FATAL - BRAKO Gyro, Argao, Cebu, Philippines 05 NOV 2020

TyroGyro

Junior Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2016
Messages
567
Location
Liverpool, UK
Aircraft
MTOsport G-IROD
Total Flight Time
150

From the accident fuselage pics, it's definitely a Brako, and I've asked ASN to update accordingly.

Gyro CFI, reportedly clipped a fence on takeoff and crashed in coconut trees.


Looks like it was 915 power, and repainted in the flying school's white colours in the five days between aircraft delivery and accident.



Sincere condolences to all affected.
 
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Why dig up an old accident??? How many years we gonna go back??? 😁
 
In case you're interested, I've gone back to the year dot [for factory built "modern" gyros] to see what the causes of accidents are.

In case you're NOT interested, you can always move along...:whistle:
 
I knew Ferris as well. He actually also flew trikes and helicopters and bought two different trikes from my old company. A Revo and a Revolt.
He was interested in becoming a dealer for AR-1 but he showed me his runway and how he took off on it with his AutoGyro at his house. I told him this was an accident waiting for a time to happen. He laughed. Ended up going with Brako. Shortly after the exact thing I had warned him about happened. Nice guy. May he RIP.
 
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There aren't actually. It's just that you have someone here who highlights them...

The sad thing is, with just a little more common sense and care, the current fatal rate could be slashed by up to 80%, fulfilling Cierva's dream to make the gyro the ultimate "safe" aircraft...
 
These posts by TyroGyro make interesting, if depressing, reading but unfortunately often don't give a good explanation for the cause and posted individually make it difficult to make a reasonable analysis.
Has anyone created a database of accidents that would allow us to perhaps pull out common features?
If not I would propose something like this one I knocked up in Excel when the idea came to me. The idea would be that each column would have a choice of answers to ensure that the database used a single vocabulary. I've listed some off the top of my head so it's far from complete.
1647170381330.png

If there is a volunteer to take this on it would require everyone who knows of an accident to fill in as much data as possible.
If there are no volunteers I'll take it on but would need guys like TyroGyro and Steve UK to give me the data they already have.
Comments???
Mike G
 
Hi Mike

while I applaud your efforts with your warning device and your kind offer to create a database, we have covered this ground several times before on this forum, and I can give you the short and stark reality why I think your device will have limited impact of the number of fatals (although it may deliver other benefits)

About 75% of fatals have as their underlying cause the following, in roughly descending order.

generally silly ADM by the inexperienced and over-confident, or the unlicensed
Wire and tree strikes
engine failure inside the Dead-Man's curve
poor maintenance/ poor checks
mid-airs [so far, an exclusively French "thing"]
Hot/High/Humid/Overweight
Mountain rotor
insecure helmet or cargo

I don't think a warning system is going to help many of these guys... Gyros don't kill people; people kill gyros.

Throw in another 4% who are medical events, and maybe 2% which are genuinely unforeseeable technical failures, and the warning system's "target market" is reduced to perhaps 20% of the total. Guys who are trying to do the right thing, but get a bit sloppy or forgetful in their flying.

The device may have more impact on non-fatals. The tediously repetitive take-off and landing accidents, that everyone walks away from, leaving another gyro a ball of scrap, and insurance premiums in the clouds...
 
TyroGyro
My post wasn't really about my GWS system although obviously my interest in accidents is mainly driven by my work on it. I will try to answer your points in the GWS thread later to try to avoid too much thread drift.

My proposal that somebody (perhaps me) develops a database with input from others is really to try to put some statistical data together, that everyone can see, to allow us to decide if a personal analysis such as yours is correct or not and to perhaps tease out some dominant causes.

My gut feeling is that your analysis may well be fairly correct but it remains personal and therefore up for discussion. Unfortunately based on the way discussions go on this, and other, forums your opinion and my gut feelings have no value. A database that was fed by as many actors as possible should have more credibility.

I see you're from Liverpool, as am I, next time I visit family there I'll try to set up a meeting. Where is your gyro based?

Mike G
 
Hi Mike

the only good news in all of this is the fatal rate seems to be in gradual decline.

We have tried a "systematic" analysis several times, but it petered out. As an aside, mods, the search facility now seems to be largely unserviceable [only goes back a couple of years and keywords that should be found are not found], which it a great pity and a huge loss to the forum, and tends to make any further efforts pointless.:(

Anyhow, when we last looked we came to the conclusion that most fatals were 10/10 avoidable, for the reasons given, and the gyro was rarely, if ever, at fault. Nothing subsequent to this has changed my view. Nor my view that some countries are far safer than others, due to ingrained, perhaps unchangeable, differences in training, regulation, environmental and even "cultural" factors.

I live in Crosby and my aircraft is at a private strip near Winwick. Feel free to PM me.

Rod
 
TyroGyro is focusing on fatal accidents and I roughly concur with his assessment of fatal accident causes.

We did have a fatal low rotor rpm event in Utah but it was a 915 powered American Ranger and not one of the aircraft in TyroGyro’s focus.

I feel Mike’s device (GWS) will particularly help with the non-fatal mishaps that are driving up the cost of insurance.

I was taking off from Oceano airport (50 feet by 2,355 long) surrounded by obstructions yesterday with full fuel and two large pilots. The wind coming over the buildings and trees caused a down rotor over the runway and I needed to push my normal takeoff procedure because the blades were not coming up to speed as the trees at the end rushed up.

I feel my low time (three hours) client would have been uncomfortable managing it.

I feel the GWS would have been a help even for me.
 
...We have tried a "systematic" analysis several times, but it petered out. As an aside, mods, the search facility now seems to be largely unserviceable [only goes back a couple of years and keywords that should be found are not found], which it a great pity and a huge loss to the forum, and tends to make any further efforts pointless.:(
Just recently asked Todd if the "Search" feature could be improved upon. The forum software people have mentioned there are features available. Whether those items will incur extra cost is the question.
 
It used to work well, but something recently has gone "amiss" with it...
 
What did you do to “push your normal takeoff procedure”?
I started adding power at 130 rotor rpm instead of 180 rotor rpm. The wind was such that the rotor was not accelerating in the typical way and I had around a 12 knot direct cross with lots of ground obstructions causing turbulence. I felt I was too close to a blade excursion.

I would have liked to have had the GWS to reassure me.
 

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Thinking "outside the box", one way albeit unrealistic in todays day and age to cut down on a whole lot of aviation accidents is, if you are not going to materially change how aircraft operate, the return to the old Aerodrome concept.
If runways were circular with a sock in the middle, there would be a whole lot less ground handling and landing incidents.
I realize how ridiclous this is before you bother....
But the runway I use is SO wide and SO crazy long, I basically try to take off and land into the wind to the extent that I will brief the tower on 90 degree crosswind days that I will be landing on the active, BUT INLINE with the delta taxiway.
From hold short to hold short I have more then enough for a takeoff. Remember to angle off so as not to fly over other hold short traffic.
What I see is a lot of bungles related to crosswinds not speeding the rotors up or touching down crossways (castoring nosewheels help)
Its a gyroplane. Don't get roped into flying it like a fixed wing.
 
It used to work well, but something recently has gone "amiss" with it...
Not all that recently, it seems to me.
It's often easier to find old threads here using Google rather than the forum's actual search function.
 
Not all that recently, it seems to me.
It's often easier to find old threads here using Google rather than the forum's actual search function.
The forum search function was very useful. It's unfortunate that it does no longer work...
 
Are there any resources comparing gyro accident rate vs fixed wing? It's easy when following a gyro accident forum topic to lose perspective of how gyros compare to other aircraft in terms of safety. Do gyro pilots make more poor ADM decisions than FW? If so are these poor ADM decisions more particular to characteristics of gyros like flying low etc, etc. Looking at things this way may also be more instructive in trying to prevent accidents. In seaplane accidents the poor ADM of leaving wheels down for water landings is specific to seaplanes, for example.
Are there more characteristics of gyros that make them more prone to poor ADM to decisions and thus more dangerous? I think it's easy to say it's not gyros that are at fault, but the pilots - but this probably applies to any aircraft. The question is, do gyros inherently allow for more pilot error accidents? I'm inclined to think that the 'rotating wing' spinning above a gyro pilot may make the aircraft inherently more prone to poor ADM, because it's not a wing that the pilot can mostly forget about while he flies like in most aircraft, it requires almost constant attention particularly on takeoff, in addition to thinking about the powerplant going quiet on you, which is mostly all that FW pilots have to think about as long as they keep the aircraft above stall speed.
 
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Thinking "outside the box", one way albeit unrealistic in todays day and age to cut down on a whole lot of aviation accidents is, if you are not going to materially change how aircraft operate, the return to the old Aerodrome concept.
If runways were circular with a sock in the middle, there would be a whole lot less ground handling and landing incidents.
I realize how ridiclous this is before you bother....
But the runway I use is SO wide and SO crazy long, I basically try to take off and land into the wind to the extent that I will brief the tower on 90 degree crosswind days that I will be landing on the active, BUT INLINE with the delta taxiway.
From hold short to hold short I have more then enough for a takeoff. Remember to angle off so as not to fly over other hold short traffic.
What I see is a lot of bungles related to crosswinds not speeding the rotors up or touching down crossways (castoring nosewheels help)
Its a gyroplane. Don't get roped into flying it like a fixed wing.

Reference takeoff and landing accidents. I do not believe that most of the accidents have much to do with crosswinds. At least I have not seen great evidence of that. What I have seen is bad pre-rotation and takeoffs and bad landing techniques and getting behind the power curve on takeoff initial climb. Yes nosewheel darting off to the side because it was allowed to drop down with some forward speed (which is bad technique but it happens) is a contributing factor. Its fairly strong on some models and not so strong on others and very weak on AR-1, M-16 etc.
I do like the idea of a round field where you just land into the wind all the time. How cool would that be but it requires a lot of land I guess.
 
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