February

THE GRAPEVINE
EAA CHAPTER 663 Livermore, California
Vol. XXVI, No. 2, February, 2007
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
Business: Brad Olson asked for members for ideas
for guest speakers at future chapter meetings.
Harry Crosby suggested the chapter purchase
one of the new fiber optic bore scopes, no motion
was made.
Break at 8:00
Program: The original program with Earl Minkler
of Valley Machine was not present due to a scheduling snafu. Dave Dent saved the day by telling
the story of his 2006 Airventure journey in his Velocity.
Meeting adjourned for pie at 9:30.
BOARD MEETING: 01-18-07 7:30 PM, BOB FARNAM'S PLACE.
Present: Bob Farnam, Brad Olson, Barry Weber,
Scott Alair, Dick Jennings, John Meyer, Harry
Crosby, Bruce Cruikshank, Paul Wiess and Ralph
Cloud.
Treasurer's report: Barry Weber reported $3,250
in chapter funds.
Business: The board spent the entire meeting going over the details as to who was responsible for
what and what to bring to the January dinner.
Meeting adjourned for pie at 8:30 OFFICERS
PRESIDENT
BOB FARNAM
VICE PRES
BRAD OLSON
TREA$URER
BARRY WEBER
SECRETARY
SCOTT ALAIR
PROGRAM CO-ORD BRAD OLSON
TECH COUNSELOR GORDON JONES
TECH COUNSELOR BOB SINCLAIR
NEWS LETTER
JOHN MEYER
FLIGHT ADVISOR BARRY WEBER
FLIGHT ADVISOR BOB FARNAM
YOUNG EAGLES
ERIC HELMS
LIBRARIAN
ALAN THAYER
WEB EDITOR
RALPH CLOUD
449-1513
866-9289
454-0627
416-0889
866-9289
447-1549
935-7465
455-1631
454-0627
449-1513
373-0137
582-7274
449-1048
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
BRUCE CRUIKSHANK
RALPH CLOUD
HARRY CROSBY
ERIC HELMS
BILL JEPSON
GEOFF RUTLEDGE
510-886-6897
449-1048
485-9359
373-0137
408-929-1123
650-462-1126
MEETING AND PROGRAM
Our February meeting will take place at 7:30 P.M.
on the 1st of February in the Terminal Building at
the Livermore Airport. February's speaker will
be Earl Minkler of Valley Machine. Earl's talk will
start at the airport terminal, where he will provide
helpful tips and pointers for working with aluminum. Earl will then open his machine shop near
the airport for a tour! Earl has fabricated parts for
many of us, and does great work for reasonable
prices.
LEATHER!
MINUTES: GENERAL MEETING
EAA CHAPTER 663, 01-04-07 7:30 PM
LVK TERMINAL BUILDING
Have you ever noticed that when a woman wears
leather clothing, a man’s heart beats quicker, his
throat gets dry, he goes weak in the knees and he
begins to think irrationally?
Guest: Erik Alair and Bill Spencer
Treasurer's report: Barry Weber reported chapter
funds of $3,750.
Ever wonder why?
It’s because she smells like a new truck!
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YOU DIDN’T MISS THE ANNUAL
DINNER, DID YOU?
emergency response and fire protection.
The event is the third largest fly-in in the nation,
drawing as many as 1,500 aircraft and 50,000 visitors, Smith said.
I know that some of you did, but close to forty
members came with their significant others to the
Robert Livermore Center in search of a good
time. A bunch came around 5 PM to help set up
and many more got there even before announced
6:00 PM start time to get the party rolling.
The jury also found the town and its fire department 15 percent responsible, but Arlington was
dismissed as a defendant in the lawsuit two years
ago, so the estate and widow actually stand to receive $9.8 million in damages.
And roll it did. Everyone got a chance to talk to
our guest, Clay Lacy, and to everyone else, also.
Clay has a fascinating personal history in aviation,
including starting to fly with United at age 19. He
showed some of the stuff he’s flown, including
race videos of air racing. Did I say racing? How
about the Mojave 1000, in a DC-7? Which he
might have won had he had the g-meter in front
of him for the whole race!
In documents filed in court, however, a lawyer for
the sponsors, Jeffrey D. Laveson, argued that
Corbitt was responsible for his own death and
that he would have died regardless of the availability of more fire personnel.
THE CAUSE OF THE ACCIDENT?
$10.5 MILLION AWARDED IN FATAL CRASH
AT ARLINGTON AIR SHOW
The NTSB found no mechanical cause of the accident in their examination of the wreckage, they
found no medical abnormalities in the pilot nor
did they comment on the pilot’s mental state
other than to note that he was anxious to depart
prior to the closing of the field for the air show.
from THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
EVERETT, Wash. -- A jury has awarded $10.5 million for the death of a man in the crash of an experimental aircraft in 1999, finding air show organizers had failed to make adequate emergency
provisions.
They did not speculate on why the aircraft
“performed what was described as a very short
takeoff roll, and then lifted abruptly into the air.
Immediately after leaving the ground, the aircraft
entered into a "very steep" climb at "an extreme
angle of attack." The aircraft continued to climb
very steeply until it reached a height that was estimated as between 75 and 100 feet above the
ground. At that point, its airspeed slowed significantly, and it slowly began to roll to the left. The
nose of the aircraft then pitched down, and it descended into a parallel taxiway near the east side
of the runway. Numerous witnesses reported that
it sounded like the aircraft's engine was operating
at full power from the time the pilot started the
takeoff roll until the aircraft hit the ground.”
A lawsuit over the death Donald Allen Corbitt, 38,
of Bellevue, went to trial last month in Snohomish
County Superior Court, and the award was
signed by a judge Tuesday.
Corbitt, a Microsoft Corp. retiree and software
consultant, died July 7, 1999, when the RV-6A experimental aircraft he was flying crashed at the
Arlington airport northeast of Everett.
He survived the impact but was pinned inside the
burning wreckage. Bystanders tried to put out the
flames, but their portable fire extinguishers gave
out and he burned to death before firefighters arrived six minutes after the crash.
There was some speculation that the pilot had
used his right seat belt to hold the right stick in the
full aft position, in fact “two witnesses, both of
whom were familiar with RV-6 series aircraft, said
that they remember that when they were looking
at the accident aircraft in the parking area, the
right seat belt had been looped around the front
of the right control stick, and the stick seemed to
be pulled nearly to the full-back position (a com-
"He died a horrible death," said Frank Smith, a
lawyer for Corbitt's widow and estate.
The jury found that the Northwest Experimental
Aircraft Association and the Experimental Aircraft
Association of Oshkosh, Wis., sponsors of the annual Arlington Fly-in, had not provided sufficient
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mon parking practice among many pilots). One of
the witnesses said that he had observed the seat
belt in this position as the pilot hurriedly prepared
the aircraft for departure just prior to the air
show. One of the witnesses was not near the aircraft when it started up for departure, but the
other was. This witness said that although he
watched the pilot start the aircraft and taxi for departure, he was not in a position where he could
see whether the pilot had removed the belt from
around the control stick. He further commented
that, although he could not see the position of the
belt itself, he does not remember noting that the
elevator was in the up position as the aircraft was
taxied toward the runway. Other witnesses also
remembered seeing the aircraft taxi to the runway, and none of them reported specifically noting that the elevator was significantly deflected toward the up position.
mately nine months prior to the accident. A review of his log book revealed that he had accumulated a pilot-in-command total time of 137.5
hours. In addition, the review disclosed that he
purchased the experimental aircraft less than two
weeks prior to the accident, and had about 7.5
hours of flight time in it, with about 4 of those
hours being "solo" (without the previous owner
onboard).” This was not your basic high time pilot! Au contraire!
I don’t think that a Ph.D. in Rocket Science should
be required for discerning a possible cause here. I
have no idea of what this guy learned to fly in, but
even a plans-built RV-6A can be a pretty high performance airplane by comparison to most trainers. Add to this information the alleged tendency
for some RV pilots to make very high performance
take-offs when departing large air shows, to impress the peasants, I suppose. I would guess that
during his flight training this pilot did not fully
learn how little he really knew about flying. He
probably thought that he was a really hot pilot,
flying one really hot airplane.
During the investigation, the right control stick
was inspected to determine if any evidence could
be found that would indicate the pilot had left the
right seat belt looped around the stick. Although
there were other places in the cockpit where portions of burned or melted seat belt material was
found, no such indications were seen on the right
control stick. In addition, there were no gouges,
scrapes, scarring or any other indication consistent
with seat belt buckle interference/contact on the
front of the stick. Frankly, I have trouble believing
that a pilot could even climb into the left seat with
both sticks held full back by a seat belt--but I
haven’t tried it.
I wish that I had been on the jury, but then, plaintiffs attorney might not have wanted anybody
who knew anything about airplane, especially
home-builts.
A number of years ago I printed a picture in The
Grapevine that Barry Weber had furnished of an
RV-4 which had fallen out of the sky following
just such a departure. Pilot and his friend both
died instantly.
It should be noted that “the pilot earned his private pilot license on October 21, 1998, approxiNOT THE BEST OF DAYS AT DIEGO GARCIA!!
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For more pictures of this wheels-up landing, go to the following web address:
<http://www.zianet.com/tedmorris/dg/bombers4.html>
For those of you too busy to click, I will summarize: $7.9 million damage to the airplane, plus $14,025
damage to the runway. For a $285 million dollar airplane, that is about 2.8% of the value of the aircraft.
Word from B-1 drivers is that basically the fuselage is an open-bottomed U-shaped tunnel from nose to
tail (much of it is bomb bays) and the spine of the fuselage has load cells to measure the stresses, especially when they are flying flat out at ground level. The computer apparently works it all out and, with
high speed servos, helps keep flex and stress to a minimum using those little canards on the nose. They
are the "Stability Mode and Control System" (SMCS, pronounced smacks) Vanes. Their only function is
to extend airframe life by cushioning the ride--which also reduces aggravation to the crew’s hemorrhoids. Accelerometers placed in many areas of the airframe feed info to the SMCS system which in
turn provides an up or down vane deflection which is enough to cushion turbulence.
Judging from the picture, these vanes will not prevent a determined crew from landing the airplane
wheels-up. Oh, well, it looks as if they were right on the centerline, at least.
LEARN TO FLY! YEAH, SIGN ME UP!
The following picture is of unknown origin, but if I were a prospective student pilot, I might have
mixed feelings about the whole idea. Is this plane stuck in a tree because the pilot did learn to fly and
this is what happened to him or does this mean that should I take lots of flying lessons so that this
won’t happen to me. I’m having trouble with this; any ideas?
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THIS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!
But obviously it can!
Even to experienced airline pilots. This plane had just rotated and was lifting off when--Kapowee! Can
you imagine what the passengers thought? Or, for that matter, the pilots?
This was most likely the result of intake air flow separation at the lip of the cowling or within the engine, similar to what happened when Boeing was testing the engine installation design for the 777 prototype. They did that test on a 747 and, while climbing out, airflow separation,either a the lip or within
the engine, caused more or less what is shown here. Oh, yeah, they changed the offending parts; it’s
not good form to scare the bejesus out of the paying customers--or for that matter, the pilots.
This can also happen during take-of with a stiff crosswind, something the 777 engine was tested for. Or
here we could be looking at a severe engine problem; the picture came without any clue to what happened, other than this visual.
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EAA CHAPTER 663
11700 Tesla Road
Livermore, CA 94550
[email protected]
eaa663.org
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