Lot of crashes over the weekend 34 and 7 fatal

[GrantR]

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/preliminary_data/

Fixed wingers didn’t make such a hot weekend. Yesterday’s FAA data shows 7 fatalities over the weekend! Wow Out of those there was a Kolb, T bird and a maxair Drifter. And they say gyros are dangerous. The bad thing is 2 landed in fields and one in water.

[Vance]

Hello Grant,

I study the NTSB reports in the hopes of learning something that will help me to avoid the mistakes others have paid for.

I have found that this is not an unusual number of accidents or fatal accidents over a weekend.

In my opinion there are more fixed wing and helicopter accidents than gyroplane accidents because there are more fixed wing aircraft and helicopters flying. A quick check of my three local airports found:

Out of 240 aircraft based at SMX there is one gyroplane and 11 helicopters.

The last time they saw a gyroplane at SMX before I arrived was 1983 and he ended up crashing into the river bed with a .13 blood alcohol level and he fell out of the aircraft. It was a fatal accident.

Out of 290 aircraft based at SBP there are no gyroplanes and 4 helicopters.

Out of 206 aircraft based at SBA there are no gyroplanes and 6 helicopters.


Thank you, Vance

[gyronutt]

High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee

Oh I have slipped the surely bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter silvered wings.
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun split clouds
and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of,
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.

Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind aloft
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up up the long delirious burning blue,
I've topped the wind swept heights with easy grace
where neither lark nor eagle flew.

And there with silent lifting mind
I've trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Written by John Gillespie Magee when he was 19 year old fighter pilot during
WW11 - as he soared into the atmosphere during a high altitude test flight of a
Spitfire V. Magee died three month later in a mid-air collision.