Hognose
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2003
- Messages
- 2,182
- Location
- Seacoast New Hampshire, USA
- Aircraft
- PA-28/J-3/various
- Total Flight Time
- Gyro - 2.5! FW, hundreds not thousands. Helo, 0 (some day!)
The mishaps that trouble me...
The mishaps that trouble me...
Most of the fatals in RAFs were pilots with relatively low time in RAFs and without a gyroplane-specific license. By relatively low, I don't mean 1 hour RAF dual like me; I mean <100 hours, but there are some exceptions.
CFIs that have died in RAFs include:
Most nations do not thoroughly investigate gyroplane mishaps. Canada considers a gyro fatal the equivalent of a gear-up landing in a FW - not worth worrying about. Russia doesn't even register gyros and accidents are investigated if at all by the local highway cops. Only Britain' AAIB stands out as doing thoroiugh investigations. Fortunately, we are now seeing some results of the PRA accident investigation team.
Somewhere between 70 and 100 RAFs have pranged without fatalities, it seems likely, out of at least 672 kits shipped. Fatal mishaps have taken at least 25-30 lives. The vast majority of mishaps are low time pilots, and many mishaps point to training deficiencies (or, in the case of some of the higher-time pilots, hazardous attitudes).
One thing that is alarming is that high-time FW pilots (thousands of hours) seem to still have PIO/PPO mishaps in RAFs, even with a lot of dual and 70 or 100 hours in type.
It seems to me that the very safest approach is reducing the thrustline offset, adding an effective stabilizer (preferably, immersed in the propwash), and getting extensive professional training. These are three legs of a stool. Can you balance the stool on one or two legs? Sure you can, for a while. Some guys get really good at it, like unicycle riders.
For a while the company was withholding the 2.5 engine (with its greater thrust) from low time pilots, I can only presume that was an attempt to keep them alive long enough to develop hands-on reflexes. Of course, the higher powered engine not only exacerbates any PIO/PPO tendency but (like any aircraft with a lot of propeller thrust, which can be airborne at low enough speeds to limit control surface effect) also creates the possibility of torque roll. As I said, torque roll is not a uniquely RAF problem... there was a recent P-51 mishap due to the same physical phenomenon.
cheers
-=K=-
The mishaps that trouble me...
Most of the fatals in RAFs were pilots with relatively low time in RAFs and without a gyroplane-specific license. By relatively low, I don't mean 1 hour RAF dual like me; I mean <100 hours, but there are some exceptions.
CFIs that have died in RAFs include:
- Dan Haseloh (claimed 5,000 hours in type, in Kindersley in 1998 -- at least his fourth mishap in an RAF)
- James Allcock (with a passenger, Edward Petersen, in a midair with Haseloh, 6/6/98)
- Michel Valliere (according to his instructor -- Jim -- was not ready to instruct but was out of money for training).
- Mikhail Storozhenko (Russia 12/06, 500-600 hours in gyros but unknown RAF time. With a passenger. Airworthiness of the gyro in some question).
- Domingo Cordero (Spain, many hours, with a student in a new RAF, 2007).
- There was also another Russian crash which was, I think, in 07; it also killed an instructor (in this case one who definitely had lots of RAF time) and his student. These two fatals broke a fifty-year safety streak for Russian gyroplanes.
Most nations do not thoroughly investigate gyroplane mishaps. Canada considers a gyro fatal the equivalent of a gear-up landing in a FW - not worth worrying about. Russia doesn't even register gyros and accidents are investigated if at all by the local highway cops. Only Britain' AAIB stands out as doing thoroiugh investigations. Fortunately, we are now seeing some results of the PRA accident investigation team.
Somewhere between 70 and 100 RAFs have pranged without fatalities, it seems likely, out of at least 672 kits shipped. Fatal mishaps have taken at least 25-30 lives. The vast majority of mishaps are low time pilots, and many mishaps point to training deficiencies (or, in the case of some of the higher-time pilots, hazardous attitudes).
One thing that is alarming is that high-time FW pilots (thousands of hours) seem to still have PIO/PPO mishaps in RAFs, even with a lot of dual and 70 or 100 hours in type.
It seems to me that the very safest approach is reducing the thrustline offset, adding an effective stabilizer (preferably, immersed in the propwash), and getting extensive professional training. These are three legs of a stool. Can you balance the stool on one or two legs? Sure you can, for a while. Some guys get really good at it, like unicycle riders.
For a while the company was withholding the 2.5 engine (with its greater thrust) from low time pilots, I can only presume that was an attempt to keep them alive long enough to develop hands-on reflexes. Of course, the higher powered engine not only exacerbates any PIO/PPO tendency but (like any aircraft with a lot of propeller thrust, which can be airborne at low enough speeds to limit control surface effect) also creates the possibility of torque roll. As I said, torque roll is not a uniquely RAF problem... there was a recent P-51 mishap due to the same physical phenomenon.
cheers
-=K=-
