Cessna 162 Skycatcher Crashes
 

This will be interesting!


Cessna Skycatcher
BUTLER COUNTY, Kansas, September 18, 2008 � A small plane has crashed in Butler Co.

Witnesses say they saw a man parachute from the experimental plane just east of Douglas, KS around 11:30 Thursday morning.
The man is expected to be OK.
The plane is the new Cessna Skycatcher, which is yet to be released.
KSN has a crew headed to the scene and will have updates as soon as they are available.



http://www.avweb.com/newspics/cessna..._in-flight.jpgFederal investigators are on their way to Douglass, Kansas to investigate the crash of a Cessna Skycatcher LSA prototype Thursday. The pilot of the test aircraft was able to parachute to safety and was reportedly taken to hospital with minor injuries.


Cessna media relations personnel were unable to immediately respond to AVweb's request for more detailed information, but KAKE Television is reporting the aircraft crashed into a treeline near the boundary of Butler and Cowley Counties. The television station is quoting witnesses as saying they heard a loud pop and then saw sparks and the plane spiraling down. The pilot landed in a field about 400 yards from the aircraft. The TV station quoted a Cessna spokesman as saying the crash aircraft had about 150 hours on it.


The prototype first flew on March 8, and Cessna is planning on delivering the first customer aircraft in the first half of 2009. What the crash does to that schedule is unclear. There are close to 1,000 orders for the aircraft, which will be built in China and reassembled in three plants in the U.S.

Is it too early in the program to claim "Typical Chinese ****!"

PF :D

I think this one will have been typical Yanky Sh!t. :}

J:ok:

who in their right mind would want to manuafacture a plane? especially a new type in this some times crazy litigatious (chk spelling)world & with the likes pf us PPRUNE'ers ready to shoot 'em down if they don't fall down themselves in the first place!
What engine powers this new bird?


CW

Have to put that in my engine failure checklist.

" If engine pops and backfires, evacuate aircraft "

:E

Ok tnxs 'sle' for that link, I guess I could have searched myself but there's always someone in here that's up to date with all the lattest:ok:

The old O200, leart fly behind one of those reliable old donks!

Will be interested to see why the pilot jumped ship, sounds like the balistic chute option ought not to be just that, an option!:E


CW

could have been the oxygen bottle popping its cork :} but I'm not going to speculate.....

Quote: "could have been the oxygen bottle popping its cork but I'm not going to speculate....."

Uh oh - another opening for a Qantas maintenance connection.

Cessna GroundCatcher
 

There is talk elsewhere that it was up to spin testing in the test schedule. Not the first one to be lost. Even GA lost an Airvan in testing.

Might have been in the student pilot mishandling stage of the test program.
Being a chinese aircraft, I think the procedure is to let go and close your eyes (so i am told by many instructors from CSFC) could be the American pilot lost something in the translation and bailed instead of closing eyes. :E:}

Sounds like he did "let go" of the whole aircraft, and probably closed his eyes on the ride down.:D

Ummmmmm er that's why Cessna and other manufacturers have a seriously testing test program. That's right,, to find out what the aircraft will do to those idiot punters who will one day buy it and, as they do, push the envelope, get hurt and then sue them.
So why are we surprised that in the search for an idiot proof aircraft they don't lose one or two.:sad:

Kudos to the test pilots of new aircraft I say! They have bigger you-know-whats than me thats for sure! I wouldn't like to go to work every day not knowing what the f:mad: the aircraft is going to do in some circumstances- and having to purposely push it there until it breaks away!!

I know they have extensive computer modelling these days but imagine what it would have been like in the paper-era!

The Airvan was going beyond what they needed for normal category. I wonder if the Cessna was also - it'd be more useful if it was approved for intentional spinning.
I've seen a number of aircraft go through a development program and end up with a bigger fin (inc ventrals etc) and/or rudder. The 150 got a bigger rudder at one stage too. Any bets on whether the 162 will get a bigger rudder?

Cessna have lost a number of aircraft and pilots during the test flying stage. In the book Cessna Wings of the World, the author was a test pilot for Cessna and he talks about the loss of a Cessna C340 and the pilot.
Didn't Cessna lose a C441 during certification or just after certification with a tailplane failure. That resulted in the C441 being grounded for a while after the FAA pulled its certification.

If anyone ever does manage to build one, it will not be long before nature makes a better idiot...

Interesting post Gaunty, reads like you think that they would expect to lose one which would surely not be the intention given the bad publicity and if it was being tested for spinning, it would normally have a spin-chute fitted.

Interesting the test pilot was 70 years old. Old and bold.


It would be interesting if the pilot of the Airvan that was lost could post on here to tell us what happened. The story that I heard was that CASA supposedly made them limit control movements, so much so, that exiting a spin became difficult.

HD, can you post something for us, we might learn something?

Doesn't seem to be on the web anymore but there was an article (read sales pitch for the testing mob) about the airvan.

It suggested there was a spin chute deployed but the cable was too long and the a/c continued spinning.

With the C162 w/b or aerodynamics may be a factor in fitting a spin chute.

I read somewhere that the airvan exited the spin after the pilot had jumped. :\