OK gyro pilot passes away

[chuter]

I'm sad to report that Kelly Teague passed away yesterday when his KB2 gyro crashed near his home airport, C.E. Page, just west of OK City, OK.

There was some video available on one of the local news channels but I can't find it this morning.

Here is a link to another local station's report without video:
news report (http://www.koco.com/news/11048667/detail.html)

I don't have any more details than what is in the news report.

Kelly flew a KB2 with a VW engine, seat tank, and Ron Herron T-tail.

He had thousands of hours in helicopters, fixed wing, and gyros and taught aerobatics in his fixed wing.

We here in OK and a lot of others in aviation will miss him.

[Brent Drake]

very sorry. his family has my sympathies.

[Harry_S.]

Sad news indeed, Michael.

Please let us know when you find more info.

I will suppress my gut feeling as to cause, for now.


.

[giro5]

according to witnesses, the helicopter took off from the airport and flew about 200 yards south into the wind before making a hard turn to go north. Witnesses said it appeared the wind caught the helicopter and slammed it to the ground, Holland said.

[barnstorm2]

My condolences.

Please pass on any information that is approprate. Thanks.

[chuter]

Here's a link to the news channel with the video:
video (http://newsok.com/article/3015194)

You may have to register to get to it.

[Doug Riley]

The wind can't "catch" an aircraft, of course. The aircraft is already "caught" when it leaves the ground.

A quick downwind turn at low altitude can bring you down, however. If you take off into the wind, ANY turn is a downwind turn -- that is, a turn away from the wind.

Two effects can cause you to fall out of such a turn. First, if you try to carve a nice neat U-turn over the ground, you will have to tighten your bank as the turn progresses. You may run out of power and airspeed to stay up at the steeper bank angle.

Furthermore, the wind has a speed gradient close to the ground. As long as you climb into the wind, you're constantly entering air that's moving faster and you get a boost. Climbing downwind into a gradient produces the opposite effect. It feels as if the air just got thinner.

It's hard to believe that a seasoned pilot would get caught in the downwind-turn trap, so there's likely more to it. The sketchy info so far points in that direction, though.

[gyroplanes]

This is really sad. I was just at Martin Weaver's web site, where I learned of Mr. Teague and saw a picture of his gyro.

The title of this thread is misleading. I thought a gyro pilot passed his check ride with Martin. The actual content was a real shock.

I echo Doug. The wind shouldn't have been a factor for an experienced pilot.

The news story reminds me of "air pockets" a term thrown around a lot in the old days. Air pockets are the wind version of "heat lightning".

[gyroplanes]

I just registered and watched the news video (no video of actual crash) I have never seen a gyro come apart like that. He apparently hit real hard.

I thought it might have just been a hard landing with a freak fatal event, such as contact with a bent rotor, but this looks like a real hard impact.

I hope that our "go team" will investigate along with the FAA.

[chuter]

Sorry about the misleading thread title; if one of the admins wants to change it to "passes away" maybe that would be good.

[Harry_S.]

Michael, are you acquainted with this airport?

In taking off to the South...is there friendly territory just past the departure end of the runway? If not, my gut feeling is getting twitchy. I, personally, would need to ask the witness' a couple of pertinent questions.

Doug and Tom have made a couple of salient points, I think crucial to the investigation however.


Cheers

[chuter]

Harry,

Yes, I fly out of Page airport too. There's plenty of room at the south end of the runway to pick a landing spot.

One of the news stories said he took off from a field on the east side of the airport; I don't know what he might have been doing, or which field they are referring to.

My guess (just a guess from watching the video) is that he impacted next to a road on the east side of the airport.

[benj]

Sad News
Prayers for his family and friends!
Benj

[Mark Sanders]

very sorry my heart goes out to the Family

[rgraffeo]

Sad news indeed. Kelly was a great guy.
He was a member of Chapter 20 when he lived in Louisiana.

[scottessex]

Was that the guy that bought the Screwdriver? The VW powered KB?
I am sorry to hear this, my condolences to his family.

[Timchick]

Scott,
Unfortunately you are correct.
http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4906

Very sad to hear. We'll keep his family in our prayers.

[TomCarlisle]

I kept my aircoupe there for the 4 years I lived in Yukon. There were parallel grass runways adjacent to the main runways back then. Even if they are not really maintained anymore they would probably be good for gyro operation.

[GyroRon]

Whoever inspects that gyro, be sure to look at and try to confirm that the rotorhead was able to have full travel. I remember when John had that gyro, the pre rotator cable was causing some binding issues, but I think John got that worked out before he sold it. Anyway, just check....

I also remembered from flying that gyro that it flew very nose low at higher power settings and it would run out of backstick if you were out hotdogging and needed a large amount of backstick.

Sucks to hear of another crash...

The gyro was pretty stable, and it flew pretty good other than what I mentioned above

[Friendly]

As a fellow KB 2 pilot , I hope they can discover what ever is necessary to prevent this from happening again. It seems the Ok. bunch is a very tight nitt group and is really growing. I pray for the love ones left behind.

[gyromike]

Since Kelly never posted here, I thought I might tell ya'll a little about him.

I first met Kelly about 11 years ago when I started flying. He was flying helicopters offshore, but then started with the FAA as an airway safety inspector. It wasn't until later that I realized that his wife's brother had been my next door neighbor when I was in high school.

Kelly was a damn good pilot who flew every type of helicopter used in the Gulf, and fixed-wings up to King-Airs, and gyros. He learned aerobatics from Duane Cole and flew in air shows in a clipped-wing Cub. After crashing the Cub and losing an eye, he had to relearn to fly because of the loss of his depth perception. And he was as precise as anyone I've flown with.

He and I used to go up and fly in an Extra 300 doing aerobatics, sometimes doing 50 ft. inverted passes down the runway. I was about the only one that could keep up with him in the Extra, and after we landed we would be laughing our butts off at how much fun it was.

He taught me aerobatics in his Citabria, and later the Extra. We also went up in a Hughes 269 and he taught me how to hover. We would practice short-field operations at night on unlighted strips in a Super Cub and Husky. And sometimes we fly just to get off the ground.

We shared a hangar for a couple of years until he bought another one slightly larger, and I bought his (the one I'm in now). We used to hang out at the hangar grilling burgers, and shooting the bull after an afternoon of flying.

Kelly was an excellent instructor, earning his Gold Seal from the FAA, and loved to teach more than anything. He pushed me at every opportunity to learn a little something new with each flight. While with the FAA, he was the Principal Operating Inspector for the two largest helicopter operators in the world, Air Logistics and PHI, located here on the Gulf. He helped to institute safety policies that reduced accident rates in Gulf operations. I saw him just a couple of weeks ago while he was in town training a group of helicopter pilots for their Part 135 check ride.

He still loved flying the gyro the most, and said that his ran great and flew well.

I hope that someone knowledgeable about gyros gets to inspect the wreckage so that we can determine the cause, but we may never know what actually happened.

All I know is that he was my friend, and now he's gone.
But he went out doing what he loved, and that's a damn sight better than wasting away in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of you.

Here are a few pictures I have handy.


Kelly after landing Rod Reed's KB2.
Kelly doing a pullup in the Extra over the runway.
Kelly giving a ride in the gyro glider.
Kelly landing Rod's KB2.

[junkyardbear]

My heart goes out to his family.

[route66]

Should I send some flowers or a plant?
I am so sorry.

[MMorgan]

Amen to everything posted by gyromike.

Mike mentioned the word "precise" which described Kelly exactly. When I flew with Kelly in his Super Cub it was like we were doing a checkride in a complex aircraft. Everything was "by the book" right down to taxiing with the controls in the proper positions even though the wind was almost nil.

Kelly was one of the local guys here that got me interested in gyros.

One of the first times I met Kelly (many years ago before I was a gyro guy) he had a KB-2 with a Mac motor. He offered to sell me the gyro & teach me to fly it and I was very tempted. Only problem he could not guarantee the motor would run on a consistant basis. Even though I was not a gyro pilot I was sure I did not want a Mac powered machine.


He will be missed but not forgotten.

[reelmule]

Michael, are you acquainted with this airport?

In taking off to the South...is there friendly territory just past the departure end of the runway? If not, my gut feeling is getting twitchy. I, personally, would need to ask the witness' a couple of pertinent questions.

Doug and Tom have made a couple of salient points, I think crucial to the investigation however.


Cheers
Harry, I flew extensively here with DH for 26 hrs duel. This is a long runway as well as wide. Don't recall actual detail but if he started the turn at 200yds down rnwy 18 he wouldn't have been to the first intersection, besides the departure end. It is at least 90+% open and flat around the airport. A small patch of woods to the SE of 18 as I recall-a factor if one was to choose a taxiway landing.

Condolences to the Teague family.
Walt

[Harry_S.]

Should I send some flowers or a plant?
I am so sorry.



I think a flowering plant will be with the family for many years.

Peace.


Cheers

[RHerron]

Whoever inspects that gyro, be sure to look at and try to confirm that the rotorhead was able to have full travel. I remember when John had that gyro, the pre rotator cable was causing some binding issues, but I think John got that worked out before he sold it. Anyway, just check....

I also remembered from flying that gyro that it flew very nose low at higher power settings and it would run out of backstick if you were out hotdogging and needed a large amount of backstick.

Sucks to hear of another crash...

The gyro was pretty stable, and it flew pretty good other than what I mentioned above


This is terrible. It is one thing to lose someone who was careless or negligent and quite another to have someone with Kelly's experience to die in a proven gyro. I didn't know him but his friends who have posted here are a testimony to a good man.

My first inclination is toward mechanical failure of some kind. Control rod ends, etc. Other types of failure could be equally catastrophic. This would include the tail or rudder breaking lose, engine mount failure, even a crankshaft failure causing the prop and hub to come loose.(Chuck Beaty has seen this). These failures should be relatively easy to rule out.

The tail was not one that we built, but was a clone built by a fellow in Florida. I never got to see the tail up close but it looked fine in the pictures I saw of the aircraft from a distance... plus, it has been in service for a while.

Ron Awad's report of the nose-down tendency at high-speed is not consistent with a properly rigged horizontal tail.

In addition to the obvious inspections of the primary control system, critical attention should be paid to all the hardpoints and bracing. I have seen the KB sticks come unplugged from the pivots. I have seen engine mounts fail and the engine come loose from the mounts (luckily, the aircraft was still on the ground). Had it been in the air, it would have been fatal.

This sort of thing takes the wind out of me.

[C. Beaty]

I’ve seen a couple of instances where VWs lost props but no one was seriously injured.

With both, the prop hub was attached to the fan pulley end of the crank and both broke at the oil slinger groove.

Don’t know if that’s relevant in this instance.

[MMorgan]

Ron Herron......I feel the same as you about someone with his experience dying in a gyro that has been flying for years with no problems.

Kelly was 10 times the pilot I will ever be so it makes you take a deep breath and ask yourself if you should change hobbies.

I was told the wind was 25-30 mph at the time of the accident. I also recall the wind was about the same when Ken Rehler crashed. He was also a very experienced gyro pilot.

Is there some magic number for the wind velocity that make these machines very dangerous? I personally have never flown my gyro in wind above 15-20mph.

[Doug Riley]

Mike, no, there's nothing magical or evil about winds of 25, 30, 40 or more mph.

It's true that a gyro can be easily turned at a rate that is too fast for the available engine power to hold altitude. That's true of any aircraft if you bank steeply enough; it's just easier to bank a gyro steeply in a flash than it is the typical G.A. plane.

In a slow aircraft, the wind speed as a percentage of your airspeed is greater. That means that the wind has a more profound effect on your ground speed and track. Wind shears (different wind speeds and directions in different "layers" of air) also result in changes in your airspeed that are bigger, in percentage, than for faster planes.

Ken Rehler had a modest amount of gyro time... something over 100 hours. It sounds as if Kelly was a real pro.

[Udi]

My condolences to Kelly's family and friends. This is a terrible loss.

This accident reminds me a little another accident with a highly experienced pilot. About 2 years ago an Italian 747 captain, who was also an aerobatic pilot, crashed in a 914 Magni M16. His friends - all gyro pilots - watched him perform what looked like a himmelman right after takeoff. Apparently the blades unloaded and the pilot fell to his death.

Gyros cannot stall but they may suffer from other deviations from controlled flight. One of them is unloading of the rotors due to pilot actions, meteorological conditions, or a combination of both. One might even say that gyros are less forgiving than fixed wing airplanes because FW airplanes can recover from almost any form of loss of control, given enough altitude and providing mechanical integrity. Unloading of the rotors can easily become a non-recoverable event.

The subject of pushing the envelope in gyroplanes came up a few times recently. I didn't know Kelly (my loss) but from both Mikes' accounts I have a suspicion that he liked to push the envelope of his aircraft. It is possible that whatever maneuver Kelly was performing was too close to the edge, and the weather conditions pushed him over the edge. If this is indeed what happened, it doesn't mean gyros are inherently dangerous - or that lesser pilots should take golf. What it means is that we should not push the envelope of our gyros - especially not in bad weather.

I hope some of our guys in OK would be allowed to inspect the wreckage.

Udi

[chuter]

Memorial services for Kelly will be on Thursday, February 22nd, 10:00 a.m. at McNeil's Funeral Services, 525 West Highway 152, Mustang. The phone number is 405-376-1616. The family recommends instead of flowers to make donations to the Disabled Veterans Association. The funeral home has the information.

[chuter]

I learned today that the FAA and the NTSB investigated the accident site. Also, gyro CFI Marty Weaver was present during the site investigation, though I don't know if it was in an official capacity.

Marty said the initial report is expected to be released Thursday, with the final factual report expected to be in about 8 months or so.

[Screw]

Screw-In

OMG! My condolences to the Teague Family. I fell horrible. I have never in my life had anyone die in a machine that I built.

Kelly was a hellova a nice guy, and I enjoyed meeting with him. We spend the day together when I sold him that gyro. He struck me as a great instructor by his knowledge and demenor. I think that was Nov. 2004.

This just totally breaks my heart. He would send me emails every now and again to let me know how things were going. I will miss him.

Thanks Ron, I considered your post to be in poor taste considering the last time you or I flew it was October/November of 2004. Kelly has been flying that gyro for that last 2 + years.

Screw-Out

[GyroRon]

Thanks Ron, I considered your post to be in poor taste considering the last time you or I flew it was October/November of 2004. Kelly has been flying that gyro for that last 2 + years.

Screw-Out


John, it was not meant to imply that there was anything wrong with the gyro when you sold it. Yours was the only KB-2 I have ever flown and certainly the only one set up like yours was, so I could not say it was not right, even if I did think that - which I don't. But I do remember flying it, even if it was 2 or more years ago, and I remember the things I listed as being not the norm for most gyros. A experienced gyro pilot goes down mysteriously, and I am just adding my observations about the machine to see if any of them would help offer a explaination to the accident.

I know you have the reccomended travel in the control system.

I also know the stab was installed even with the keel, or darn close to even.

I also know the that in my opinion the gyro flew good and was well constructed.

Sorry if you feel I attacked you or your machine, it wasn't meant that way at all. Just offering some things to check, no different than Ron Herron's or Chuck Beaty's offerings.

Also, I know I would feel bad if someone had a fatal accident in one of my machines... I feel bad whenever I hear of a gyro pilot loosing his life. But don't take it too hard, I know the gyro was right, when you sold it to him, and this accident has nothing to do with you. He had it for 2+ years, and who knows how much he flew it or modified it, or how it was maintained. There is no idea what caused this, and like so many crashes, we may never know....

[Martin Weaver]

Memorial services for Kelly Teague will be on Thursday, February 22nd, at McNeils Funeral Home, 525 West Highway 152, Mustang, OK. The family has requested instead of flowers to make a donation to the Disabled Veterans Association.

Kelly is missed by his family and friends here in Oklahoma, the FAA and NSTB, and all around the general aviation community. Kelly's professionalism is well respected by everyone within this country that met him but also around the world. Kelly traveled to South Africa, Australia and other parts of our planet teaching human factors and accident investigation techniques. He surely will be missed and the NTSB/TSI community have a significantly large pair of shoes to fill.

Martin Weaver
CFI, retired FAA ASI

[Timchick]

Do those who have contributed to the flower fund agree that making a donation to the Disabled Veteran's Association as his family has requested is OK? Is this the correct organization?

http://www.dav.org/

[Harry_S.]

Do those who have contributed to the flower fund agree that making a donation to the Disabled Veteran's Association as his family has requested is OK? Is this the correct organization?

http://www.dav.org/



THAT'S OKAY WITH ME.


Cheers

[gyromike]

Do those who have contributed to the flower fund agree that making a donation to the Disabled Veteran's Association as his family has requested is OK? Is this the correct organization?

http://www.dav.org/

Sounds good to me.

[route66]

if someone can let me know his family's name and address and anything you want said in the memorium, I'll send it off this morning.
Let me know on the Flower Fund thread.

[Friendly]

Brandon'
Steer me to the paypal link, please.

[route66]

Mark,
http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=142259&postcount=4
www.paypal.com
Thanks

[david holmes]

I did not know the man but I will make a memorial to DAV. What was his connection to DAV?

I am 130% VN combat related disabled.

[Friendly]

Done, thanks Brandon, I don't work the paypal thing very well.

[Martin Weaver]

I belive the address and picture of his wife Diana are on his web site: www.okaerobatics.com.

Marty

[Hognose]

Others have said that the NTSB would have its preliminary on Kelly Teague's mishap up by Friday.

They have a preliminary report up now. For a preliminary on an experimental, it appears to me to be reasonably thorough. There are some facts in the report that we have not seen before. I will not comment further on it, but will let the investigators do their work. I am sure they will try very hard to determine the cause of an accident to a former member of their community.

http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20070221X00207&key=1

cheers

-=K=-

[Doug Riley]

One possibility: Disconnection of one control pushrod. The pilot would try to continue controlling the aircraft with the stick. Given the one remaining pushrod, the control forces would be off-center. This could result in ineffectual rolling movements of the rotor head. If the trim spring was set so that some back-stick was required, the head would tip forward and stay that way once one rod broke free.

Removing the HS could cause a change in trim that might require continuous stick pressure, either fore or aft. The pilot would be unable to maintain that pressure once the pushrod broke.

This is a hypothesis only. There would likely be clues in the control system remains that could prove/disprove it.

[automan1223]

Do NOT beat yourself up about this. You built a great machine that IMPRESSED the heck out of this MECHANIC. It flew well when I saw you in the seat. I can only gather that an experienced CFI flew well and flew the heck out of it too. I know this hurts and I feel the loss for this man I never met. When we get in the seat we all know the risks. It beats getting killed on the highway by some loser or sitting in diapers in some nursing home not knowing what day of the week it is.

Ron, it was unprofessional of you to comment about your LIMITED experience in the seat. Your a Dominator pilot.....

The prelim sounds like a loss of control in pitch, while the weather would challenge me in my heavy ass 2 place, I am sure it was within the skill level of this CFI. Automated weather is NOTORIOUSLY wrong and undershoots gusts, and wind. It can only see wind at that location.....

Respectfully,

Jonathan


Screw-In

OMG! My condolences to the Teague Family. I fell horrible. I have never in my life had anyone die in a machine that I built.

Kelly was a hellova a nice guy, and I enjoyed meeting with him. We spend the day together when I sold him that gyro. He struck me as a great instructor by his knowledge and demenor. I think that was Nov. 2004.

This just totally breaks my heart. He would send me emails every now and again to let me know how things were going. I will miss him.

Thanks Ron, I considered your post to be in poor taste considering the last time you or I flew it was October/November of 2004. Kelly has been flying that gyro for that last 2 + years.




Screw-Out

[Harry_S.]

Just one minor comment...the witness' info in the preliminary doesn't really jibe with the witness' info in the news report?!

Hopefully an IRT member or two can be called in to help in the structural materials investigation.


Cheers

[GyroRon]

Ron, it was unprofessional of you to comment about your LIMITED experience in the seat. Your a Dominator pilot.....



Jonathan


Jonathan, you have said alot of just plain wacky, dumb, off the wall stuff over the years I have known you.... but this one sentence here takes the cake.

How many gyros have you flown Jonathan? And do you think you can come to some simple conclusions about a gyro from a flight or two in it? Like if the gyro flys nose down? Or if in a throttle off, steep nose down descent you could end up close to if not on the rear stop when you pull back stick to bring the gyro back to straight and level?

Your a automechanic.... Don't you think if you use someone elses Impact gun, or ratchet for a hour or two, that you could draw some conclusions to how it works? Give me a fricking break!

Dig up any of the videos that were posted of John flying that gyro and tell me the nose wasn't flying low as he flew by....

John may be upset with me for saying anything. As a friend I am supposed to keep my mouth shut I guess... But the facts as far as I am concerned was the pilot appeared to be a top notch pilot. The gyro was constructed very well. It was a proven machine with many hours on it before John sold it. The gyro does down and there has to be a reason, and these things I noted were the only things I could think of that might have played some role in the accident, even though it is highly unlikely they did.

This is no different than when some people threw out ideas and suggestions of things to check after Terry and Bills accident last year.

Anything that can help a investigation, anything that may prevent another accident should be brought to light and followed up on.... not sweep under a rug because someone I consider a friend built the thing, or because I am a Dominator pilot - which is the most ridiculous thing I think I have ever heard you say considering I have owned several other gyros that were NOT Dominators and I have flown just about every type gyro at least once, hell I even flew yours for the first time from the backseat without any problems.... how in the world can a simple DOMINATOR pilot do that???:der:

In the end, I wish I had said nothing, because what I did say almost certainly has no bearing on this crash.

[GyroRon]

I just read the NTSB report Kevin posted.... Case closed as far as I am concerned, He took off the horizontal stab, and is out flying in gusty strong winds and bunted over, plain and simple. Why in the world would someone take a horizontal stab off his gyro when it flew so good with it on??? a 2 pound piece of tubing covered in fabric, that was already on this machine when he bought it, could have prevented this. What a shame

[Hognose]

Two comments, three really.

1. John and Ron, please knock it off. You're both better guys than to squabble like this. I bet a factor in this is how upset you both are over this crash. C'mon fellas, shake hands. (And please don't come out fighting on the bell).

2. A great guy (whom I don't think I ever met) is dead and his family and friends are hurting. A beautiful machine is destroyed. I realize you all want answers; let's wait and see, shall we? Bear in mind that an accident investigation is a scientific proceeding. You can only reach conclusions that the evidence supports, and you need to be ready to throw those conclusions out if the evidence contradicts them. But there may never be enough evidence to be completely, judicially conclusive. That's why they determine a "most probable cause" and "contributing factors" rather than a definitive "cause." We all want certainty, but when you think about it, the integrity of the investigation process is more important. Sad to say, but they will investigate 300-odd fatal GA accidents in 2007.

3. As I said, I'm not going to make any comments on cause. No disrespect to you guys who do, I understand the thirst for certaintyy, but I just think it's premature. When the factual report is complete, we'll know much more. That will be some months in the works.

4. I said three, but here's a bonus comment to answer Harry: in my experience (and everyone else's that I know of) eyewitness reports are of limited value. They often are dead wrong when you examine the physical evidence. Eyewitness reports via the media are particularly unreliable. That's because the media value immediacy more than accuracy, and they value sensationalism above all. They are trying to get a dramatic quote out of the witness (and they often dont much care if the person really is a witness, but that's another story). Accident investigators are aiming to get a different kind of recollection and there are a number of techniques they use to try to get as accurate a comment as they can. But there are limits to all witness statements, because human memory is not like a computer disk. It's more or less created on the fly every time we call it up, and like a psychological Heisenberg principle, every time we call it up changes it again.

Here is a law review article on some of the limits of eyewitnesses:
http://www.law.wayne.edu/Faculty/Fac_web/moran/Excerpt%20from%20Scientific%20Evidence%20in%20Civi l%20and%20Criminal%20Cases.htm

Here's a blog that links to a scientific paper for the courts. It's kind of alarming that we've had 125 people convicted thanks to eyewitnesses, who were subsequently exonerated by physical evidence. Ouch!
http://circuit10.blogspot.com/2006/06/article-on-unreliability-of-eyewitness.html

Here's another article on witnesses, from a cop's point of view:
http://www.opinionet.com/article.php?id=5649&PHPSESSID=800917d4f0281810aff536626e7b7cb8

I'm not aware of any peer-reviewed articles on reliability of mishap eyewitnesses, but it's plausible that they are no more reliable than crime witnesses. The psychology of both highly stressful, life-and-death situations seems similar.

Bottom line -- eyewitness statements are helpful to the degree that they gibe with the tale told by the physical evidence.

I hope I haven't ticked anybody off here. That's not what I'm trying to do.

cheers

-=K=-

[C. Beaty]

If this was in fact a bunt, there will be telltale rotor strike marks on the vertical tail. There will be a sharp crease near the top of the tail and a less sharp one near the base of the tail. That is the invariable pattern.

[barnstorm2]

HStab / bunt or not it sounds like this guy was WORKING on the gyro and making changes.

That makes me think of mechanical failure. How many of us have 'spaced' and left a tool on the engine or a nut or bolt un-safteywired or.......

[GyroRon]

Kevin, your right, there is no way of knowing that he bunted just because he took off the stab and cause it was windy and gusty and because eye witness accounts suggest a bunt. It could have been any of a number of other things.

I still think this is yet another example of why you should have a horizontal stab on your gyro, and yes Mad Mike... you read my mind

[Doug Riley]

Given Kelly's experience in hot aircraft, including other Brock gyros with no effective HS (per his Web site), a bunt is far from a sure thing.

[chuter]

I'm going to start a new thread called "Discussion of OK KB2 accident"; can we take this discussion there and leave this as more of a memorial thread?

Maybe I started it in the wrong area.

Maybe one of the admins could move the posts starting with the one where MadMan Mike called Kelly stupid.

[enewbold]

Given Kelly's experience in hot aircraft, including other Brock gyros with no effective HS (per his Web site), a bunt is far from a sure thing.I agree, Doug. While it sounds like a mechanical failure to me, please fellas, let's show his family some courtesy and respect, AND let the IRT people involved analyze the machine and associated components at the scene.

Sadly,
Ed Newbold, Columbus, OH

[Brent_Brown]

Hey ED NEWBOLD will you reply to my email or did I piss you off too.

Brent Brown
email ezgb@earthlink.net

[Mike Schallmann]

Ah -:drum: -I see that I have been surgically removed from this thread --:hail:

[thirdy8special]

Michael,
I didn't know the guy that was involved in the wreck owned the orange KB2. He was a nice guy, nice machine. I remember him saying something about he was thinking of removing/replacing the present h-stab because the gyro was too stable. I have many pics of his machine from the day I was at your meeting(w/stab). Whether not having the stab played a part in the accident is beyond me. I just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear of your club's loss.

[chuter]

Hi Gary,

I remember you; you came all the way up from Texas for that meeting, and Kelly had some of his NTSB students with him for our cookout.

Hope you're doin' ok.