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Ok who did this?


Tommy

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21 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

Our pilot should have had an AoA or he should have flown a Comanche 180.

Max flew at ridiculous weights, but he had 2 things going for him.  He was mindful of CG and a really good pilot.  I think our pilot here would have mucked up a Comanche too.

Cheers,

Dan

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12 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Who is max?

Max Conrad, a famous delivery pilot for Piper who set a number of distance records in various Piper model.  Search for his story, “Into the Wind”

Clarence

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2 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Max Conrad, a famous delivery pilot for Piper who set a number of distance records in various Piper model.  Search for his story, “Into the Wind”

Clarence

+1 for  "Into the Wind"  It is a great read.

Cheers,

Dan

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I’ll bet it was fuel contamination that got him, and not all the meat in the aircraft.  If it was that badly overweight he’d have not gotten out of ground effect, and if it’d been aft CG everyone would have died in the departure stall.

The engineers who built our aircraft were a conservative lot. I bet there’s never been a Mooney so overloaded that it couldn’t climb out. And two behemoths in the front will probably balance out one in back.  The weight and balance in what is supposed to be my POH just says not to put the big guys in back.

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15 hours ago, steingar said:

I’ll bet it was fuel contamination that got him, and not all the meat in the aircraft.  If it was that badly overweight he’d have not gotten out of ground effect, and if it’d been aft CG everyone would have died in the departure stall.

The engineers who built our aircraft were a conservative lot. I bet there’s never been a Mooney so overloaded that it couldn’t climb out. And two behemoths in the front will probably balance out one in back.  The weight and balance in what is supposed to be my POH just says not to put the big guys in back.

The CG is right about where the front seats are, so putting big guys in front shouldn't really help, and I'm guessing they did not have the seats all the way forwards.  OTOH, putting any big weight in the baggage area would have a much larger effect.

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14 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

The CG is right about where the front seats are, so putting big guys in front shouldn't really help, and I'm guessing they did not have the seats all the way forwards.  OTOH, putting any big weight in the baggage area would have a much larger effect.

This is absolutely true. When I run the numbers (educated guesses on weights of pax and airplane) they were probably 200-300 over gross with a CG 2-3" behind the aft limit at gross.  The CG gets more critical as the weight increases. 

When Max Conrad flew at 100% over gross the left pilot seat was replaced by a fuel tank and he flew from the right, while sitting on a seat shaped fuel tank.  At those weights the CG envelope would have been extremely tight.

Cheers,

Dan

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16 hours ago, steingar said:

I bet there’s never been a Mooney so overloaded that it couldn’t climb out

Unfortunately there have been some:(.  One can argue it was density altitude or trees or short runway, but we are most in control of weight.

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On 1/15/2018 at 1:53 PM, PTK said:

The pilot is listed as Brent Pressley. I wonder if there’s any relation to Jerry Pressley...

https://www.ntsb.gov/about/employment/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20001205X00519&ntsbno=MIA99FA140&akey=1

Brent is jerry’s son.   He does the same stuff jerry has done for years, based at KMOR.   He buys totaled planes from insurance companies and gets them so they will fly well enough to sell.  

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4 hours ago, DanM20C said:

When Max Conrad flew at 100% over gross the left pilot seat was replaced by a fuel tank and he flew from the right, while sitting on a seat shaped fuel tank.  At those weights the CG envelope would have been extremely tight.

I'm not sure why the image of a seat-shaped fuel tank freaks me out, but it does! :blink:

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2 hours ago, Browncbr1 said:

Brent is jerry’s son.   He does the same stuff jerry has done for years, based at KMOR.   He buys totaled planes from insurance companies and gets them so they will fly well enough to sell.  

Runs in the family! Gotta wonder at what point does the FAA step in...

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I'm with Clarence and Steingar on this one. If the runway was long enough and the engine was healthy the weight would not have been a big problem. I know a guy who's taken off in a short body Mooney 300# over gross. (That's still under 3000#, no big lift with 180 or 200 HP.)

 

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17 hours ago, Bob_Belville said:

I'm with Clarence and Steingar on this one. If the runway was long enough and the engine was healthy the weight would not have been a big problem. I know a guy who's taken off in a short body Mooney 300# over gross. (That's still under 3000#, no big lift with 180 or 200 HP.)

 

I'm with you guys too.  300 over Gross with proper pilot technique and in the proper CG would work out. This particular incident didn't have either.  My calculations (based on educated guesses of weights of people and airplane)  put the CG around 51-52".  The C's aft limit is 49"

My guess is the aft CG caused the airplane to "feel" light in pitch.  He rotated early and stayed in a high angle of attack/high drag attitude until the crash.  Never really leaving ground effect. 

The airport manager posted this on Beechtalk:

"1) Airplane was bought a little less than 3 weeks prior to the accident and relocated to KBGF from KMOR

2) Airplane hadn't flown earlier that day; based purely on observation, this was the new owner's third flight in the aircraft

3) 5 full size adults on the aircraft, one in the baggage compartment (as you could all see from the photo posted on the news site)...my eyeball estimate is between 1100 and 1200 lbs of people

4) Between 30-32 gallons taken from the tanks on scene; that's probably close to all that was onboard +/- 2 gallons

5) Aircraft did not hit any power lines or anything other than the ground, despite what the various news channels reported; however, based on eye witness reports, the occupants are lucky a truck wasn't coming down the perpendicular highway since they wouldn't have had altitude to clear it.

6) All occupants survived with varying injuries; at last check, one was still paralyzed

7) Runway here is 5,002 feet long; eyewitness reports say aircraft became airborne approximately halfway down the runway, making at least 3 attempts to get out of ground effect

8) Aircraft impacted ground and was spun around, coming to rest shortly after having impacted. I estimate it slid less than 200 feet after initial impact. Aircraft was cut into 5 pieces, loaded onto a trailer and hauled off later that evening...quite impressive to watch actually."

 

Cheers,

Dan

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On ‎1‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 10:45 AM, DanM20C said:

I'm with you guys too.  300 over Gross with proper pilot technique and in the proper CG would work out. This particular incident didn't have either.  My calculations (based on educated guesses of weights of people and airplane)  put the CG around 51-52".  The C's aft limit is 49"

My guess is the aft CG caused the airplane to "feel" light in pitch.  He rotated early and stayed in a high angle of attack/high drag attitude until the crash.  Never really leaving ground effect. 

The airport manager posted this on Beechtalk:

"1) Airplane was bought a little less than 3 weeks prior to the accident and relocated to KBGF from KMOR

2) Airplane hadn't flown earlier that day; based purely on observation, this was the new owner's third flight in the aircraft

3) 5 full size adults on the aircraft, one in the baggage compartment (as you could all see from the photo posted on the news site)...my eyeball estimate is between 1100 and 1200 lbs of people

4) Between 30-32 gallons taken from the tanks on scene; that's probably close to all that was onboard +/- 2 gallons

5) Aircraft did not hit any power lines or anything other than the ground, despite what the various news channels reported; however, based on eye witness reports, the occupants are lucky a truck wasn't coming down the perpendicular highway since they wouldn't have had altitude to clear it.

6) All occupants survived with varying injuries; at last check, one was still paralyzed

7) Runway here is 5,002 feet long; eyewitness reports say aircraft became airborne approximately halfway down the runway, making at least 3 attempts to get out of ground effect

8) Aircraft impacted ground and was spun around, coming to rest shortly after having impacted. I estimate it slid less than 200 feet after initial impact. Aircraft was cut into 5 pieces, loaded onto a trailer and hauled off later that evening...quite impressive to watch actually."

 

Cheers,

Dan

Yikes.  If true, at least...well, okay, if true, there's really nothing good there

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