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Escape from Serious Spiral Dive in Real Life
By Happy Triker
Categories: Trike Talk, Tech, Training / Learning to Fly a Trike, Safety
Comments (38)This is the educational video with regard to the incident we had few months ago. Larry Mednick, Paul Hamilton, Wes Frey, Ken interviews are included for examining what really happened during the incident. I believe it will benefit all pilots flying trike.
Comments
Hi Ken not that Ken,
Just for your reference, here is the low footage without interviews.
- 1 like
- Ken@knussear
MontyKen liked this
phew! too close! excellent recovery, i almost soiled MY underpants watching it! several contributing factors involved (fed-speak!) , fast heavy trike, small wing, momentary distraction, low speed, low altitude, steep bank, yellow paint, etc. great lession for all us 'floppy wing' fliers, thanks guys.
(don't do it again!) ps i just re-viewed the tape and it appeared that there may have been a modest tail-wind as most waves are wind driven , at least till 'they' run into shallow water when the energy will disapate running 'up' the beach. the rollers seemed to be 'astern' as they turned to 'final' ,
ok it seems their is a really good general view on the video henry . in light that in the last few years the spiral dive has claimed the greater degree of the accidents and the agenda should certainly be that there are none. wishfull thinking. in light of the fact that my first instructor was killed in just such as senario which has deeeply bothered me from the time that it happened. And of course we know were talking about rob lyons who was respected and certainly well liked. I had my issues with rob but i will say what suprizes me that he was a competent and skilled instructor. he certainly had good knowlege of spiral dive recovery. rob is still a ghost in my backseat of his ol red back ,and when i fly i can still hear him saying watch your throttle control , and hammering into me where you landing if the engine quits right now. I have placed myself many times into the backseat trying to visualize what rob may have had to endure in his accident.I would like to note that i was very fortunate to have both rob and scott johnson as an instructor , scotts voice is so clear when i make errors and he has a way about letting you know, just dont do that again and it sticks. Rob was absolutly a stickler of always usuing his training bars for instruction. the problem is that he didnt use them during the time of his fatal spiral crash from 350 maybe 400 agl .
SO HENRY this question is for you and its my hope that you could be as detailed as possible. You now have had some exsperience having to restle pilot in comand from someone in a spiral dive close terra ferrma. Of course there are differnt componets of this but i would like your exsperience. how difficult was it? did you have to use loud commands? did ken surender control or freeze momentairily? And most of all how difficult do you think it would have been had you not had your training bars on?
NOW this question is for any cfis out there. via larry mednick ,paul hamilton, rebel , leo,,scott any cfi. I would like to add that no cfi is perfect.all have different methods and exsperience. that is one place i can really applaud larry or paul rebel leo scott and others is that they participate and offer valuable knowlege in these forums. ooops and of course i must add my friend yft?
ok iam getting to the question i have been taught in ga aviation as well as in triking in the pattern not to round out my legs in the pattern .but of course this can cause you to use a steeper bank angle at low agl. if this is dangerous than why follow such a rectangular pattern. wouldnt it be better to round out somewhat have more control and better point of destination to landing. i know this may vary for how busy the airport you fly at. I was always a very good lander in hang gliding it was more decend to a sufficent altitude with room for stall recovery, find a good glideslope into relitive wind and good energy in airspeed and keep focused on point of destination. C F Is i would appreciate your thoughts on that . thanks
another question is how different is the spiral dive and recovery in different machines say from single surface big wing small engine, little wings big engines. in all my years hang gliding my motto has always been low agl airspeed and shallow bank be prepared for any stall. prevention is worth a pounds of cure?
- 1 like
- TrikeBoyWonder@TrikeBoyWonder
Happy TrikerTrikeBoyWonder liked this
As you see in the raw footage, it was relatively calm. No turburance. I never experienced any downdraft or updraft near the location before. So. I don't think any windshare ot turburance related. Larry said I talked to him about some downdraft. It was actually by Ken. When we came out the dive, he said there was a bad dawndraft.
You can see the sudden wing movement getting into the more steep angle (around 1:53 and 2:46). I think that is the time the lower wing stalled almost completely. In the meantime, the upper wing is still flying, (means it is still creating a lift). The lift on the upper wing and no lift on lower wing. That force made a wing into very high bank. I think Ken felt that as downdraft.
- 1 like
- Rebel@rebel777
ULtrikepilotRebel liked this
I think you are right Henry. When one wing is still flying while the other one is stalled this will force a higher bank. Just glad you had the right reaction to that extreme attitude to come out of it. I think many pilots can learn from this video and all the discussion. all the best. ULt
Awsome video thanks to all for posting as a learing tool.Shows how fast things can go bad glad you had the training and were able to save it henry.when are you getting your new trike?
Hi Dean, I hope it would help more pilots recognizing the importance of experiencing spiral dive and leaning how to get out of it. My new trike will arrive in the 1st week of May.
strange ive reviewed all the post and i dont see any comment that is out of place of normal nature. nothing here any different than tps. weve all said learn proper tech for spiral dive recovery dont make excessive banks low agl keep airspeed up what is up with that
There is a reason there is a dark side and a light side...and many of us chose to move into the light.
so ken i just dont seem to get what abid is getting at here. is he reffering to our mentioning of lift bans . convection or rotors gust fronts maybe being a contibuting factor. let me say this that larrys pauls and other videos on recovering from spiral dives are done in predictable conditions. so this as being the absolute for spiral dive recovery making it look fairly easy with the right imput may not exsplain it all. ect spiral dive in wind sheer, spiral dive in gust front, spiral dive in severe sink. one thing that bru grilles mentions is that in those videos of spirals that they are spirals without much down nose componet.so where i will agree with abid is that spiral dive recovery should be done quickly before it becomes severe.And let me make it clear that iam not putting larry or paul down for putting out spiral recovery vidios education of pilots is a good thing. i am condeming abids comment on tps of comments on are site. For one just because a pilot dosnt give the proper comment it should not fall into judgement. Its absolutly the reason for discussion. if a unknowlegable pilot is shy about asking questions than we have thrown the learning curve in the garbage can. and that is dangerous.I left tps because i got jumped on by abid for bringing up an old hang glider safety directive that related to a series of then recent crashes. but abid was more interested in protecting the reputation of a manufactuer. And i wasnt even attacking that manufacturer. just discussing an old directive. I want to be clear here spiral dive recovery is back off the rpm, pull the control bar in to decrease the arc , high side the bar to snap out of it, bleed the the excess speed off slowly not to put excessive g loads and recover normal rpms. But i also want to be clear here that may have been left out of those videos. that there is a multiple of conditions that can change the severity and ease of getting into a spiral dive . and there is a multiple of factors that can change the ease of spiral dive recovery. ect wing loading ,type of wing, strength of the pilot, sesitivity to optic nerve blackout. conditions ext air density ,gust front , sink , thermal conditions , wind sheer , ridge rotors , obstical rotors, micro burst. altitude. seriously do you think that recovering from a spiral dive is the same at 12 thousand ft than it is at sea level. ive had many friends that have been killed in spiral dives and i think i owe it to be said that a spiral dive recovery in a ridge rotor is not the same as at a thousand ft in mild conditions. This being said and subject to abids judgement i will add from my exsperience not making to many glorious record achieving flights in hang gliders but surviving through a time of hang gliding to this day where fatalitys were very high but making many flights in hang gliding that were fun. i can say that iam still here. So i will add that the information that Y F T added into this blog is by far the first and best line of defence in dealing with spiral dives LEARN HOW NOT TO GET INTO ONE. Now we will be saving lives. That incopasses keeping good airspeed, paying attention to pilot in command. not making excessive banked turns particularly low agl.watching and learning of all the varible conditions that is out there and flying conditions you are familar with and testing new conditions cautiously. last year i went to a fly in where i watched a trike pilot flying very recklessly stalls low agl . people told me that oh hes just trying to scare the crowd . wing overs in a trike acting like he was crashing. this was all done in the pesence of lumpy who was disturbed by it. also one of are examiners was present. i was so upset i wanted to leave the fly in. to the examiners credit he did tell me the pilot had been warned. What good is taking training if we do not follow what are instruction tells us in the first place. I am not saying that i know everything . I am not saying that i cant screw up , iam saying i can. there is a risk to everything.But risk can be deminished on the evelope that you maintain for yourself and the exsperience you aquire. i learned a long time ago flying hang gliders if you dont have any fear theres something wrong. and if you cant controll your fear theres something wrong. First learn how to avoid getting into a spiral. second learn how to get out of one quickly. I write this out of my gut for my friends steve and michelle who were so gracious and kind and how much i enjoyed them and how fond i am of there wonderful memorys
i would like to add that there is wind in that video it can clearly be seen at 1 47 on the ripples in the water that turn was a down wind turn. as someone else mentioned.
I agree Ken, the light side is much better! David, thank you for all your input on this subject!