druidjaidan

On 5/18/2024 at 7:51 PM, Meshach said:

What did you end up buying?

79 M20K. Pretty big upgrade thanks to some luck with our finances in the last few months of last year.

Regarding insurance...there was insurance for the vendor, ELA Aviacion. A Spanish company with no actual presence. ELA Aviation, the US company who was actually there, did not have insurance. Neither did the actual aircraft. Apparently, according to the community the entirety of gyrocopters, light rotorcraft, as well as almost everything else flying out of the UL field, have no insurance whatsoever. No liability, no hull, nothing. Remember that next time you're visiting the "Fun Fly Zone".

I very much regret parking in vintage parking, it's way too close to a bunch of yahoo's. I'll personally never park in Vintage again (well my new plane doesn't qualify anyway), that entire corridor is way to sketchy given what I know now about the people operating there.

1 hour ago, jetdriven said:

Require adequate liability insurance for everybody giving demo rides. Frankly, they should require for all attendees. Make it a condition on that card whenever you tie your plane down for camping.

I talked to the plane owner after it happened, and the person giving the rides had the aircraft  registered to some fake LLC in Delaware and he basically holed up in a hotel for a couple days with a fake name and then disappeared. And that’s not OK.

Turned out he was in the hospital and then booked it home right after and went radio silent because that's what his lawyers told him to do. 

So here's the story as it is. We tracked him down eventually despite his Houdini act. It didn't do much good. The plane was registered to a BS LLC as you note, but that's only a small part of the issue. If you read the report and supporting docs you'll find that the pilot has suffered some severe memory loss. In fact the only thing he appears to vividly recall is that this was a "personal flight and totally not a demo flight, :wink: :wink:". Never mind that he didn't even know the name of his passenger, because we all regularly take up anonymous people that ask and don't even get their name. The pilot was an official dealer for "ELA Aviation", which totally isn't a subsidiary of the Spanish company "ELA Aviacion". ELA Aviation "was not present" at Airventure (it's just two guys renting a room in Florida anyway) and did not have a booth or anything else at Airventure.  However, ELA Aviacion was there and totally paid the required liability insurance premium, but they totally didn't have people there giving demo flights.

So we would need to prove that the pilot was actually giving a demo flight, that ELA Aviacion (a non US company) should be responsible for a dealer that authorized by ELA Aviation, that the insurance policy should cover a dealer in general, so on and so on.

EAA in my mind totally fucked up here in no small way. There is no way they should be allowing semi official demo flights without requiring insurance from the pilots, owners, and vendors. The changes being made in response to the incident also shed some light on the story: there were pilots ignoring the briefing and being allowed to continue to operate counter to the briefing. The rules weren't being enforced.

The reality is that it's likely a no win situation for us. We could sue the pilot. We could sue the vendor. We could sue EAA. All likely would have some liability, but proving it would be expensive and likely exceed our finanances. I suspect they will all get sued, by the family of the helicopter pilot due to the wrongful death. Our losses just aren't big enough to make it feasible unless we are doing it basically out of spite. Which maybe we do, I'm pissed off that EAA didn't ensure the vendors had appropriate insurance and allowed these layers of indirection to result in a pilot operating without insurance to operate in such a sensitive corridor as the ultralight pattern is. We've had a few media outlets reach out to talk about the incident and we've mostly held off so far, but perhaps now will be the time given the outcome of the report.

The final report was released today.

NTSB# CEN23FA333

"A gyroplane and helicopter collided midair while maneuvering for landing in day visual meteorological conditions. The aircraft were participating in a fly-in event that provided daily pilot briefings on flight operations and procedures. During the briefings, event coordinators informed pilots that 360° turns in the traffic pattern were prohibited.

Flight track information, witness statements, videos, and damage to the aircraft indicated that the gyroplane impacted the left side of the helicopter while performing a prohibited 360° turn on the base leg of the visual approach. The helicopter impacted terrain, came to rest inverted, and a postaccident fire ensued. The gyroplane impacted an unoccupied airplane. The gyroplane pilot had no recollection of the accident flight.

Postaccident examinations of both aircraft revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operations. The circumstances of the accident are consistent with the failure of the gyroplane pilot to see and avoid the helicopter while performing a prohibited maneuver in the traffic pattern, resulting in a collision with the helicopter."

Report_CEN23FA333_192738_5_16_2024 3_16_31 PM.pdf

We looked at that plane (not in person). I spoke to the seller.  He was clueless about what he was selling and I helped him correct a few important points, notably that the engine had indeed been overhauled at some point, but there is still a lot wrong in the ad.

Our reasons are not your reasons, but we passed on the plane without traveling to see it in person. A lot of that had to do with changing directions a bit and buying more plane than before. However, I will share my reasons for passing on this plane. In my mind, the strengths of the F are its higher usable load than most and simpler systems (J-Bar, manual flaps). If (and we did go this way to be honest) we are going to take on additional features like electric gear/flaps etc we're going to buy a J/K model. This Had a lot of mods, electric gear, flaps, wing tips, bladders I think?, not to mention the silly throttle quadrant that was installed. I does have a lot of desirable mods as well, notably the 201 windscreen and the enclosed cowl. However, most of the rest of the mods I consider undesirable in an F. I didn't want bladders (heavy and less fuel). Wing tips look nice, but add little besides weight really. Electric gear/flaps are just more complicated and heavy. Worst IMO, was the throttle quadrant, just a bad decision. Almost all of this is cosmetic or personal choice. If it fits you, it fits you so don't let my personal tastes influence you if you disagree. Every F model is a unique snowflake at this point with various owners prioritizing different things and every bird being it's own thing. It's a big part of the reason we jumped up to a K model.  They are still all unique a bit, but significantly less so.

I can't speak for the condition, which is the most important part, other than to exercise care since the seller knows next to nothing about the plane. It's been sitting a bit. Not terribly long, but long enough that I would expect some issues. The first annual is likely to suck (but that's par for the course when buying a plane in my experience). 

1 hour ago, GMBrown said:

My K (1980) has a CG of 44.  From the factory was 43.  The moment for your plane appears to be incorrect.  It should be in the vicinity of 89,000.  My from the factory moment was 89,337.  So I question his nose figure of -9420.  If the moment was actually positive (i.e. +9420), then the cg would be 37518 + 35550 + 9420 = 82488.  Which would make an empty weight CG of 42.8.  Well within the envelope.  Looks like a typo in the Nose Arm.  It should be plus 15, not negative.  Just conjecture but it would make the numbers fit the factory specs.

I think you're on the right track, and I think I know what's happened now.  I'm not an expert in this so I could be wrong (and I'm using a 252 POH rather than a 231 POH, but I figure it's got to be close). The nose gear should be negative, it's in front of the datum.  However, it should be a 5in arm, not 15in. And the main gear arm is measured from the nose gear as a reference, so I think it should be 66in not 56in.  Changing the arms out for my guesses gives a 43in empty CG, which is perfect and makes WAY more sense. I think we're still not going to buy this particular one, but I'll let the broker/seller know that they should get their paperwork fixed.

I just can't believe I have this right tbh.

This plane appears to be totally unflyable currently and would need a ridiculous amount of charlie weights to make it usable just to fly solo.

If that's right and common I need to abandon shopping for a K. I don't want to carry around a 100lbs of lead shot to out in the cargo anytime I want to go flying and the family needs more usable weight than I can afford to put 100lbs of Charlie weights in.

3 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

Sure reads like you have something wrong to me can you post the weight and balance data?

Early M20K. W/B shows it at an empty weight of 1930 and a CG at 33.0in. This doesn’t look like it should be a nose heavy weight champion mind you. 2 blade prop, modern avionics, factory O2 in the tail, not a rocket conversion, doesn’t even have the intercooler. 

I understand that modern Mooneys have a rep for forward CG, but this can’t be right can it? Even with 120 in the cargo and full fuel to pull the cg as far aft as possible this plane would be well out of CG with a single FAA standard person up front. I couldn’t get this plane into CG in any configuration, I must have something wrong right? 

Considering making an offer on a 231 in central AZ. I'm based way up in WA and it isn't close enough to really push for LASAR or TopGun that I would if it was a CA plane. There's a MSC at KCHD that will be my default, but I figure I should see if there are any locals that would recommend someone, someplace else?

Likely going to be a full annual for the pre-buy given its annual is due soon.

1 hour ago, Jeffrey Ross said:

IANAL but....

I think you are going to have a hard time getting anything beyond what the insurance company is offering, the reason I say this is you insured your plane stating it had a value of $X, should you try to sue somebody for more $$ they are going to come back and simply say "you stated your airplane was worth $X and that was the agreed value you had with the insurance company."  The only thing you might be able to get additional is stuff you had stored in or around the aircraft that wasn't part of the plane itself such as your camping gear, luggage, additional travel expenses, etc.

Hiring a lawyer gets very expensive very fast and unless you are going after somebody with deep pockets you may spend more on the attorney that you might be able to recover.  I don't even know if proving gross negligence entitles you to collect beyond the value of the aircraft but you still need to realize there are no guarantees when going in front of a judge so you can lay out the perfect case detailing that gross negligence took place, you can still lose the case, but let's assume you proved gross negligence, won the case and with that you can get more than your declared value for the airplane, next problem, do the other pilots (or pilot's estate) have insurance or the dollars to pay a judgement?  If not you'll be holding onto a worthless judgement for 20 years (Wisconsin I think the judgements expire after 20yrs).

As much as I know it sucks be thankful you and your family weren't injured.  The aggravation of dealing with the loss of the aircraft is free, the experience is free, the additional loss just sucks.

On a side note, a very good friend of mine was parked 2 planes away (further from the runway) from you in the same row but left on Thursday morning so he missed the accident,  He too got to deal with aggravation in 2021 when a plane clipped his wing taxing down a taxiway that was restricted to smaller aircraft, this happened two weeks prior to taking his instrument check ride.   As I said the aggravation is free, just be happy you and your family weren't physically injured.

Fundamentally it's pretty simple. My insured value has nothing to do with the other party's liability. My insurance is only on the hook for the insured value obviously, that is the limit of my insurance's liability to me. If the other party had insurance I could simply file a claim on their insurance and then it becomes a debate toward a settlement. The consultations I've had with attorneys have all basically agreed on the fundamentals of what the party's liability is, who the likely liable parties are, and my roughly estimated value being correct. They also don't believe the value to be significant enough that they would be willing to take the work on contingency and none of them accept hourly at all if we wanted to pursue it.

The gap is significant enough to be worth some headache to me. It's worth at least paying for some threatening letters from an attorney and investigating if ELA Gyro's had insurance and was responsible for Bruce's flight.

3 hours ago, Aerodon said:

I had to think about this for a moment.  I guess it is fair that your insurance company pays out what you were insured for, and then goes after the other party.  If you don't give up your right to pursue the other party, you could have the situation that both you and your insurer are filing a claim against the other party.  A good recipe for confusion.

So you have to pick a route, either you file a claim against the other party for the full value, to take the money and run.

 

Aerodon

 

1 hour ago, Echo said:

The first line of recovery is from YOUR carrier for insured loss to limits. The carrier then surrogates to recover IF liability was with other entity. You CAN piggyback to recover uninsured loss and expenses that relate to your loss. They have a duty to you as policyholder. 

This is part of the reason I want to get an attorney to advise me. I've read that both Washington (my home state) and Wisconsin (where the incident occurred) both appears to apply something called the "Made whole doctrine".  

"In Wisconsin, the made whole rule is a legal doctrine that requires an injured party to be made whole before any insurer can recover anything. Garrity v. Rural Mut. Ins. Co., 253 N.W. 2d 512 (Wis. 1977). Thus, in situations where an injured party’s damages exceed the limited pool of funds from which he or she can recover, the injured party is given priority over the subrogated party."

I don't know how that works in practice tbh. It seems complicated to say the least, how is my insurance to know what my total claim is or to agree on what my total claim is  A lot is somewhat subjective or not strictly determined, what is the actual value of the plane, what will my acquisition costs be, etc. It seems like I'd need to get them to agree to a value, even if that value exceeds my insured amount, and I'm not sure what incentive the insurance company would have to do that at a value higher than my insured value.  

It may not actually work that way at all, hence wanting to get a lawyer to clearly provide what options we have and push back if we haven't reached the limits of what we should be pushing our insurance to do. So far though I've had very little luck getting a lawyer willing to take hourly work to provide that advise and write some demand letters to see if we can get things moving.

2 hours ago, GeeBee said:

I'm still wondering how the EAA can allow anyone to be a part of the fly-in let alone a vendor and not have liability insurance. If that is the case, count me out, forever until it changes.

 

In theory, they require all vendors to provide proof of insurance and indemnification. If this was a demo flight I expect that the EAA will try to force ELA gyro's insurance to cooperate at some level. Right now that is kind of the final path to resolving this via a 3rd party insurance settlement rather than via our own (underinsured) insurance and eating the loss.

However, I don't know how to navigate to that outcome if it's even possible. But it's an avenue we are looking into. I don't know what stops ELA's insurance from going "nope, ELA didn't authorize Eric as a representative to provide a demo flight so we're not liable" other than litigation.

48 minutes ago, hubcap said:

I mean absolutely no disrespect, and I sympathize with you, but you weren’t robbed, you were underinsured.

I don't disagree that I was underinsured, but this argument is just victim blaming. Insurance would have protected me from being "robbed", but it doesn't change the fact that the liable party(ies) will get away with it.

1 hour ago, PeteMc said:

@druidjaidan Did you ever find out the name(s) of the Rotorcrafts' insurance companies?  Hope they were not also insured by your insurance company.  If so, I wonder if that may be why their low balling and wanting you to sign that you won't go after the "other" insurance co.  

There is no insurance on the rotorcraft . So we're talking about my insurance that wants me to forgo pursuing the rest of the liability.

That would definitely be the least stressfull way to handle it. We'd likely be out of flying for a few years at least due to the gap in insurance vs actual loss.  The emotional part of me has a hard time swallowing that I just got robbed for ~$35k because someone else crashed. Honestly, I'd probably already have taken that route if the insurance release didn't require us to forgo any additional claims against the 3rd parties in the future. That requirement also makes me disinclined to help the insurance company at all

18 hours ago, PeteMc said:

There was some discussion on the FB page by people who are vendors at OSH that they require insurance.  And if the EAA did not insure that they had insurance, it may fall back on them for allowing the Demos (I think there was more than this flight) then it may fall back on them.  

It will be interesting what the outcome is if the Mooney owner ends up with an aggressive attorney that gets to the bottom of it all.  Hope he's ultimate compensated. 

 

Right about now I'd take any attorney to help advise us, let alone an aggressive one. We've been turned down by all 5 attorneys we've reached out to after the consultation reviewing our options (from simply helping ensure we don't sign something we shouldn't, up to could we litigate). Roughly the answer has been basically: "we don't do hourly only contingency, and your claim doesn't have injuries so no matter the viability we won't help"

21 minutes ago, bcg said:

The gyrocopter was being demoed for a potential buyer by the manufacturer when it crashed. The customer was in the right seat. I ran into them and saw the pilot when I had to divert to Sparta, TN for weather on my meandering path home, the pilot was pretty beat up. It seems hard to believe a manufacturer wouldn't have adequate insurance to cover this. Property only claims are easy, we can put an objective value on property.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk
 

My experience so far with the 3 lawyers I've spoken to (and 2 more that haven't replied I suppose) that property only claims aren't financially viable to litigate.  Too low of value. Maybe I'm just talking to the wrong lawyers.

Did he tell you it was a demo or are you assuming it? If he was doing a demo that's useful information to have confirmed.

Is the prop turning and it's just not starting? If so it's not the starter and likely the SoS.  Also it's a hot start, that can be a pain if done incorrectly, not sure his experience level. Beeping on the speaker makes very little sense, it isn't like our planes have any digital controls that would do that.

Edit:

Saw that tapping the solenoid got it going again. And the starter is new?  Warranty it.

Depends on your willingness/ability to pay out of pocket for when a Gyroplane falls on it.

Real answer, the only way is to look at the market and figure out how much you'd have to spend to get a comparable plane.  Then add all expenses you would incur to actually complete that transaction.  Add some buffer for things you might have in the plane that could be destroyed. Given my recent experience my current thought process that if the insurance company doesn't balk at the value I likely didn't go high enough.  That will cost you in premiums though and maybe you won't care when the gyroplane falls =)

 

12 minutes ago, glbtrottr said:

If the insurance is prohibitively expensive and you can’t shoulder the burden including destroying and airplane and killing two people, why are you flying??? And why shouldn’t you be sued into oblivion or be incarcerated since you couldn’t properly follow directions???

We don't know for a fact that he doesn't have insurance, he isn't talking. His not having insurance is conjecture based on an aviation attorney who said "most" gryocopters are uninsured. He could be wrong, or maybe this one is an exception since it's being used for demo flights. We won't know until the pilot starts talking. As of right now I only know who the pilot is only because social media has leaked it. The EAA hasn't told us, our insurance hasn't penetrated past the anonymous LLC that the gyro is registered to, the pilot hasn't come forward. Imagine that this pilot tries to hide behind his LLC with inevitably no assets except the gyrocopter itself.

Yeah, there's a reason I haven't been sleeping well for the past week.

21 hours ago, T. Peterson said:

I am truly sorry about your airplane and I am even more grateful that your family is safe, but in my opinion EAA is not responsible for your loss. No organization can possibly imagine or prevent every type of accident. Oshkosh crams thousands of airplanes into tight quarters and this is inherently risky. You chose to participate indicating you were okay with the risk until something bad happened to you and now you feel you are owed. I simply disagree. This mindset has shut down many potential wonderful events because organizers will not risk the potential litigation. The abuses of tort law have also significantly contributed to the rising costs of GA. Accidents happen and even if I am a totally innocent victim, that alone does not grant me the right to go after someone else making them an innocent victim.  That is not to say there are not cases of gross negligence in which someone ought to be sued, but I don’t see that here.

So let me explain further. I think it is likely that EAA has some blame in this accident. I think it's obvious the pilots flying, probably the gyro have the majority of the fault, but also likely the helicopter pilot has some as well even if minority. I'm pretty sure I have 0 responsibility in the incident considering I was parked.

So what happens now? In theory, my insurance would make me whole, but they won't come close in reality. Hopefully, the pilot(s) insurance will come through, but we don't even know if the gyro pilot has insurance. He's not talking to anyone, or at least not anyone who we have contact with or our own insurance. Apparently gyrocopter insurance is "prohibitively expensive".

I think blaming EAA for the accident is pretty unsavory, but let me pose a few thoughts where I think EAA could end up shouldering some fault. Apparently, the gyro pilot had been warned about unauthorized procedures in the pattern. Why wasn't he removed from the approved list if that is true? Some people are claiming the 360 maneuver for spacing is permitted in the safety briefing, if so that seems very short-sighted and likely implicates EAA in the procedure design. Finally, if this was indeed demo flights on the part of a manufacturer (that is what it looks like) I would hope that EAA would require adequate liability insurance, and if they didn't or they failed to verify I believe that ends up with them bearing some responsibility. Also, if this was a demo flight I would think that makes the manufacturer liable. So much about the incident is still unknown that I think it's unreasonable to rule in or out who had how much accountability

I think we all agree the pilot's are primarily responsible, but I also think it's likely they are not alone in the responsibility. I don't view this like the other cases where totally unrelated inculpable parties are being mentioned.

My insurance is inadequate to restore my full loss. Even considering that it is my fault for not upping my hull coverage fast enough to keep up with the market rates that isn't the end of our losses. Maybe this will serve as a lesson for everyone reading about how much insurance they should carry. We have so far account for almost $4,000 in destroyed personal property, we might be able to claim against our homeowners for this. We have accounted for roughly $13,000 in uninsured losses to expenses relating to the accident so far. The majority of that is sales tax on a theoretical replacement plane, but the rest is travel expenses related to the accident. And we haven't yet accounted for the other new purchase costs: pre-buy inspections, travel to/from planes to view them, and the travel costs to return the plane to our home base. That could easily be thousands: 2-3 prebuys, 2-3 two way airfare and a one way ticket to bring the plane back + a trip back that could feasibly be as long as Florida to Washington. I'm sure I'm missing things even then. None of this is even in the realm of "pain and suffering", it's all real money losses.

17 minutes ago, T. Peterson said:

I don’t know, but I certainly hope that they cannot sue. I am fed up with this litigious society. Bad things happen to good people, but that doesn’t mean the unfortunate are automatically owed financial compensation.

I guess that means you volunteer your plane as the landing pad next time? Or are you only talking about the actual pilots that were flying? I'm not particularly rich. What I'm looking at losing right now may be enough to keep me from owning a plane again.  All because I was parked in an unfortunate spot.

I'm very glad my family is ok, I'm glad the two occupants of the gyro were saved. I also firmly believe I am owned full compensation for my loss. This isn't some "guy runs out of fuel and dies, family sues Cessna because the plane didn't stop him from killing himself"

10 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Question for those more knowledgeable and close to what happened.  Since the 2 aircraft collided mid-air and the wreckage rained down on the parking/camping area, doesn't that logically mean that BOTH aircraft, the helo and the gyro, were BOTH flying over the parking/camping area?  Winds were mild and from the northeast and the aircraft were low so they debris would not blow far from the point of impact.  And if it did blow, it would actually blow away from the aircraft parking/camping area.

KOSH 291653Z 07006KT 10SM CLR 25/17 A3008 RMK AO2 SLP173 T02500167
KOSH 291753Z 05004KT 10SM CLR 25/16 A3008 RMK AO2 SLP175 T02500156 10250 20189
55003

And as @Boilermonkey pointed out above, the Ultralight/Homebuilt Rotorcraft NOTAM " clearly states "Do not overfly aircraft parking areas".   So doesn't that logically mean that both the helo and the gyro were flying where they should not be?  And as speculated above if there were 2 gyros that had "been hot-dogging the Ultralight flight pattern all week" and "They were warned several times, to no avail", then why didn't the EAA shut the pattern down or ban the offending craft?

There are comments that one party is solely to blame, but it may not be so simple and binary.  

 

It's unlikely to be completely binary, but who knows yet. That said we saw some details. The helicopter did not fall into the camping, it fell on the road.

There exists a rotorcraft forum where more witnesses are discussing the accident. The only detail there worth sharing is that if what they say is true the collision very well could have happened over the road.

1 hour ago, Martín Gómez said:

I’m sure you’ve heard this a dozen times already, but perhaps it’s of some comfort that, as reported on BeechTalk by one of the first people on the scene “That Mooney gave its life to save them. The fuselage was crushed, the right gear collapsed, and the plane was mostly sitting on its belly. There was just a small ground scar. The Mooney took all that energy and cushioned them from a fall of probably 100 feet or more.”

I'm having a hard time with it. On one hand I'm glad that my plane was able to minimize the loss of life and wasn't just destroyed. On the other hand it's eating me up a bit that the evidence is pointing at the gyro, the people it saved, being at fault for disobeying the safety procedures. It just doesn't feel right.

I was in row 123