BK crash today
 

From what i could see from the distance and very limited info liberty aircraft crashed due to collapsed landing gear.
I hope everyone is ok

from the "rumours" I heard the last one can not be blamed on the plane :=

And as for this one............. depends on how hard you bounce it! :eek:

what i heard was he had hard bouncing touchdown on first landing and went around, and on upwind reported emergency saying aircraft was shaking badly and crashlanded on second attempt. i suspect he had prop strick on first landing.

From the look of the aircraft wreckage, it is a right-off. The pilot is quite lucky not to have been as well - apparently just a broken leg or something along those lines. Like everyone I'm sure, I was glad to hear it wasn't another fatal accident.

That's pretty much along the lines of what I heard too.

Makes you wonder though, would a more traditional aircraft like a 152 have handled the initial wheelbarrow and hard landing better, and would it have been easier to repair. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for new aircraft, but at the same time, I tend to wonder whether the design pendulum has swung too far towards performance from durability...

TT

We live in a throw away society. bend it and chuck it. thats what insurance is for. I would prefer a new one to a bent and repaired one......add into that equation the performance factor you speak of and its all looking good for the newer design.:ok:

wonder how a Jabiru would have faired in the same situation?

Undercarriage would have bent, nose wheel torn out, engine mounts probably torn out and wings failed downwards....... or no damage at all. depends on impact forces. :E

This story of the prop strike , its not a recount of one of the other 3 accidents so far? I know one bent the prop the other week, attempted a go around, made it to maybe 500 ft , reported the problem, completed a circuit and 'somewhat' more successful landing on the 2nd attempt.

There was another prop strike at Bathurst.

The fatal in the training area.

Now this one. :} Least the poor bugger is ok.

The simple fact is ultralights are not as durable when it comes to ab initio training. They are better suited to private use (which is what they are really designed for). But they are cheap.

Having said that, I did my ab initio training in ultralights. :)

Lots of finger pointing always surrounds accidents like these. I suppose it's fair to say any accident has multiple causing factors and in the case of most of these bigger BK schools the chances are they'd include

- Inexperienced instructors who 'don't know what they don't know'
- Overseas students under pressure to finish quickly (not necessarily at a high standard)
- Less opportunity for students or instructors to learn from 'hangar talk'
- New aeroplane types which may be less forgiving than those which the instructors learnt on, and nobody around to show them the 'right way'

My suggestions would be to do something about improving the flight safety magazine and really making it a good read (and learning tool) for both new and old pilots - not just CASA propaganda.

I also reckon it's too easy to gain solo-sending privelliges as an instructor. With how busy some of these bigger schools are, new instructors don't have to hang around long before they have enough hours for their first upgrade, and CFIs are usually under financial pressure to get them out of the valuable supervision stage ASAP. Should be a minimum calendar time imposed upon instructors with less than a certain amount of total aeronautical experience. The value of this exposure to the aviation industry is heavily underrated.

Note that my comments are general and don't relate to this particular incident specifically, as I don't know anything about it. However, I do think most of the key issues surrounding all these prangs are basically the same.

I also think it'd be a big shame to blindly throw blame on new aeroplane types, because these are what GA in this country needs.

I was under the impression the Liberty is a certified aircraft, not an ultralight?

TT

muffman. I'd agree with you if it were an even mix of accidents amongst the schools at Bankstown.

Currently, it is not.

We have found out the hard way that Sportstars are not very durable in the training role. A delight to fly, but a little on the light side.

Don't know anything about the liberty, but from the couple of 'lights I've flown (sportstar / CTsw), I'd agree they're probably not as durable (fortunately not tested that), however, I think the critical bit is that they're far less forgiving, you're actually far more likely to have a heavy arrival.

Both the examples I've flown are capable of approach paths that rival / beat the old 150/flaps 40 in terms of steepness, and have relatively little inertia. They get bounced around more on approach, and are all too keen to loose energy at any point during the approach and stop very quickly during the flare. Not a problem if you can fly accurately, however the average GA trainer will let you have a bit of a balloon, or a very drawn out, gentle flare, and still have airspeed to put it on nicely. In the lighties you're very likely to find yourself 10ft up out of speed and ideas. Throw in some akward and unusual throttle locations/systems, and...

That's not to say they're bad, just different - and require some careful attention. Personally I'd be inclined to avoid for ab-initio, but it might breed sharper pilots :)

Right-Off
 

TT, can't resist asking "Is a right-off any different to a left-off", or are they both the same as a "Writeoff"?

of the "ultralight" aircraft in a training environment, the Tecnam, and sportstar are proving a little on the light side, but the Jabiru series are proving to be pretty much indestructible!
i remeber posting here some years ago, that our school operated a Jabiru, and the response was quite large, telling me th aircraft is a weak Ultralight and it wouldn't last, well, its now been in ab initio service now for well over 6000 hrs, and rapidly approaching its 10,000th hour, and it still flies as fast and as well as the day it was built.
I have seen Tecnams and Liberties have hard landings and require a truck to remove them from the runway, but the little Jabs are as reliable as the old Cessna 150's and 152 in the training environment.
im sure the price of a Liberty could have purchased 2 Jabiru J230s, with glass cockpits, and have a much lower maint and running costs. not to mention locally built.

And if you do manage to break them, like a thread posted recently proved, they are very repairable for a low cost!

Sure they are not a Bonanza, or C185, or even a C172...... but bang for buck they are damn good value!

J:ok:

Unless I'm very much mistaken, SFTC had Jabs in the past, and are replacing them with Liberties...

Well, now that you mention it, both wings were removed from the wreck, so maybe it is both a right-off and a left-off?

TT

"im sure the price of a Liberty could have purchased 2 Jabiru J230s, with glass cockpits, and have a much lower maint and running costs"

I think you'll find the same company who operate the more expensive Liberties bought them to replace largest fleet of J230s and 160s on the VH register.

There seems to be a consensus that these newer/lighter types are less forgiving, and from my very limited experience of that category of aeroplane, I would agree. However, it is important is to work out what they are less forgiving of. Is it inexperience? Poor roundout/holdoff technique? Mishandling at low speed? Incorrect airspeed maintenance?

As I alluded to in my previous post, I think blaming new aeroplane types (whether it's Jabiru, Liberty, Tecnam or whatever) is one thing, but to really move forward we have to find solutions and they are going to be found in pilot and instructor training.

I suppose one of the problems with the venerable 152 etc is they are so well designed and so forgiving of almost all types of mishandling that they have inadvertently allowed pilots (who are now instructors) to slip through the cracks with less than adequate handling skills.

Instructor training to be conducted on Winjeels and Chippies maybe :D