Crosswind sillyness
 

This morning, this was a very nice Cessna 185 Amphibian. This afternoon, the pilot ignored very qualified advice to takeoff on the paved runway, which was directly into the 25kt plus wind, and attempted a takeoff on the other shorter, softer grass runway, which was in a direct crosswind. It did not work.

Though the crosswind capability of the aircraft is not limiting, there comes a point where a takeoff should just not be attempted - 25 plus knots maybe? Add to that the possible affects of a STOL kit, wing extensions, and the installation of amphibious floats, each of which could reduce the crosswind capability of the aircraft. It is apparent that the conditions exceeded either the pilot's or aircraft's or both, capability.

Added to a several hundred thousand dollar cost of a destroyed aircraft, the contamination, of the ground by avgas, and the cost for a major response from the fire department. The pilot did not require medical attention, though perhaps some recurrent training on decision making!

What a waste of a fine aircraft... What a black mark on the public's view of our collective airmanship....

A reminder for us all that we are not invincable!

http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/o...R/IMG_1417.jpg

http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/o...R/IMG_1415.jpg

Pilot DAR

Common sense needed to be applied, I hope the pilot was OK to learn from this!!

If the pilot was the owner of this a/c, the term, "more money than sense" springs to mind.

OK some ppl have had a laugh at others - lets get back to serious......

What were the primary mistakes made, how obvious were those and could I (as person easy make those mistakes).

I often feel in a catch 22 situation in here - you dont get told nothing cause you dont know - but you will not learn nothing either.

If we are going to exemplify mistakes -then exemplify whats gone wrong and how and why - this is not a porn site of accidents.

Jofm5

Oh quite.

I would like to point out however, one should get back to basics. Let me explain. It does us all good to watch birds flying occasionally, then we may discover the following:

- A bird will never takeoff downwind.

- A bird will not take off crosswind unless there is no other option.

- A bird will never land downwind, by choice.

As a species, they have been at it a while.

If the account by the auther is correct, this guy had a choice, either to takeoff into wind or across the wind. It appears he made the wrong decision, does it not?

Yes we have all made those mistakes and in the main, got away with it.

We should try and learn from the mistakes of others as we will not live or fly long enough to make all the mistakes ourselves.

Just my 2 cents worth, as I qualified for an received my PPL 40 years ago.

Jofm5. How's your Grand Mother's egg sucking lessons coming along? :D

I have no float experience so can someone tell me why he preferred the grass? Would have thought more downsides than ups.

Any idea why he chose to use the cross-wind runway instead of the other one?

No particular reason I think; most amphibians of this type have main gear that doesn't extend very far from underneath the floats - bringing the floats into contact with the grass if it's quite long which would create an amount of friction on take off. They also have quite small wheels at the front as well that I would have thought would have a tendency to dig in on any soft surface. A hard runway would give much better take off performance.

I too am curious about why he chose the grass. It seems to me that DAR is leaving something out here.

Why would any pilot choose not to use the paved into wind runway, and instead opt for a grass strong crosswind runway. There must but something that make them decide that the cross wind runway had some advantage to them. I just cant' see what it was yet.....

So am I.
If this is correct & the choice was available, it seems extremely foolish.
What is the layout of the airfield with ref to publc view of the runways?

Well, it may be too obvious, but maybe this was a training flight? You can't do crosswind training on an into-the-wind runway (duh).

Still, 25 cross would be way above my personal limit. Anybody knows what the demonstrated x-wind capabilities (if not limits) of the type (with floats and other kit as decribed) are?

Don't know about 185 floatplanes but at our FTO, C152 Instructor limits are 12kt, Student 10kt, This is a school imposed limit I believe so not much more use than a base line guess. 25kt seems a bit excessive based on that, though maybe high hrs floatplane pilots are better.

As for the training flight, there was only one on board I believe, solo practice??

Maybe they can now re-build it with some fixed u/c rather than them "boats" on each side?

only j/k

All crashes regardless of severity, in my eyes, is a terrible sad loss of a/c. Hope the PIC is ok. Maybe a lesson learned well, which will make him/her and us, better pilots in the future.


AWNT

Yes, I was wondering what I left out too...

The airport owner and the manager, both very experienced on the aircraft type, and with the conditions of the airport, tell the pilot that the grass runway, which is crosswind is also soft due to the wet conditons of spring, and a takeoff would be best done on the paved runway. So what I'm leaving out is: I struggle to imagine how the topic even came about that a takeoff was being considered crosswind, so that advice could be given, then ignored not to do it. The only thing I can imagine is that the pilot thought he could save himself a backtrack the length of the paved runway.

I agree that this should not be a porn site for accidents, and some time ago I railed agaisnt the exploitation and speculation of fatal accidents. I continue to feel that way. I had said then, and believe now that as we only have bent aluminum to deal with, and not bent lives, it can be discussed in the context of learning.

What's to be learned here? Words fail me! I cannot believe that the pilot even considered the possibility of a crosswind takeoff (in winds I can assure all, exceeded 25kts, I was there). Why was a decision even necessary?

I have flown recently with a few pilots for the first time, and found a couple of them to behave with a certain air of invincibility/complacency. One, who really should have known better scared the hell out of me with a poor decision, which even he recognized after the fact.

None of us are invincable. Yesterday I saw a beautiful Cessna wasted as a reminder of this reality. I'll be that little bit more careful as I fly, lest I somehow slip into such silliness. I offer my reminder to the group, in the hope that we can all be reminded not to be invincable/complacent, and fly with care. Following sound advice has some merit too!

Pilot DAR

Pilot Dar

It is often difficult to work out why someone does something on the spur of the moment?

Maybe he was in a hurry and didnt want long taxi times? Maybe he wanted to challenge his percieved skills ? Who knows but him! it would be interesting to know what ran through his mind? but now he pays for it with more than just his pride.

I can remember landing a Seneca in a 45 kt 90 degree steady crosswind some years ago just before a snow storm put 6 inches of snow on an airfield and closed it down stranding the plane in London.

Get there itis in mine or takeoff itis in his case or maybe just lazyitis.

Having been warned of the hefty crosswind in my case I really had NO intention of landing but touching a wheel and going so maybe a bit of curiousity at what the old girl could handle :)

The touchdown with literally full rudder surprised me and I decided to complete the landing. The landing wasnt the worst part but holding the wing down once on the tarmac was until the speed bled off.

Ok I now know a Seneca can handle 45 kts at 90 deg very different to the demonstrated component but it could have been a different and damaged aircraft story.

The challenge? maybe a bit of that too. Who knows but him why he took off with 25 kts when he had an into wind option?

Pace

........anyway.....the prop and engine seem to have got away with it. Maybe the decision to have floats was a good one. Ought to make a good kitplane powerplant.

Perhaps the insurers should look into whether the pilot had just ordered a Vans RV kit?:E

It's a bit of thread drift, but what the heck...

I recently posted on a different thread a comment about the perceived "right to post", but after a quick look I can't find it, I'm wondering if the entire thread has been deleted (no, SD found it for me), 'cause it was pretty bad in my estimation!

My comment was something like:

We posters are using someone's private property under their terms. This forum is not a democracy, its a dictatorship, in which people may participte or not, as they choose. If you choose to, you accept the rules, which obviously include the privilage of a moderator to unilaterally delete whatever they see fit. There is no mediation path for this.

I did not understand the birds thing either, but then I'm Canadian, and some of the British humour goes over my head!

Keep up the good work moderators. If you're not leaving at the end of the day with some montary satisfaction, at least take away a feeling of a job well done, and some apprciateion!

Pilot DAR

Pilot DAR,

The thread you mean is the one on FTOs, rumour & libel, and it's not deleted, just moved a couple of pages on - there's such a high number of new threads posted on the forums that "yesterdays hot topic" is on page 3 or 4 before you know it! Such is the success of PPRuNe! :ok:

Regards,

SD

The bird reference may seem silly if you wish to consider their diet & social habits. However if it is only their flying capabilities that are of interest then I agree they have got it stitched up.
Perhaps we should all listen to animals a bit more, At least they don't kick the !!!! out of each other for no reason.

Crash one

But they do challenge each other in the pack all the time for the pack pecking order and isnt that what half the forum arguements are about? :rolleyes:

Pace

Hmmm........

Not many posts between 1427 and 1759:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Cusco

Just so.

The birds work with the prevailing elements, they don't vainly try to batter them into submission.

Nature 1, Pilot 0.

FBW

Remaining with the bird analogy, almost all birds stop then land and only a few go flying by running with all their energy before leaving the ground.

[QUOTE]Remaining with the bird analogy, almost all birds stop then land and only a few go flying by running with all their energy before leaving the ground./QUOTE]
Yup, they master derated takeoffs ?

Would you even taxi in 25+ kt winds?
 

Many years ago while working on my IFR, I scrubbed a C-172 flight in 25+ kt winds. In fact the wind was directly down the runway, but my primary concern was the long taxi downwind.

Perhaps the C-185 pilot on amphib floats had the same concern, but a direct x-wind takeoff proved a poor solution.

Has any one figured out the power to weight ratio on various birds?
Birds have been evolving as flying machines longer than us, give us time!
Yes animals have a pecking order but it is logical, the genuinely stronger wins, not the most devious twisted expense sheet fiddler.

It has been a bad week generally for gusty wind effects. A couple of days ago one of our group had his seaplane turtle after a decent landing when it was hit by a gust. (Seaplane, not float plane too!) Yesterday a Motor Glider was blown into power lines attempting to land in BC.

Gusty winds are not trustworthy. For me flying in them is too high a risk activity.

I was warned many years ago that "Only birds and fools fly ... and birds don't fly at night ..."

... and I have had many occasions to reflect on that ...


JD
:(

Jumbo Driver

Not so :) was on approach into Gloucester on a jet black night to be met by a large and noisy bang on the screen of the twin I was flying.

On landing the screen was splattered with blood and gore. I presume it had to be some sort of owl.

Pace

Accurate or not, it seems at least that owl :eek: would have had cause to wish he had heeded the maxim ...


JD
:)

P.S. ... at least he went between the engines ...

The Albatross flies for months at a time, without a break. Judging from that, it's flying + IF, endurance and navigation skills are not too bad. Not to mention fantastic energy efficiency!!

You may recall on "animal planet", they attached miniature cameras to a falcon, hawk and swallow, among others. No greater flying skills have I ever come close to seeing. It makes the red bull air racing look like a picnic and the pilots, boys in short pants.

Yes, OK, OK - I know it's not ornithologically accurate ... but it was only said tongue-in-beak ...


I'll get my coat ...

JD
:O

This is probably a UK anomaly but I have had to take the Crosswind runway when I would rather take the into wind runway because I am on an instructional flight and the into wind runway isn't licensed.

Well, you shouldn't take off unless you know where there's a runway you can safely and legally land on, but at the end of the day if it comes down to a choice between a crash on a crosswind runway and landing illegally on an into-wind runway I know which I'd choose.

Now that could really make a news story.
"Student pilot crashes because regulations force him to land crosswind."
Talk about "Crosswind sillyness"

"Well, you shouldn't take off unless you know where there's a runway you can safely and legally land on"

Perfectly legal as the crosswind wind was within the aircrafts limits. Just goes against everything that we teach students about always landing into wind.

I have had two not funny crosswind experiences in my meagre 150hrs. One, Runway 06 grass, wind 130/18 a/c 610kg Emeraude. I opted to cheat & approached at about 090 deg as the area to the south was recently cut but not collected hay. Stopped while still on the runway.
The alternative was a 40 mile diversion/lift home/car retrieval etc.
Two, landed in 18G25 straight down the runway, taxiied onto grass, turned downwind to park, switched off & held stick back!! Stuck prop blade into grass 4" whilst feeling a prat. No damage, very lucky, still feel stupid, won't do that again!

Was that in KL crash one? A 12kt x-wind limit with an FI onboard in a C152 from an FTO? What doofus wrote that manual?

As for DAR's genius pilot, sounds like he was trying to avoid a "long" taxi instead of using an ounce of commonsense and taking off into wind on tarmac.

No, UR. Though Kieth did teach me to fly it.

That's what I was told, whether it is true or observed I don't know, personally I don't think it is/was observed much. Along with the 65kn final, which I think has been changed to 60.