Montycosmos racer
roof landing
well it happened, a veteran trike pilot started it with him not in it, it flew off without him, went vertical stalled and crashed onto the hanger roof, at my home field arlington wash. fortunattely he wasn'tt seriously hurt but the trike was totalled. coulda been worse and coulda been avoided! it's a lesson for ALL of us. ps. the reporter verified that the hanger wasn't badly damaged, phew, thats a relief!
Comments
Yikes! I prefer flying my trike as the pilot. I'm not ready for it to be a UAV yet. Thanks for the reminder Monty
Wow Monty! That could have been bad man. I've never started my Trike without being seated and ready, and just as important....releasing the little bar dingleball before starting.
Yeah Leo, if you pulled the 'suggestion bar' back, stretched the elastic, it woulda broke, the dingle ball would have smacked your front teeth, causing reconstructing of your fangs, etc. ( not that I'm a pessimist!).
Hey ken, are you the REAL ken, neither the one that married the Chinese girl, or the ken that didn't, you know ken's are getting really commonplace, maybe it's time to adopt a 'nom de plume', like whot I duzz. ...................freazier ballzoff
Sometime ago YouTube had a video of one them 'flying bags' taking off without the pilot who could be seen running behind yelling " STOP" . It outran him and flew around quite a while ( is that a measure of the skill level required ?) before gently landing ( several miles away).
Yes, its happened here too. Some trikes flew without pilot on board. Unfortunatelly one of those accidents was tragical. My friend tried his new engine and he wanted to set his propeller with one guy. Without wing. Nobody sat in trike and it imediately started with full throttle... One of them was able jump out, but the trike rode over my friend and the prop killed him. Very sad. I never start my trike if I dont sit in.
Hi joz, sad to lose a friend , at anytime. Without wing reminds me of trying my ultrahight without it's wing. The acceleration was unbelievable! It reached 70mph in a very short space on grass! With the wing on it was 50mph, max. Yeah, that wing really slows you down!( but helps when you fly!)
I rarely run my engine without my butt in the seat. But occasionally i work on the timing or idle on my Geo engine with it running . i use a cord with a slip knot attached to my ignition kill switch. The other end is attached to weight sitting on the ground under the trike. If the trike moves an inch, the cord pops the switch. I tested it while in the sitting in trike, works like a charm.
Hey Doug, good job, preparing ahead is better than 'chasing it'. They REALLY get going without the 'driver' in the seat!
Pictures of the roof landing
http://kval.com/news/local/pilotless-aircraft-crash-lands-on-arlington-airport-hanger
Amazing photo. Wow
Good job rizz, getting the pics, thanks