Whatever happened, we appear to be falling out of the skies at an ever increasing rate lately. It would appear that some of the basic premises of aviation are being forgotten by those who should know better. :sad:

Flew over it a few times today, wreckage moved but still in the car park.

Never let your guard down, especially when under extra or unusual pressure or attention.

As a typically cautious pilot I am confident in my own stick skills but more importantly my ability to judge and manage my risks but I do not for one minute pretend that I am incapable of making mistakes or misjudgements. Did this chap just get lost in the moment?

I cannot help but think that the biggest factor here was performance pressure.

The CJFM mob are a fantastic team. They are not wreckless cowboys and they would have created a safety-oriented atmosphere.

I question whether it is accurate or worthwhile opining that a the "basics" are not being taught (they are).

I certainly hope that the ATSB commit to an in-depth investigation.

FCB

Good points. I am not close enough to this to know for sure, but the risks must surely ramp up when you have a "more sporty" handling machine, an older slowing reflexes pilot, and one that is not doing a lot of flying and things that keep you current in the areas that matter.

I have no idea how many of these factors affected this pilot, but a spitfire is not a C152, and slow dirty and dragging in at low speed in gusty conditions may not be something practised often if at all. So if a bunch of factors line up, and a wing stalls and snaps out from under you, the reflexes and skills need to be nothing short of 100% there.

As someone who flies a lot, I recognise what I do is a lot of what could be called private/business line flying. Points A,B,C & D and maybe an instrument approach or two, but none of that is much use in an air display environment. A different set of recency is is required.

We will possibly never know for sure, but to any young PPL/CPL reading this, recency is not always about hours in the log book, its about type of aircraft and the type of flight flown.

Does anyone here have much in the way of airshow flying experience?

I get the feeling these days that pilots in Australia have limited ability to practice for airshows to help them feel comfortable with what they need to do to perform live. We usually see fingers being pointed at them when practicing and the now synonymous iPhone video recording finding its' way onto youtube instilling fear in all. It has been said that this particular pilot did a practice fly-by at his home field and already we have forum members elsewhere suggesting that he did the wrong thing, should be reported blah blah. I get the feeling that this happened because he was doing something he wouldn't normally do.

Is this why we saw so many USA based performers at Avalon? Have we made it impossible for anyone here to be their best? I know there is provision to apply to CASA with 28 days (or whatever it is) notice for "Airshow practice" however how practical is this, how often is permission granted and has anyone ever actually had permission granted for this?

Did the aircraft stall? Did it then enter a spin?

If you had appropriate endorsements, eg low flying, low level aeros or whatever it was, there really shouldn't be anything to stop you finding an appropriate part of a training area and practicing your display with reference to some easily recognisable ground markers to simulate display line and crowd centre etc, I'd have thought.

Whata we up to now? Around the forums and the fields i has heard -

Explosion
Structual failure
Aerobatics
Lack of flying experience
Engine failure
Heart attack
All of the above

...Have i missed any ?


.......:hmm:









.

I fully understand your point of view, but where are you going to do this and how are you going to do it at low altitude? It's all very well do simulate it up high, but it's simply not the same come the day to perform. There are minimal low flying areas and you generally can't beat up your local field due to training traffic and the like. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying that it can be very difficult to arrange and at many airports not a chance in hell could you get away with it.

Then there's the issue of you organise it, get permission, then some moron complains and sends his iPhone video to CASA. Sure you might be in the right, but nobody wants the stress of being counselled and being labelled guilty until proven innocent. The fun police have made it increasingly difficult.

I remember a AUF instructor from Mangalore years ago practicing in his Drifter for the Mangalore airshow. People would run into the flying school yelling out "some guy has crashed his ultralight" or "some guy it out there trying to kill himself in a Drifter." That was long before the days of video phones. One day the Police showed up after a number of complaints even though it was over the airfield.

RIP
 

For the record, he was not conducting a 'dirty pass', he was in fact cleared to land.

The conditions on the day were challenging, and the pilot had verbally expressed concern about flying before his display.

A number of pilots decided against flying their displays due to the conditions. The pilot who was to fly the T6 displayed a high level of professionalism in deciding the conditions were not suitable, equally a similar decision was made by the Tiger Moth pilots.

My view is that the pilot was mentally distracted by his worry about the upcoming landing in a strong cross wing and possibly wasn't paying attention to his airspeed during his base to final turn. The strong cross wind would have been blowing him across the runway centreline as he turned final and would have required him to turn tighter than normal to maintain centreline, particularly if he was not anticipating it. I suspect he suffered a tip stall during the turn and the rest is history.

Regardless of whether I am correct with respect to the cause, there is a good lesson in terms of not flying if you are not in the right mental space. He was not happy about the conditions, and should not have flown.

I landed not long after the accident, and the conditions were 'interesting' to say the least. I would have been pretty 'anxious' were I preparing to land a tail dragger.

Interestingly there was a similar accident in Gympie with the same aircraft type in October 2010.

It is very easy to take the attitude that a crashed pilot was 'just silly' and made silly mistakes. The reality is that he was an experienced and capable pilot. This can happen to any of us and re-empahises the need to set ourselves limits and not overstep those limits, no matter what the percieved pressure.

He was an experienced pilot right?

He expressed his concern PRIOR to he flight, right?

He then flew?

I referred to the in-flight conditions in my earlier post (#5) having landed just minutes after the accident. My track to Parafield from Hope Valley Reservoir was "direct to the field (316T) at 1,500 ft" for 21L. Having the benefit of a wind vector display on the G1000, I noted ALL tailwind at 22K (135T).

Even with the benefit of real time data, my turn onto final 21R (last minute change of runway) with constant bank, appeared to overshoot a little, however it was an illusion - I downloaded my Garmin portable GPS track which showed the roll out onto final had no overshoot at all.

There's been plenty written about illusory effects from turns in the circuit with crosswinds, probably because it's caught out others and will continue to do so.

What was the wind and runway direction (21 was it) at the time of the accident?

Whats your point Jack? Probably like the bloke who owned the Dragon that crashed earlier in the year. Loved his flying, loved showing off his aeroplane but got into a situation beyond his abilitly. Not all pilots have the training and years of experience being thrown dud situations or dud aeroplanes where saying no comes very easily (no I'm not suggesting it was a dud aeroplane). He would have realised that it was the wrong choice as the situation developed and wished he'd followed his instincts. Hindsights a wonderful thing but unfortunately for this bloke, who was obviously passionate about aviation, he won't be able to look back and do things differently next time.

Then maybe he should have followed his instincts? That's the point.

ChrisJ800 asked:
Parafield Terminal Information ECHO

Runway 21
<snip>
Wind 160/20
XW 15
CAVOK
TEMP 20
QNH 1027

http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/4548260...-051_final.pdf

Not certified?

Low level turn downwind...disorientation...this is why we drum into the students not to turn back on EFATO. Very sad but if he was disorientated at low level than it's unlikely a stall warner would have suddenly snapped him out of it and given him time to recover?