Draco has crashed

[Brother D]

https://youtu.be/NfctWAoDXvs

Really unfortunate, but at least Patey got away unscathed. Such a shame considering all the hours and hours of work and development he put into it.

[Eric Mc]

Draco was a modified PZL Wilga I think.

I saw one of these go in right in front of me back in 1984 - with fatal results. I think they are quite unforgiving aircraft.

[Eric Mc]

Some video footage here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqnp08N4qWg

[thebraketester]

I just saw this on his YT channel. He must be gutted, but it could have been worse.

[Digger]

Why risk it when it was that gusty?

[Eric Mc]

Good question. It seems he wanted to get out of Reno before a squall front moved in so was anxious to get away.

[Watchman]

Terrible shame but so good that everyone walked out without injury.

I was only watching him talking about the latest with the Scrappy build last night.

[andy97]

Eric Mc said:

Good question. It seems he wanted to get out of Reno before a squall front moved in so was anxious to get away.

“Pushonitis”

[IforB]

I cannot believe he attempted to take off in those conditions.

Love the aircraft and applaud them for building it, but that was just stupid.

If in doubt, don't go. Always better to be wishing you had gone than regretting that you had.

Dumb with a capital D.

[Eric Mc]

The aeroplane was trying to take off even when it was stopped at the end of the runway. I reckon he thought his slow flying skills would compensate for the windy conditions. Perhaps a case of hubris at work.

[anonymous-user]

I guess one advantage of a plane that flies at very low speeds is you get to walk away from the eventual crash??

[Eric Mc]

Max_Torque said:

I guess one advantage of a plane that flies at very low speeds is you get to walk away from the eventual crash??

That wasn't the outcome of the crash of SP-AFX. The aircraft flew past me at a height of around 200 feet, flying VERY slowly and then commenced a left hand turn - at which point it stalled and spun in. The pilot died.

[IforB]

Eric Mc said:

The aeroplane was trying to take off even when it was stopped at the end of the runway. I reckon he thought his slow flying skills would compensate for the windy conditions. Perhaps a case of hubris at work.

It usually is. I'd say >90% of all light aircraft crashes involve hubris.

A completely made up statistic of course, but I can't think of many that didn't involve someone thinking they were better than they really were.

To be fair. The older I get, the more amazed I become that I didn't end up as one of those statistics earlier in my career. So it becomes easier to spot the signs in others.

However in this case, tail dragger, strong cross-wind component, gusty, torquey great lump at the front, tarmac runway, extended struts giving a high alpha when sitting on the deck, pilot who had probably had a week of compliments blown up his backside by others about what an amazing machine it was leading to a potentially inflated view of his and it's capability etc.etc. (That last one is a complete and utter guess on my part.)

Lots of links in this accident chain...

[Eric Mc]

Interesting, the pilot of SP-AFX had just won the European Precision Flying Championship earlier in the week.

The competition was held in Ireland that year and the Polish team stayed on to take part in that year's Faireyhouse Air Spectacular - with fatal results for that pilot (Jan Baran was his name).

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/176030

[Eric Mc]

I'd also ad that it was a Wilga that Nigel Farage was a passenger in when he had he had his crash in 2010.

[AER]

Mike's version of events...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfctWAoDXvs


edit: I see that this video was posted at the beginning - it's worth watching to see a great man admitting his mistakes. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with a Wilga but STOL aircraft are going to encourage flying close to the edge and a stall-spin is never going to end well.

edit 2: Nigel Farage's description of his Wliga experience seems to suggest it was more an operational issue than type-specific. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep3okY-DlVQ

Edited by AER on Tuesday 17th September 11:15

[IforB]

AER said:

Mike's version of events...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfctWAoDXvs

Fair play to him. He's completely open about it.

An expensive mistake, but hopefully others will learn from it too.

He definitely LAFFT... I'm just glad no-one was hurt.

[eharding]

As he said, if the wind is strong enough to make taxying to the into-wind runway an issue, then using the cross-wind runway instead isn't a great idea.

Very glad to see they all got out unharmed.

Edited: It hadn't been a good few days for Draco even before this - Mike Patey had come unstuck with his insurers over public display insurance last week, meaning he had to withdraw the aircraft from events like Reno, Oshkosh and STOL competitions. Hopefully there won't be any issues with the insurance coverage for this incident.

Edited by eharding on Tuesday 17th September 14:51

[Watchman]

Mike Patey's most recent vid suggests he might try to resurrect Draco.

Edited by Watchman on Monday 28th October 09:53

[trickywoo]

Watchman said:

Mike Patey's most recent vid suggests he might try to resurrect Draco.

Edited by Watchman on Monday 28th October 09:53

Bit more than suggests. He has made a lot of new parts and it’s looking like a plane again.