Gyroplane accident

Peter - it is a gyro accident, fairness doesn't come into play.

On camera and via social media and forums seen by loads around the world with comments like, "I told you those gyro guys were crazy"

The recent Oroville incident in California also contains elements that are beyond belief if the comments on the original forum are correct and this in the first world USA - this one is also an official US stat with the FAA/NTSB - hours flown zero accident one - an own goal for the wider gyro community and the stuff that probably makes the FAA/NTSB twitch.


http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41493&highlight=oroville


Who can help raise the profile of safe gyrocopter operation and how can this be done. Is the PRA visible to anyone other than those already "inside experimental gyro aviation".

Why would someone buy a gyro and go try it out without training - beyond belief.
 
SandL said:
nice guy or not he has posted the video for the public to see, leaving some with the impression that gyros are dangerous, nice guys research gyros and get training before jumping in with both feet and letting their arrogance take off.

there is a world of difference between controlling a paramotor and controlling a gyro.

the only good things to come from this is are
"and that's why you need training"
"and that's why you wear a helmet"
"and that proves gyros are different"
"and that shows that gyro accidents are survivable"
"and that is why you need a clear area each side of the runway"
"and that is why you don't try and learn on line"

someone on the forum says " cameras, crowds and confidence"
very unfair to class this as a gyro accident.
Click to expand...

But Gyros are dangerous. Aviation and heights are dangerous, Guns, knives, fire, cars, motorcycles, etc. are or can be dangerous. However, I agree with what your saying about the positive things that can be learned from this video.

I RESPECT the pilot for making this video available. It shows what happens in the learning process, without enough speed, runway with curbs, behind the power curb, not enough training, possible windy conditions, etc.. I assume there's a list of variables leading to this accident that could be discussed.

Without having all the facts and having not been there perhaps we should be conservative speculating. If I got into any kind of wreck, car, motorcycle, etc. First I would want to know what I did or what caused the wreck, but also a little compassion towards my circumstance. I guess help the person understand what they did wrong instead of labeling. Now if later they do the exact same thing again that's a different story. There appeared to be many people at the location (runway?), Maybe someone there should have been giving some advice to the situation. Maybe the people there didnt know how to advise. This could very well be a situation of a pilot trying to to move too fast in the learning process. Then factor in less than optimum conditions and thus the result we see.
I dont think he wanted to have the outcome he had and I would not want to shame him for making the video available. I assume he has learned an expensive lesson and there is a list of things that should have happened before taking off. That being said, I am thankful to be able to learn from the video and have another reminder how important training is.
 
I wish all the "gyro ambassadors" would quit trying to make gyros seem perfectly safe and mainstream.
They're not.

A successful gyro pilot is part daredevil mixed with equal dashes of adventurer and critical thinker/researcher.
Becoming a gyro pilot should be an accomplishment, not just a checked box. If it was so easy anyone can do it, then everyone would be doing it.

I consider myself well on my way to learning how to be a decent gyro pilot still, but I got bit. How many of the "old timers" have made it to "old timer" status without bending a set of rotors?

You want super simple super safe flying? buy a ticket on American Airlines.

Otherwise quit ragging on the guy.
 
Decades ago, when I was learning to drive a car in high school driver's ed class, they showed us a film I think was titled "Wheels of Death." It was a compilation of short stories about bad "automotive decision making" which resulted in gruesome fatal accidents, mixing recreations of the situations leading up to the accidents with real footage of the aftermath. While the tactic is questionable instructional technique, I'm pretty sure it didn't make anyone swear off cars as dangerous.

Perhaps we could turn all these dumb-human-trick gyro videos into a website with examples of why it's foolish to try to fly a gyro without instruction. If presented in that light, it might put the spotlight where it belongs, on the safety risks of poor decision-making, not some inherent risk in gyro flying. Unlike the car crashes we saw on films as teens, these gyro crashes are often not fatal, and sometimes are walk-aways.

With apologies to the NRA, gyros don't kill people, people kill gyros!
 
PW_Plack said:
Perhaps we could turn all these dumb-human-trick gyro videos into a website with examples of why it's foolish to try to fly a gyro without instruction. If presented in that light, it might put the spotlight where it belongs, on the safety risks of poor decision-making, not some inherent risk in gyro flying. Unlike the car crashes we saw on films as teens, these gyro crashes are often not fatal, and sometimes are walk-aways.
!
Click to expand...

that make so much sense
does not even have to be a web site
could be added to the PRA web site or even a short Vid on youtube with you describing the back ground behind the accident, a sort of "talk me through what went wrong" video, relatively simple to do for a youtube/video computer wiz,
a compilation video showing several accidents
describing the build time and cost, the accident, reasons behind the accident, and the loss of machine, money, time and pride.
If it saves just 1 accident it's probably worth doing.

other issues,
It's not guns that kill people, it's people that kill people choosing to use what is easily available.
Don't think the pilot posted the video of the crash I think it was an onlooker, so the "pilot" probably had no choice about going public.
I don't think he is in the USA, Aus, NZ south Africa, France, germany or the UK so should not affect accident stats and insurance and no third party was hurt.
Some time ago a guy with a hang glider jumped off a cliff in the UK and started ridge soaring, all was going well until the wind dropped, he got lower and lower and eventually ended up in the sea. He could not swim and so drowned, it was classed as a fatal hang glider accident.
 
Thats so funny, :) coz he didnt kill anyone.
Are gyros dangerous?
Are shovels damgerous?
Depends on whos opperatn it.
 
He nearly got away with it without damage, if there wasn't the curb or whatever he hit at the end.

He got a nice lesson without paying to much of a high price. An instructor would have been cheaper though.
 
It’s few things that we can learn from this incident/accident.
To mention one …do not use public roads for take offs and landings and be polite to the stick.
What caused the gyro to roll and crash? Did you notice something? Stick movements?
The blades were level after…. “” landing”” but the (fun) starts just after the nose wheel contacts the trottoar hard.
 
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Ben S wrote:

I wish all the "gyro ambassadors" would quit trying to make gyros seem perfectly safe and mainstream.
They're not.

A successful gyro pilot is part daredevil mixed with equal dashes of adventurer and critical thinker/researcher.
Click to expand...

Ben, respectfully, this is the mindset that we need to change in the public. A properly engineered and built gyroplane with a trained pilot at the controls and flown within the limits of the aircraft and the pilot will be as safe or more safe than any Cessna/Piper/Robinson/Whatever.

You get dipsh!ts like this guy who are fool enough to think that because it's a small aircraft it must be simple enough to fly that I don't need training. He mounts a GoPro on it so that he can show his buddies what a "natural" he is.

As I said on FB, the ONLY thing that saved his life is the fact that he crashed so quickly. Otherwise, he might have gotten into the air and made a smokin' hole shortly thereafter.

Ben, I am not a daredevil. I fly the hell out of my aircraft, but I feel comfortable with my limitations and the limitations of the aircraft. But I have a wife and 3 kids who count on me. If being a gyro pilot evokes feelings of you barnstorming across the countryside cheating death at every turn, then that's fine, but don't drag the sport and all it has achieved over the past 20 years back to the stone age.

-John
 
You could really see how he was trying to over control the aircraft in this video. This is caused by lack of training andinexperience.

This is a very valuable video to demonstrate the importance of training. Don't get me wrong about aircraft design when I say this, but, there is too much over emphasis on design to the point where I feel newbies believe that if the aircraft is properly designed, it is safe to fly. The truth of the matter is, there is nothing you can add to a gyro to make it safe in untrained hands. Training and design are both just as important as the other. I feel as though a properly trained and experienced pilot is much safer in a gyro without CLT or HS than an untrained and inexperienced pilot is in one with CLT and a HS.
 
Once more, watch his stick movements/inputs.
The only thing he knew this guy is that by pulling the stick fully back it will take off, fully forward it will land, and left and right.
It clearly shows that he had completely zero training and he shouldn't be allowed even to sit in a gyro but...
I don't dare even to think what could happen at few ft higher altitude. And I really don't understand how few people evaluate their life.
 
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John, you must have some bit of adventurer in you or you would not have been drawn to EXPERIMENTAL aviation!
I'm certainly not trying to ""draw gyros back 20 years"
But there has to be a healthy respect for the hazards associated with flying them.
Look at it this way, suppose, just suppose this guy in Turkey was reading this forum and saw that he had a "well designed machine" AND that they are so easy to fly some here have actually taught themselves to fly....well Suppose he thinks to himself "If they can do it, I can do it"......you see the results.
Now suppose, just suppose this guy talks to his friends and pilot buddies and every one of them tells him "man your crazy, those things are death traps!" now he has two ways to go....attempted suicide OR get into the world of gyros and do research and find out the truth and get training and such.
When Dynamite was invented the accident rate went through the roof compared to accidents with straight Nitro, why? Because it was billed as "safe".

For all you lookers reading this, (I don't need an answer) think about your status as a gyro pilot amongst all your pilot buddies and ask yourself if you don't feel just the slightest bit "special" when some 10,000 hour fixed wing pilot looks at you and your rig on the tarmac and says "man your some kind of crazy"

Yeah well, I thought so.

We are a very diverse group of pilots here, some rich some poor some technical some not, some great pilots and others not so much....Point is (possible problem translates to PRA membership?) Ignoring the truth about our gyros and pretending they are one thing or another doesn't make it so.

You say they are safer John (I KNOW as I have walked away from two crashes and an engine out) but how many fixed wing pilots have trashed a set of wings comparatively?
I'll bet the statistics don't agree with you AND If you have a wife and chitlins (as do I ) depending on you.....Don't you owe it to them to give up flying altogether?

Again, yeah I thought so.

So, since I'm rambling on here and you fine gyro people are still reading......
again my advice is to STOP painting us mainstream....were not. Also before someone snivels about small markets and new toys , if you build it they will come. the market has already been broken by the Euro-Snazz at 100$ and people will buy it. That's called marketing.

As always John I will defend your RIGHT to your opinion, even if I disagree with it.
Have a great day you gyro flyin crazy S.O.B's:)
 
If you scroll down the Facebook page you see what appears to be a green Monarch / Butterfly gyro, that came to a bad ending.

Anyone know anything about it?
 
BEN S said:
John, you must have some bit of adventurer in you or you would not have been drawn to EXPERIMENTAL aviation!
I'm certainly not trying to ""draw gyros back 20 years"
But there has to be a healthy respect for the hazards associated with flying them.
Look at it this way, suppose, just suppose this guy in Turkey was reading this forum and saw that he had a "well designed machine" AND that they are so easy to fly some here have actually taught themselves to fly....well Suppose he thinks to himself "If they can do it, I can do it"......you see the results.
Now suppose, just suppose this guy talks to his friends and pilot buddies and every one of them tells him "man your crazy, those things are death traps!" now he has two ways to go....attempted suicide OR get into the world of gyros and do research and find out the truth and get training and such.
When Dynamite was invented the accident rate went through the roof compared to accidents with straight Nitro, why? Because it was billed as "safe".

For all you lookers reading this, (I don't need an answer) think about your status as a gyro pilot amongst all your pilot buddies and ask yourself if you don't feel just the slightest bit "special" when some 10,000 hour fixed wing pilot looks at you and your rig on the tarmac and says "man your some kind of crazy"

Yeah well, I thought so.

We are a very diverse group of pilots here, some rich some poor some technical some not, some great pilots and others not so much....Point is (possible problem translates to PRA membership?) Ignoring the truth about our gyros and pretending they are one thing or another doesn't make it so.

You say they are safer John (I KNOW as I have walked away from two crashes and an engine out) but how many fixed wing pilots have trashed a set of wings comparatively?
I'll bet the statistics don't agree with you AND If you have a wife and chitlins (as do I ) depending on you.....Don't you owe it to them to give up flying altogether?

Again, yeah I thought so.

So, since I'm rambling on here and you fine gyro people are still reading......
again my advice is to STOP painting us mainstream....were not. Also before someone snivels about small markets and new toys , if you build it they will come. the market has already been broken by the Euro-Snazz at 100$ and people will buy it. That's called marketing.

As always John I will defend your RIGHT to your opinion, even if I disagree with it.
Have a great day you gyro flyin crazy S.O.B's:)
Click to expand...

Ben. I think you're just generally misunderstood. :)

A guy who pokes around in the ground looking for things that go boom, calling our safe little copters dangerous, why that's... well you get the idea.

But I do see where you are coming from.

And I can partially agree, I just don't think it makes sense to portray flying a Calidus or a Xenon as the wild west.

But then this thread is not about all gyro's, its about this flying lawn chair that an inexperienced novice put into a curb...... Now I see your point :0

M
 
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Hey Mark!
How you guys doin?
Im off to Cape Cod for a few months for a job! Boo Hoo its only 70 degrees there.
How is the Yellow bird flying? Safe I hope;)
 
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