Accident Kingsland Texas - Sport Copter Vortex - N924WG - 9-9-21

[BEN S]

Okay, so after consulting the Oracle.
Stay in bird, flare nose up at last min. Unbuckle as you touch down and rotors stop.
Swim.
Well....I guess thats what I'll do if I ever find myself in open water.

 

[Tyger]

That would be my plan exactly

 

[GyroRon]

back when I lived in Florida and before I got involved with gyros ( year was 2000 I believe ).... I found a good deal on a used " Paraplane". This was the original powered parachute and it was constructed similar to a gyro and used a pair of Solo single cylinder two stroke engines and a pair of counter rotating props.

For whatever dumb reason, I guess since it had two engines I had some kind of dumb idea in my head that I would be able to fly it even on just one engine.

I hadn't had the thing long, and had taught myself to fly it, and didn't have a ton of experience with it..... but regardless I decided to go a flight over to Fort Myers with it. I lived in Cape Coral and at the time, there was a ton of vacant lots in parts of cape coral, so I took off from a area in the northern part of town and flew over towards Fort Myers downtown area. There is a fairly big river between Cape Coral and Fort Myers and always lots of boat traffic and even shipping barges and whatnot in the river... I decided to buzz along the shoreline of the river near downtown and circle a island in the middle of the river. I did all that and started to climb out towards Fort Myers, when one of the engines just suddenly quit. I was only at maybe half throttle or so at the time so I went to full power, thinking I would be able to climb and maintain altitude on one engine... WELP nope! I had turned towards Cape Coral ( cause there was no where suitable in downtown fort myers to land ) and quickly realized that I was not climbing but actually losing altitude... and it was very apparent that I would not make it even across the river.

So I turned again and pointed it towards Fort Myers cause I was already fairly close to fort myers at this point... And I lost a ton of altitude in that turn. With the engine screaming and losing altitude quickly I got as close to shore as possible and just a few feet from hitting the water I killed the throttle and ignition on the engine.

When the thing hit the water ( was going rougly 25-28 mph ) it not only immediately sunk but it also nosed over. I was still a good 200-300 feet from shore and had no idea how deep the water was before impact but turned out the water was only maybe 5 feet deep. But the paraplane had not only sunk but it flipped fowards and I was literally completely underwater and my face was in the mud with the aircraft on my back pushing me into the mud... I unbuckled the seatbelt and stood up to get the plane off me, and to my surprise when I stood up my head was out of the water. Had it been deeper water I don't know if the turnout would been as good.

Funny thing was, there was several people that saw me crash into the water. Not a single person even so as much as blinked a eye. I got up out of the aircraft and walked ashore and no one even waved.... Didn't have money or a phone with me and was dripping wet, but luckily I was able to use the phone in the lobby of a hotel nearby and called my dad to come get me since he was fairly close by.

Anyway meaningless story... just sharing cause it was worth pointing out that this thing sunk like a brick and I ended up face first in the mud with the thing on my back. Lots of lessons learned from that...

 

[DavePA11]

GyroRon - Really surprised no one came out to help. Usually the opposite happened with people curious on what happened. If you watch the videos on the mosquito helicopter thank sunk, I think the pilot stated he went down fast in the water too. In some video thought he mentioned it was 20 feet under when he took his seat belt off, but can’t find it now.

 

[Doug Riley]

My suggestion that you stay strapped in comes from (1) personal experience with land-bound blade strikes (you're statistically safer in the center of the mayhem) (2) Ron Menzie's ditch off the Rhode Island shore in his Bensen, and (3) Chuck Beaty's ditch in the Gulf of Mexico. There are enough videos online of rotorcraft ditching that you can see how blades behave when they hit the water at flight RRPM.

Ron's Paraplane story reinforces the advice that you do a hard flare to get rid of all forward motion to avoid a forward flip. The maneuver might better be called a short vertical descent.

Another New England gyronaut, Harlan Gage, had a relevant experience in his Bensen Hydrocopter. His floats caused a drag-over that sent him into the drink at a good clip. The drag-over pulled the nose down despite back stick, he said. Harl ended up with significant injuries, including a collapsed lung.

 

[DavePA11]

I replied to All_Ins post to another thread about discouraging new pilots from flying gyros based on our posts.

Here is what was written…
“The answer to my last questions about water landings helped scare 3% of the public as reported to Vance and me. "They are now scared of gyros!! Two NEW pilots out of about 20 (that's 10%) at the fly-in said "They are now scared to fly out of their airport because of Vance's opinion on how undependable they are and the others pros agreed with him by the time I stop reading flying treads.

He was only trying to stop me from flying to Catalina, not the entire world.
Because he really does care about me, calls me, helps me all of the time and I still consider him a good friend. I forgive instantly!!!

Why = the final reason not to fly over water = "The 4 stroke Rotax engines will quit at any time because they are installed by amateurs." Their opinion means anywhere at any time. (I do not agree with the pros on this, just hire an A&P to install and maintain the engine)

My gyro questions interactions with Vance to my posts are now in instilling physiological fear in the world and for the first time helping drive people away. I cannot be the cause of driving people out of our sport.
1st do no harm!!! My questions here are causing harm!!!
Better to not share anything about my gyro experiences, until really trained and I do not need any questions answers about emergency landings, than cause harm!!”

Here is what I wrote. —————
Honestly, if these discussions are making new gyro pilots scared of flying gyros then so be it. If they don’t realize any aircraft engine can fail during flight then they should not be pilots.

Rotax aircraft engines are very reliable, but as mentioned any engine is only as reliable as how well it’s maintained. I too used an authorized Rotax maintenance facility to do my annual on the Rotax 912 engine.

All of these discussion are fine including Vance’s feedback to your posts. New pilots should know all of this information, and then they can decide if flying gyros are for them or not.

I see these posts actually saving lives by providing enough information to pilots to determine if they have the background, skills and most important common sense to fly Gyrocopters.

Maybe you and Vance just saved two lives? That is how I see it. I greatly appreciate your posts and Vance’s posts.

Keep on posting and saving lives!
Dave

 

[Martin W.]

.

For obvious reasons we cannot practice actual ditching so we have discussions like this or do some teaching in ground school.

I have nothing to add except something one of my (helicopter) instructors said years ago.

When you tilt the cyclic the energy in the blade will be dissipated quickly when it hits the water ........ but only in that blade ..... remember the other blade still retains its full inertia for a split second and may bend or fold at the hub and strike the cabin.

He suggested that if possible during those few seconds of panic , try to move the cyclic a bit slower so each blade gets to "kiss" the water surface a couple of times without a violent reaction.

Theory only of course ... but somewhere I have video of a large Sikorsky ditching with a slow roll over and seems to bear this out .... if I find it I will post the link.

 

[DavePA11]

Probably harder to do (enter water with flat rotor) than said since most likely will be flaring to slow forward and downward motion before hitting the water?

I was in one aircraft accident and it happened so so fast in 2-3 seconds and only did what was ingrained in my habits which was all good for this situation except I reverted to what I had flown the most which was my old Cub….

Hindsight the plane I was flying was more capable and think I could have prevented the accident in only those 2-3 seconds with more experience in that particular plane I was flying… Oh well. I found this out after taking more training with experienced instructor for the specific aircraft after the accident since I was afraid to fly it now…

I found out the sight picture was way different from my old Cub when applying brakes and I stopped applying pressure on brakes when I thought the prop would hit the ground, but after more specific instruction I found in fact I could have applied significantly more pressure lowering nose significantly more without hitting prop thus preventing the accident.

So lesson learned is I should have taken more instruction with an instructor more knowledgeable of the specific aircraft to better understand the limits of this plane compared to the others I have flown which were less capable.

I just finished my bi-annual flight review with an CFI instructor and we did extra 2-3 hours too, but he never flew the type of airplane I was flying so I would never have learned about the sight picture on aggressive application of the brakes during my bi-annual. Now will only seek out instructors with specific experience in make and model, and focus more on limitations of the aircraft that might occur to prevent an accident.

 

[Tyger]

(minute 6)
Q: "If we should ditch, how long will the plane remain afloat?"
"Golly, that's awful hard to say, ma'am. Some of them go down like a rock.
And then, I don't know, for some reason or other, others will stay up for two, three minutes..."

 

[DavePA11]

Funny video Tyger. We don’t “win” the wars any more… Didn’t realized they used the term “stoned” back then related to the only way he would fly. Wow, he knew way back then that the gyros went down like a rock!

 

[BEN S]

(minute 6)
Q: "If we should ditch, how long will the plane remain afloat?"
"Golly, that's awful hard to say, ma'am. Some of them go down like a rock.
And then, I don't know, for some reason or other, others will stay up for two, three minutes..."

Would love to see video but says unavailable, can you post the name of it on youtube so I can looknit up directly? Thx.

 

[Tyger]

There was never a video, it's just audio. It's from the '60s

 

[Brent Smith]

Regarding blade strikes on water, IIRC there were videos of hueys being ditched during the withdrawal from Viet Nam where the pilots hovered in near a ship, jumped out (or rode it in, don't remember) and the heli settled in. Perhaps what happened next could be instructive (though given the obvious differences between a sizable heli and the typical light gyro).

 

[Resasi]

So LOTS of altitude!
Or....don't fly over big water.

Ben all the altitude will probably do is give you lots of time to think about what's coming. As for hitting the drink. Done the 'dunker' training.

Yes a shock being strapped in then dunked into cold water, rolled upside down in pretty dark water, then trying to leave via an exit with some other frantic guys all trying to escape.

But, well briefed, one took the deep breath, controlled oneself, didn't panic, released the straps, took your turn at the exit. Yes there were safety divers but in reality, depending on the gyro type unlikely to be more that two with an exit for each, and a clearly understood safety briefing should suffice.

Yes, have come down on reserves with a high rate of descent, and yes much harder to judge impact time, but in a gyro unless I am in vertical descent I would expect to have much the same ability to flare and touch down on the water surface as gently as I can on a runway with minimal descent rate...and a decelerating rotor. A glassy water impact will be harder to judge.

Any extended over water out of gliding distance should be with adequate precautions. Floatation device/s, and with people aware of your route of flight, two way radio contact, spot, and if possible chase boat or boats in the area.

As you say stack the odds in your favour and plan accordingly.

 

[Martin W.]

.

As mentioned , warm water versus cold water makes a difference .

I was told by a knowledgeable person that a warm water dunking is often survivable because the natural bodily reaction is to hold breath for a moment and try for the surface .

But in cold water the natural bodily reaction is an involuntary gasp which fills the lungs with water.

Some of you guys have taken the "dunk training" in the Navy or whatever .... I would find it interesting to know if the water was warm , cold , or ice cold .... and were you trained not to "gasp"

thanks.

 

[Resasi]

Did dunker in UK Marines, we were not briefed on water temp, it was assumed it would be pretty cold, all the other water we came into contact with during training was, and so the gasp reflex was inhibited by experience.

Even more so during polar training in Norway where water was VERY cold.

Good point to make.

 

[BEN S]

Really cold water sucks reall really bad

 

[DavePA11]

Might be option to put on rotor brake right after landing on the water too…