gerard was possibly the expert in Europe on Diesel engines for light aircraft, having worked on various projects, including the Diamond aircraft family.
He was a regular attendee at the SETP European Symposia of the past few years.
Condolences to his loved ones.
RIP.

[flight test]

What happened? I had the pleasure to work with Gerard on a new aircraft project. I know him as an excellent TP.
I guess something must have really gone wrong, without leaving him a chance to handle the situation in time.

Is there any information - eye witnesses - videos - pictures - that might help to analyse what happened?

I will really miss him -

[chevvron]

Is that a parachute in the foreground? Anti - spin I wonder? Must be a reason it's deployed.

[Machdiamond]

http://www.machdiamonds.com/GG.jpg

[flight test]

Time to say good bye:


Monday December 4th, 15:00 hrs

Grob Aerospace

Mattsies-Tussenhausen

[F-BCXD]

Hello flying friends,
We are organizing Gerard's funerals in Lyon next thursday.

I'am still looking for former military colleagues of his, as we were very close friends on the civilian side. If you know of anybody who should know the following, please forward:

Thursday december 7 at 11.00 am a service will be held at Ste Foy Les Lyons church. Then, we'll go to the cemetery.

At 2 pm, we organize a gathering of pilots and friends. It should be either at the Lyon Corbas airfield where Gerard learnt glider flying or at Villefranche sur Saone airport, depending on available rooms.

Nearest airport is Lyon Bron for private aircrafts if ceremony takes place in Corbas (restricted airfield) or directly on Villefranche airport (30 minutes taxi ride to the church) and St Exupery for commercial flights.
TGV railway station of choice is Perrache.

I'am still looking for pictures of Gerard and airplanes he flew to enrich a slideshow which should be shown during the event : if you have any, please forward to [email protected]

I just spent 3 days at Grob with Gerard's friend Heidi and his family, and I must underline the real care the company is providing around everybody. No wonder, aside the fantastic SPn program, that Gerard loved to work there.

All the best
Pierre

[F-BCXD]

Flying friends,

Regarding the causes of the crash, I saw enough at GROB this week end to be convinced of several points.
I won't leak anything here as the official inquiry will go on, but suffice to say that Gerard could not do anything, is not responsable for what happened and from incident to crash, I assume that less than 3 seconds elapsed.
Gerard impacted at around 300kts in a dive from 300/500 ft after the standard turn back to the airfield for hi speed pass. He had done this demo dozen of times and was always using same accurate pattern.
He was very right not to overfly any village...
Best regards,
Pierre

[barit1]

Grob Aerospace statement (http://www.grob-aerospace.net/index.php?id=69&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=69&tx_ttnews[backPid]=96&cHash=39af222b16) (in German and English)
:sad:

[feartofly]

Sounds ominus. A structural problem??

[F-BCXD]

Most useful parts found. Not with main wreckage.

[tecpilot]

I believe at the moment we should not speculate about the accident reasons.
Gerards death is a great loss. That's the most important point today.

[F-BCXD]

you are right. Excuse my overreaction due to a comment about weather on another forum.

[F-BCXD]

Gerard's funerals will be held tomorrow at 11.00 at Ste Foy Les Lyons church.
We'll then meet at Villefranche Tarare airfield at 2.00pm
Regards,
Pierre

[John Farley]

Judging by what Flight has to say about the separation of the elevators and
one side of the stabiliser I am reminded of Theodore von Karman's words

"Some fear flutter because they do not understand it, others because they do."

[recceguy]

I remembered many years ago flying with Gerard in FAF squadrons...
He reached the end of his path in a job he loved, and for which he had committed himself a lot (NTPS and so)
He will be living in his former colleagues memories, and I wish he is peacefully watching all of us from above.

[Genghis the Engineer]

It was announced today at the SETP European Symposium in Linkoping that an award is being funded by Grob Aerospace, in honour of Gerard Guillaumaud, and with the blessing of the SETP. It will be awarded annually at the European flight test symposium (the first of which will be this October in London, I'll post details in another thread) for the paper which makes the best contribution to flight test safety.


There was also a presentation (partly given by his fiance, Heidi) about the impressive life and achievements of Gerard, and about the accident. The basic facts are that the aircraft, which was a low-hours system test/demonstrator vehicle, broke up at about 250 knots during the start of a flypast. It appears to have been within Vmo, there was no evidence of manufacturing flaws or foreign object impact, and all flight data was unfortunately destroyed in the accident. Whilst they are continuing to investigate, it is likely that the cause of the accident may never be known.

G

[John Farley]

Whilst they are continuing to investigate, it is likely that the cause of the accident may never be known.

Interesting - and not entirely in line with the company statement last December.

[biropilot]

A highly respectd man and a highly respected company. Let the crash report, which should be due out soon to tell the story. Having some intmate knowledge most of what is stated here, especially so called speeds is guess work! I see they now have # 3 flying.

[Kit d'Rection KG]

G wrote:

Whilst they are continuing to investigate, it is likely that the cause of the accident may never be known :sad:

If true, the absence of sufficient, appropriate, adequately crash-protected instrumenting and recording systems on such an aircraft is tantamount to criminal. :cool:

Or maybe this was just an ill-informed piece of guesswork? :=

Fundamentally, though, for Grob...

...I wonder how the order book is looking? :rolleyes:

I must add that those who conduct genuine experimental test flying in innovative commercial aircraft designs command my respect; it's a task I would never perceive as worth the risk.

[alawless]

The formal accident report has been out since the 1 year anniversary of Gerard's death and I concur with their basic findings. The accident aircraft had already been to Vmo with no sign of flutter. Gerard performed the demo routine many times on the 1st prototype G180 and once before in the 2nd prototype which crashed during its second demo. A spotter on the hangar roof saw nothing unusual during the initial run-in for the low pass. He looked away for a couple seconds and the fireball caught his eye. Both elevators hit the ground about 400 meters prior to the main impact zone. At the airpseed and low altitude he was flying, Gerard has about 3 seconds and no chance. The parachute in the photo was Gerard's personal chute that deployed during the ground impact.

None of the flight test data was recoverable and there was no telemetry recording as it was not a test flight. Radar tracking data was very limited and only showed that Gerard was more or less executing the usual downwind leg setting up his first low pass. Because no data exists showing the airspeed at the time of the flutter, there is no way to definitively state that Gerard did or didn't exceed the approved airspeed limit of Vmo. Considering the pad that should have been built into the approved limit and Gerard's skill, it is extremely unlikely that Gerard so grossly exceeded the limits as to be the primary cause of the accident. Considering however that the airplane had previously flown at Vmo with no hint of trouble, it is POSSIBLE that he exceeded Vmo by just a little whereupon the aircraft "went off a cliff."

The cause was clearly flutter but the aircraft structure was unique and of course lost, so the exact flutter mechanism will never be known. From a technical standpoint, the other aircraft are safe because the structures are different and most importantly, because Grob later greatly expanded its capability for flutter modelling & investigation.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Al,

Firstly, thanks very much for that clear and informed posting.

Secondly, welcome to Pprune, since I see that's your first post. I hope that you'll stick around since I'm sure that many of us would appreciate your views being added to some of the discussions, particularly here within the Flight Test pages.

G

[HOSS 1]

The formal accident report is released? I would assume it is a public document if it is a government authority. Any links?

[theavionicsbloke]

Further Bad News for Grob

Quote: "08/19/08 - Message from Niall Olver, CEO Grob Aerospace
Effective 18 August 2008, Grob Aerospace GmbH in Germany has been forced to file for insolvency.
This unfortunate situation has arisen as a consequence of recent delays in the spn program, resulting in the increased requirement for cash to see the program through to certification. Under the circumstances, our current loan provider has elected to discontinue their support."


Grob Aerospace: Message from Niall Olver, CEO Grob Aerospace (http://www.grob-aerospace.net/news/newsdetails/article/message-from-niall-olver-ceo-grob-aerospace.html)

Good luck guys in recovering this situation.
Keep on fighting ...for Gerards sake at least...