ausadvance

A bit of a follow up on this incident for anyone interested for Saftey Month https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA1TySNIyBw&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3GTtVuVS80JsdfiNkInVoqRBMFORLxq6ZrEqdY5rXklgSsGwcj0_ZrCsg

So am I

This is why acquiring permission and insuring you are not putting anyone or anything else in harms way is one of the most important things in relation choosing where you may land. Even if it does comply with the standards of an ALA you are just as potentially screwed legally as has been demonstrated numerous times. But hey, maybe we should all just play it safe and stick to flying our keyboards?

Well there you go then. Now you have a great example on an incident at site that does not satisfy the CAAP regarding ALAs and not for a moment has RAA, CASA or the insurer had an issue with it.

The witness's of the incident have all documented what happened. I personally have multiple pages recorded to the most minor details I could think of. And I fully agree that these things need to be shared. I am a huge advocate for sharing these sorts of things for others to learn from and have run numerous large scale campaigns promoting it on platforms far larger than this forum. I like you learnt my off airport flying skill sets by learning from others experiences and would love to share what happened with the world but as I said you need to just trust me when I say this is not the time, it has only been 2 weeks since the incident. It was my best friend in the accident and I will not be sharing the details without his ok. I have already shared a few factors relating to this accident elsewhere and already I have conformation from suppliers that it has resulted in another 40 pilots now wearing helmets that weren't before, however for the mean time that is as much as I am willing to share. You are correct in saying there is more to the story that made this accident alot worse than it should have been. It is a contributing factor as to why this accident is not ready to be talked about in detail. Information relating to what actually happened there is still being collected and the facts clarified. Please just trust me when I say there is no secrets being kept, no one is covering anything up. There is nothing dodgey or shady going on. It is simply still just very early in the piece and is not yet the time to talk about it on a public forum with no shortage of keyboard warriors.

Yes mate it was reported to RAA. Representatives of RAA kindly called me while I was still on the ground with genuine concern for his well being. They are very much aware of it and proper protocol has been followed. Keep in mind he was hospital for a week so there may have been some delays. His doing well, thanks for asking! His home and very happy to be at that. His got a few months of recovery ahead but at this stage a full recovery is expected. Just always so very impacting on the life of a farmer. Particularly during harvest season! What a ridiculous thing to say. What cone of silence? The pilot has been out of hospital for barely a week and is just making the most of spending time with his family. His trying to work out how he is going to run his commercial farm while his unable to work. The insurance process is all still underway. The aircraft manufacturer is still to look through the plane to see if there is anything they can take from it, The pilot in fact cant remember anything from just before final to being in hospital, even he and I have not sat down together yet to go through the accident. Odds are high are at some stage it will become public what happened. You are right in saying there is alot people can learn from this, it was a great example of an accident that could happen to just about anyone. However it is not my call to make if it goes public or not. It is up to my mate and the time is simply not right for it to happen yet. I mean when does anyone get a break down of what happened at an accident when someone was airlifted to hospital within 2 weeks of the accident? Its simply no ones place but the pilots to comment on it. As for "what you heard from those who were at the event". Well what you heard was not from people who watched it. What you have heard, IF you actually have heard is from people who arrived after the accident. As for your "watch this" statement, why don't you wait till you do find out what happened before making stupid comments. It was a simple accident at a prepared airstrip that has had numerous aircraft land at it god knows how many times before. There was no "watch this" at all, it would have been one hell of a boring display if it hadn't gone wrong if that was his intention. Chinese whispers never help any situation, nor does making assumptions. Well firstly what JG3 has said is far from correct. As stated before, people need to stop spreading rumors and making assumptions. In answer to your questions: No, to put it simply the strip did not meet the standards of an ALA. However at no point is there ever a recreational requirement, in GA or RAA for anywhere an aircraft lands to meet the standards of an ALA. Have you actually read the standards? The ALA standards just about make for an international airport for any STOL/bush plane. The strip where the incident occurred was a prepared strip, it wasn't some wild tight spot. Infact while for many aircraft and pilots it may be considered short, an aircraft like the bush cat which comfortably lands in around 100m can operate on it while easily using less percentage of the strip than say a cirrus or even a lance air at my local airport with a 900m runway. So if its considered fine for those aircraft to operate at that strip, why is it such a bad thing if this aircraft landed on a strip that did not comply to an ALA if it had a far greater margin for error. Yes the incident has been reported to RAA. They were on the phone to me while I was still on the ground. There was one person responsible for anything that happened in that aircraft. Its the pilot. Simple as that. This incident was a simple case of runway loss of control. There were a number of very minor things that contributed to this happening, a perfect example of the swiss cheese model, and hopefully at some stage this may be able to be made public for others to take on board as the accident is a great example of something that could happen to ANYONE. Though runway loss of control is one of the biggest issues both RAA and CASA have to deal with. There is little that can be done to mitigate what happened here, at the end of the day with enough pilots flying enough hours no matter what is done some accidents will still happen, and this is one of those. Before anyone thinks CASA would take a different approach, I have already discussed this incident off my own back with someone in CASA who deals with these sort of things, just to get their thoughts. Again they said the same thing, with all the training and implemented safety measures in the world, some days things are just going to go wrong. These might be aircraft and not trail bikes, but they are aircraft built for a purpose. In the same way aerobatic aircraft are built to be pushed to the edge, these aircraft are built to do a task. And while as I said this incident was not actually at some hardcore off airport location, even if it had been there is nothing wrong with that. It is entire purpose of these aircraft's existence and the reason why alot of people choose fly. I Have always felt far safer flying a bush plane at 20 knots into a small bush strip than any aircraft that lands at 50 - 60 knots flying over tiger country, citys, or even into many airstrips. There were serious extenuating circumstances that made this accident alot worse than it should have been (these are a big part of the reason the incident has not yet been talked about publicly) that would have almost defiantly have resulted in a fatal accident in almost any aircraft that was not a STOL aircraft.

Hey guys. Yes I was there and I wittnessed this. Be careful what you read on the internet, Im yet to read a single article tgat is vaugley correct. This was not a forced landing. Was simply an accident. Many lessons to be learnt from it but it was not a result of anything major or stupid happening. Was just a good example of a couple of small things lining up to make a bigger thing. Im hoping I will be able to one day talk about this accident, what happened and what can be learnt from it but that will be up to otto to decide if and when. Just stay safe out there people

Gday mate. Tim howes here. I founded bfdu. Shoot me an email mate at [email protected] and well get in contact!

far from kidding ourselves on this one, it is a very very standard practice. It is something practiced with every off airport landing and for those off us of whom bush flying is our hobby, making the majority of our landings off airport this is just another one of the many simple skills we practice as standard. I only suggested it as I feel it is a genuinely useful skill for everyone to have for moments like these. It is something taught as part of standard training in the US. there are various degrees of dragging a strip depending on how serious your situation is but for a simple thing such as checking the surface condition of an unknown runway a simple touch and go with a bit of pace behind you can suffice. My reference here to keeping a bit of pace behind you is in relation to if you do find the surface isnt suitable and starts to drag you down you have a bit of pace to get up again and out of there. this is certainly not going to work for everyone but for those who have big flaps like mine, keeping a notch or 2 of flap available can help that you can pull out if required to help pop you back into the air just as you would on a short field take off. also if you are flying a nose wheel aircraft it can often be advised to try and keep the nose wheel off the ground just in case. But like everything, best thing to do is go see your instructor or have a chat to someone who's had a bit of experience landing in questionable places. anyway long and the short of it there is an entire sport based around operating from spots that arnt airfields where accessing surface conditions before landing is essential and in turn there are a number of well tried and proven methods to know if a surface is suitable to operate from while still in the air. Bush pilot or not this is a perfect example as to why its beneficial for all pilots to learn some of the basics. There actually is a series of formulas that I have found to be really quite accurate available to help calculate take off roll ranging from total weight, DA, surface type and even surface density (including one directly for grass length!). for those interested look up the mountain flying guide, written by an alaskan aviation veteran, its all in there.

The short version of dragging a strip is to do a pass of the strip before landing, lightly touching one or 2 wheels to assess the surface condition if it appears questionable. Its always important to come back around and look at your tracks aswell before landing to see how deep the grass, mud, or whatever the surface is. There is ofcourse alot more to it than that, this is the very very dumbed down version. like what techniques to employ to make sure this action is done safetly. Its also harder than it seems to hold a single wheel on a runway for an extended distance only lightly. This said often multipule short taps of the mains can surfice. My earlier comment referenced to a soft field take off however there are a number of techniques that can be utilised interms of a short field take off. from turning starts to reducing the aircrafts drag factor by keeping flaps in until the last minute and holding elevators neuteral on nose draggers and lifting the tail early on tail draggers. However each aircraft will react differently to all of these techniques. There is ofcourse alot more to all of it to than I cant type tonight and I reccomend having a proper chat to someone with experience to learn how to get it right. There are alot of fellas on the bush flyers down under facebook group who have alot of experience with all these techniques and are happy to give advice

No worries geoff, illsend you a message on face book about how to do all of the above. Some good bush strip practices. We can practice them at little italy one day Ryan, if you ever like id be more than happy to run you through some good bush strip/off airport techniques and could tell you a bit about how to identify surface and wind conditions before landing. I do reasonable amount of bush flying and take pleasure in passing on what ive learnt

I havnt posted here in a long time, but I felt like voicing an opinion on this one. I will quickly say though I appologise if this is full of typos, Im typing on my phone in a hospital waiting room. Im sorry ryan but I have to say I see you as completely in the wrong on this one. You say you have 100 hours and then go on to say you had a perfect takeoff technique. There is no single perfect take off technique, they are variable for every situation. At 100 hours your still in flying diapers and there is no way you could judge if your takeoff technique is perfect with that little experience. Ive seen jabs take off in worse conditions than that in higher DA on shorter strips than that with no worries using proper soft field techniques. I really feel in relation to your take off the only person to blame is you. Its your job to judge your abilitys, your aircrafts abilitys and how your aircraft will be effected by varying factors. This attitude you seem to have of your in the right and everyone else is wrong is as dangerous as things get. I really thonk you need to take astep back and assess things a bit. Youve had a few far more experienced flyers here tell you it was most probably your fault, maybe they are on to something? But take off aside, if conditions where so poor, why did you land there? You where in the wrong here from the moment you set up to approach. Why did you not inspect the strip, why did you not drag the strip, why did you make the call to land there in the first place. Choice of where an aircraft operates is soley that of the pilots, starts and stops there. You cant put that on any book or phone call. On another note I do however in all honesty applaud you for telling people of your experience. Those who know me know this is something Im a big fan of and try very hard to promote. My only issue is I think you need to take the time to assess things before you point fingers and pass the buck.

Was amazing mate

haha sorry mate, most of it was actually filmed without audio so it would have been awfully quite! cant please them all