My RAF Crash

[Rotorrandy]

My wife and I are fine. I did not get hurt, my wife had some scrapes, bruises and sore ribs. It's been a week and she is almost healed. Yes, there was another plane involved.

I was attending a small country fly-in on a private grass strip. It's a great event with antique cars, motorcycle and planes. There is no formal "air show". If the field is clear and you want to demonstrate your aircraft, the crowd won't mind. I flew a club member around earlier and did a little demonstration flight as well. About 2:00 my wife and I decided to leave.

I took off behind a couple of other planes. I lifted off far down field because of my long slow takeoff from thick grass. I know the RAF is hard to see. With rotor spinning to a blurr and my narrow profile and yellow color against the grass, it can't be easy.

I took off and got 50 feet or so when I heard a plane bearing down on me. I then saw his shadow come over my shoulder and believed he was very close.
I made a hard right turn like I have done a hundred times before. But this time I was a little slow coming off the grass and at a climb attitude. If I could have stuck with the 90 degree turn I think I would have made it. Unfortunately the 90 degree turn pointed me straight at a house. I continued the turn to 180 degrees. This was more than the gyro had in it. I tried to land as normal as I could but the field was very soft and lumpy. My nose wheel dug in, broke off and flipped me.

The other plane never saw me when he came in for a low fast smoke on pass. Witnessess told me they thought we were going to collide. I never actually saw the plane as I was rather busy. I was told by the father of the kid who took the video he missed me by 40 feet. A home owner there said he thought it was more like 10 feet. Either way, I need to believe my actions and sacrafice kept this from becoming much worse. I loved my RAF.

[dragonflyerthom]

Glad you and you wife are O.K. and sorry you had such a loss. I know I would miss mine.

[Mike484]

Great to hear your doing fine, sorry about the loss of your RAF.

[barnstorm2]

Glad to hear you are ok!

You made the right decision!

[Heather Poe]

It sounds like excellent piloting and making the best of a bad situation. What scares me most about flying is not the weather or mechanical failure, but other people. In my training I have had two situations that were too close for comfort. I have already invested in two types of traffic awareness for my build: TIS and active transponder interrogation. I hope that you and your wife have a speedy and full recovery, and that you rebuild soon.

[GyroDoug]

Randy,

Just to clarify what happened so I can understand the reason your went down, I believe you were flying just above the power curve but because of a very sharp turn you were forced to take to avoid a collision, it slowed you down further and put you behind the power curve. At that point you started to sink back to the ground and you didn't have any more power to power out of the decent so you chose to land the best you could and ended up on some uneven ground and with enough forward speed that your front landing gear failed, causing the rollover and resulting damage.

I am not trying to pick apart or judge what you did but trying to understand the situation and what might have happened differently that would have ended with better results.

My first thought is that if you had an engine with more reserve power and had been able to increase the power, you could have continued to climb and not been faced with setting down. I realize that having more power isn't always practical but I think this does make a case for having an engine with more power available than you normally need to fly, so that in a situation like this you could power out of it.

My second thought is when landing onto an unknown surface, that could hold unknown dangers, it would be best to make a zero roll landing or as close to that as possible to avoid just the kind of thing your experienced. You may have landed slowly and close to that but you obviously still had enough forward speed to break off your front landing gear. It is very sad that the aircraft made it back to the ground safely but in that last couple of seconds of ground roll had an event that caused so much damage. I am glad you are both OK and I hope we can all learn from this incident and hopefully avoid the same fate if ever put in a similar situation.

Gyro Doug

[fiveboy]

Glad you two are fine. Aircraft can be rebuilt, lives are more difficult. Did the schmuck who came in on you even apologize or acknowledge?

[Harry_S.]

Tough luck on the machine, Randy...but really good luck as regards your wife and yourself.

Glad to see that you came on here to give us the straight story. Hang tough!!


Cheers :)

[Chuck Roberg]

Glad your both OK.

[PW_Plack]

Randy, we're glad you're both OK, and I hope you find a way to return to flying at some point.

What I hope to learn from situations like this isn't so much the split-second decision-making, because we never really know exactly what or how we'll do till we're there. The lesson I hope to pull from this is about the risks inherent in the environment.

Was the guy making the high-speed pass on the radio announcing his intent? (Was there even a recognized CTAF on which you could announce your takeoff?)

The first time I went to a gyro fly-in, I was amazed at the collision risks in the pattern. It made me think hard about choosing events at which I might one day fly, and others where my personal thresholds might dictate watching from the ground.

[Gyropilot007]

Randy:

Thanks for sharing your story and I'm glad you and your wife are OK. I flipped my RAF over a year ago and not having it flying is killing me. Unfortunately, due to this terrible economy, I can't afford to spend the money to fix it right now. I've done about everything I can without spending too much money. But I will say, that one of these days, the "Starship Kathleen" will fly again. And I'm sure you can fly again as well.

Bob

[gyro]

Glad your all OK!!

looking at the video the gyro was already tilted to the right and the blades were whacking the ground long before the nose dug in and snapped. I guess that hard right left you will little room to level her back off before you impacted??

[rfonseca]

I am glad you are ok.

As the gyro was painted yellow and you say that they did not see you, which one is the best color to paint a gyro or airplane to be seen? I thought that yellow was the best color.

[RockyMeLad]

Tough decision, but probably the best possible.

Glad y'all are ok. That was a nice bird.

[Minnesota_Mike]

Wow...
From the description...I believe you did all you could considering the the circumstances and the small window of reaction time. NO DOUBT...it could have been worse.
I myself am leery of Grass strips (unless really well tended to) because of just such a problem, since it seems most gear just isn't built durable enough to handle the stresses put on it from such uneven terrain.
My craft has the larger Air-Trac balloon tires on the mains- well suited for grass. Now I need to find a similar tire for the front- larger diameter and some balloon to it.
My friend totaled out his Bensen in much the same way- tire dug in and over he went. The front wheels on almost all the machines I see (I think) are just too narrow and too small a diameter to work in dirt and grass, especially when abrupt force is put to it in an emergency. Seems they dig in EVERY TIME.
It is good that both of you are fine- that is the best part of this story!

M-M

[animal]

Glad you and your Wife are ok , yeah I am interested to know if the Fixed wing Pilot fessed up or if any report was filed with the FAA, the guy clearly caused a crash. you have as much right to fly out of the field safely as any other pilot and it sounds like poor judgment on the fixed wing pilots side of things.

personally I would be hunting the guy down my self and demanding payment of my aircraft.

[NoWingsAttached]

Paul

WHAT VIDEO? post us a link please.

I agree with ANIMAL 100%. The pilot approaching your 6 is clearly in error. Do not let this thing go just because you are such a nice guy. You have suffered a great loss, you could easliy have been killed, and this guy clearly is liable in civil court for his actions and the damage you sustatined. GET A GOOD TRIAL LAWYER immediately! This type of thing is a terrible disaster, not some little parking lot fender-bender. There is NO EXCUSE for the pilot running you over like that!

I was flying patterns, practicing landings at CTJ. Everyone knows me, everyone covers and rebroadcasts my weak radio transmissions, and alerts incomming traffic to be aware of gyro operations in the helo pattern when I am upstairs.

This one guy announced approach from 6 miles out. He was asked to continue radio announcements for the rest of his approach, due to my abillity to receive radio but not transmit vary far. I continued my pattern, announcing each leg, altitude, etc. I set up and announced final, with steep descent. I was at 50' and this A$$#@!& FLEW UNDER ME TO LAND! I never saw him, though I was looking, he never made any announcements of any approaches, NOTHING. I changed my shorts, and the way I do things. I also added another beacon that is VERY bright.

[Gyro_Kai]

Glad, you and your wife are ok.

Your decision, to avert a possible catastrophy for all participants with a probable damage on your side is an example to all.

Kai.

[Russ Hobbs]

I agree Kai, a mid air would have been a disaster for the aircraft occupants and spectators.

[Minnesota_Mike]

I'm guessing this is the video footage of the crash?
http://www.break.com/index/small-boy-captures-helicopter-crash.html

(The location and passenger details sounded just about right: Husband and Wife...he walks away, etc.....Tacoma, WA......even though the date on the video says 2007)
..."gerg's" advice in post 17 on seeking legal council is spot on if this IS the footage!!


Side note:
Note the blades in the footage...an amazing amount of power moving through those blades upon impact....stunning that they hold up so well considering just how much deflection and distortion is going on there.

PS...I've captured this impressive footage for my own archive....If you want it too, here's a link so you can save it...PLUS the free .FLV media player needed to play these type of online "Tube" files.
About 4.4Mb. total size.
http://rapidshare.com/files/234219508/Gyro_Crash___media_player.exe

Or you can get just the player...directly from here:
http://applian.com/flvplayer/

http://applian.com/flvplayer/download_flv_player.php
(do not enter your personal info...just wait for download
window to pop up, then save file to your drive).

[gyro]

Paul

WHAT VIDEO? post us a link please.

I agree with ANIMAL 100%. The pilot approaching your 6 is clearly in error. Do not let this thing go just because you are such a nice guy. You have suffered a great loss, you could easliy have been killed, and this guy clearly is liable in civil court for his actions and the damage you sustatined. GET A GOOD TRIAL LAWYER immediately! This type of thing is a terrible disaster, not some little parking lot fender-bender. There is NO EXCUSE for the pilot running you over like that!

I was flying patterns, practicing landings at CTJ. Everyone knows me, everyone covers and rebroadcasts my weak radio transmissions, and alerts incomming traffic to be aware of gyro operations in the helo pattern when I am upstairs.

This one guy announced approach from 6 miles out. He was asked to continue radio announcements for the rest of his approach, due to my abillity to receive radio but not transmit vary far. I continued my pattern, announcing each leg, altitude, etc. I set up and announced final, with steep descent. I was at 50' and this A$$#@!& FLEW UNDER ME TO LAND! I never saw him, though I was looking, he never made any announcements of any approaches, NOTHING. I changed my shorts, and the way I do things. I also added another beacon that is VERY bright.

This was already posted but here is it is
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_050909WAB-helicopter-crash-KS.cee9084.html

[enewbold]

I'm so very happy you had a good, injury-free outcome from such a bad situation. The video looks horrible, and it's wonderful you emerged unharmed! Hang in there, brother~

[Early Bird Dave]

Thanks for posting Randy! Keep us advised on the ongoing situation if you are able and willing.
I'm glad you both came away in good shape. The cabin did a good job in protecting you both.
Take care! DH

[NoWingsAttached]

When I went to see this vid, this one came up next, unrelated...I shouldn't hijack this thread but...

http://www.break.com/index/helicopter_whacks_hanger_on_takeoff.html