How's this for breaking your fall?

[red750]

 

 

A small plane crashed in a car park in Plainville, Connecticut.

 

The single-engine Cessna was coming into land at Robertson Field Airport when it veered and crashed into a tree in a nearby car park.

 

The 80-year-old pilot Manfred Forst, who was the only one on board, sustained minor injuries.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

A small plane crashed in a car park in Plainville, Connecticut.

The single-engine Cessna was coming into land at Robertson Field Airport when it veered and crashed into a tree in a nearby car park.

 

The 80-year-old pilot Manfred Forst, who was the only one on board, sustained minor injuries.

Based on that it seems there's no doubt that you need to aim off-centre for a tree if you're going to crash ... BUT, if planes start inexplicably 'veering' when you're 80, I think I'll be hanging up the headset well before that.

 

 

[planedriver]

Looks like a lack of knots to me.

 

Lucky outcome though!

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Wonder if he'll cop it for leaving the scene of an accident?

 

 

[PA.]

Thought he was flying a Cirrus.

 

 

[onetrack]

Give the bloke some credit! - look at the great job he did, of parking it! A lot of blokes can't even park a car that neatly!

 

 

[IBob]

I'd call that a successful landing..........anybody else here think he can do that...huh?.........huh???........)

 

 

[rgmwa]

I'd call that a successful landing..........anybody else here think he can do that...huh?.........huh???........)

That's an arrival, not a landing

 

rgmwa

 

 

[IBob]

That's an arrival, not a landingrgmwa

Eh well.....there but for the grace of the Big Foot In the Sky go I........or you...........)

 

 

[rgmwa]

Eh well.....there but for the grace of the Big Foot In the Sky go I........or you...........)

Indeed.

 

 

[kgwilson]

If you are going to park it under the tree you just hit make sure your approach speed is fully stalled.

 

 

[Yenn]

That low and amongst those trees I doubt that he could have made any airstrip, so was he trying to stretch the glide. It looks to me as if the prop was turning.

 

 

[onetrack]

That's an arrival, not a landing

No, that's a singularly spectacular arrival! - not just an arrival!

You know how the Hunter S Thompson saying goes, about arriving at your funeral in a spectacular manner? - well this 80 yr old bloke is just getting in some practice for that event!

 

Quote - Hunter S Thompson;

 

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body - but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "Wow! What a Ride!”

 

 

[cscotthendry]

Give the bloke some credit! - look at the great job he did, of parking it! A lot of blokes can't even park a car that neatly!

Yep, a bit of a buff out and she'll be right!

I'd say he was very, very lucky to find that tree when he did. It looked to me like the left wing had stalled and if the tree hadn't broken his (and the plane's) fall, the outcome could have been significantly worse. I'd guess that the ground rushing up at him would not have been as flexible as the tree he flew into.

 

 

[johnm]

pilot maybe have also been trying to go to their left - suitable landing area there ........................ not enough inertia though ?

 

 

[MartyG]

Unlucky, If the tree hadn,t of taken the landing gear off it would of nearly been a 3 pointer.

 

 

[alf jessup]

What's the bet a grey ghost gave him a parking ticket for being outside the parking bay

 

 

[peter2480]

Have a very good look at that video. Some day that approach could prove to be a wild card. Not dissimilar to what the military refer to as 'falling leaf' technique - designed to reduce the kinetic energy to be dissipated even below the designated stall speed.

 

 

[onetrack]

I can't agree that's he's using the "falling leaf" technique - that involves regular side-to-side oscillations about the longitudinal axis, with very little forward movement.

 

What did happen, if you replay the video closely at the 0.03 sec mark, is that you see the impact with the tree knocks off a huge amount of forward speed - then the aircraft rotates around its heaviest component - the motor - and it then falls to the ground with very little speed or energy.

 

I'd have to say, he virtually copied an aircraft carrier landing - but using a tree instead of an arrestor cable.

 

Note that he hit the tree where there wasn't a solid trunk - just the upper part, where there's a lot of smaller branches and foliage.

 

Road engineering people have a term for this, for roadside re-vegetation. They re-plant roadsides with small, bushy shrubs and small, multi-stemmed trees, similar to mallee.

 

They call this, "forgiving vegetation" - because, when car drivers leave the road at high speed, this style of vegetation acts as a very good gradual speed arrestor.

 

If big solid trees are left by the roadside, or replanted by the roadside, they merely provide a formidable, solid barrier that stops errant high-speed vehicles instantly, and kills the occupants.

 

 

[Neil_S]

That's not flying! That's falling with style!

 

(You probably need to have kids/grandkids to understand that.....)

 

 

[peter2480]

With reviewing aircraft passage agree you are right onetrack. Too much forward momentum to resemble a 'falling leaf' incipient spin oscillation.

 

 

[Yenn]

The falling leaf is done by flying on the edge of the stall and whenever a wing drops, you pick it up with rudder. As each wing stall alternately you are sort of falling with an oscillating motion and still substantial forward motion.

 

 

[Callahan]

I think the congratulations should go to the tree for growing where it did!

 

Had a friend takeoff in an old Yamaha powered 15 hp Wizard years ago. Didn't clear a treeline, hit a tree, stuck there, tail sticking out as nice as you please about 50 feet up, pilot climbed out & down.

 

No injuries! Getting it down was another story!

 

 

[Orienteer]

That's not flying! That's falling with style!(You probably need to have kids/grandkids to understand that.....)

Or actually to be an Under 40 RAAus Pilot....

 

 

[onetrack]

Then, there's always those especially-skilled blokes, who can carry out a perfect tree-point landing ...

 

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