Damn, I hate it when my aircraft start up, roll down the runway, and take off without me in it.

Damn sneaky, those Beeches.



Small plane crashes at California airport with nobody inside

Police said the plane's owner was working on the Beech V35B aircraft and trying unsuccessfully to get it to start. After the owner walked away from the plane, the engine engaged and started rolling down the runway.

Yea, it just went off by itself.

I own a Beech, so I clicked on that link. Just clicking on that link got me cookies from bat.bing.com, bing.com, flipboard.com, fncstatic.com, foxnews.com and spot.im. Good Freakin Grief!

quote:

Originally posted by wingspar:
I own a Beech, so I clicked on that link. Just clicking on that link got me cookies from bat.bing.com, bing.com, flipboard.com, fncstatic.com, foxnews.com and spot.im. Good Freakin Grief!

Cessnas do it, too.

In the early 1970s I flew into Put-In Bay. This is an island in Lake Erie, north of Sandusky, Ohio (between Toledo and Cleveland). People commuted to the mainland via airplane or boat. There was a cool commuter service that used Ford TriMotors.

When I tied down at the airport, folks were gossiping about a resident -- a member of the state legislature -- whose Cessna 172 had a weak or dead battery. The starter would not turn the engine over. He set the throttle, fuel mixture, and magneto switch for starting, and got out of the airplane to swing the prop.

The engine started easily and the airplane took off without him. Accelerated, pitched up, climbed, stalled, and splashed into the lake.

Someone should save the carcass of the dead V-tail; it's the first and only Bonanza to become airborne @ 40mph.

And you pilots want the rest of us to think that flying is hard?

flight school?
medicals?
license?
logging time in command?

all this when the plane can just do it by itself?

[Terminator] "Wednesday, January 30, 2019, Bonanza becomes self-aware." [/Terminator]

quote:

Originally posted by aileron:

Someone should save the carcass of the dead V-tail; it's the first and only Bonanza to become airborne @ 40mph.

Agreed. I'm not at the hangar now, I don't have V-Tail (Beech 35 series) reference materials available, but I do happen to have a POH for the Model 36 (stretch-limo version of the Bonanza, same wing, similar flight attributes) here at home. Here are the numbers:

• Vs0: 61 kt (70 mph)
  
  
• Vs (no flaps): 68 kt (78 mph)

Of course, those are power-off numbers. If he had been trying to start a possibly flooded engine, the throttle might have been left full open, in which case the airplane might have lifted off in ground effect with full power -- just enough to get airborne and then stall, much like a mis-handled soft field take-off.

Also, we need to remember that the 40 mph is not a measured figure, it is an onlooker's estimate of ground speed, could easily be off by 20% or more, and does not take into account any headwind component that would increase airflow over the wing.

quote:

Originally posted by wingspar:
I own a Beech, so I clicked on that link. Just clicking on that link got me cookies from bat.bing.com, bing.com, flipboard.com, fncstatic.com, foxnews.com and spot.im. Good Freakin Grief!

Just for you...

.

quote:

Witnesses said the plane took off at speeds of around 40 miles per hour.

Was there a 45 kt headwind ???

quote:

Also, we need to remember that the 40 mph is not a measured figure, it is an onlooker's estimate of ground speed, could easily be off by 20% or more, and does not take into account any headwind component that would increase airflow over the wing.

We also need to realize it doesn't take into account that nobody, and the 150-200 pounds they normally weigh, was onboard and that eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable.

I'm a little confused, which doesn't take much. I think what actually happened got lost in translation from the pilots to the police to the media.

Unrelated, but...




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlEKiSwttsc

^^^ VSTOL aircraft!

I don’t think the plane got airborne. It just rolled out and “crashed“ into a car and fence.

I didn't know Phil Spector had an airplane and that he was out of prison.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
And you pilots want the rest of us to think that flying is hard?

flight school?
medicals?
license?
logging time in command?

all this when the plane can just do it by itself?

Flying isn't hard... you can train a monkey to do it. Want it flown well within feet of a desired position on speed and comfortable as a passenger? That takes some skill.

I fly a BE36 not a BE35, but I can't imagine the plane getting airborne even in ground effect. The elevator in the 36 isn't spring loaded- unless the plane had significant nose up trim I don't thin there would be enough back pressure on the elevator to lift the nose. My plane is very nose heavy though so it may be a little different. Is the 35 the same way?

quote:

Originally posted by ECSquirrel:

I fly a BE36 not a BE35, but I can't imagine the plane getting airborne even in ground effect. The elevator in the 36 isn't spring loaded- unless the plane had significant nose up trim I don't thin there would be enough back pressure on the elevator to lift the nose. My plane is very nose heavy though so it may be a little different. Is the 35 the same way?

Re trim, it might not be that. I don't remember what the control lock does in a 36, but in a 35 it definitely locks elevators (OK, ruddervators in a V-tail) in the nose-up position.

Re nose-heavy, my personal airplane was a 35, maybe 3,000 hours in that. I also flew quite a bit in the 36 series, both as instructor, and as contract pilot flying a clients' company-owned airplanes. They (35 vs. 36) were really different with respect to pitch axis. The 36 is, as you say, nose heavy. The 35, and its close sibling, the 33, are just the opposite. The CG is much further aft in the shorter airframes, and you have to be careful about weight distribution. It's all too easy to load them with the CG out of limits, too far aft, with potentially disastrous results.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
Unrelated, but...




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlEKiSwttsc

That reminds me. I was once driving on Hwy58 in Mojave, CA. The wind was crazy strong. There was a DC10 sitting in the bone yard at the airport there, and it’s front gear was lifting off the ground like it was going to lift off. It bounced up and down a little, but then stayed put. Don’t they tie these planes down for just this reason? Or why can’t they leave the spoilers deployed to kill lift?

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by ECSquirrel:

I fly a BE36 not a BE35, but I can't imagine the plane getting airborne even in ground effect. The elevator in the 36 isn't spring loaded- unless the plane had significant nose up trim I don't thin there would be enough back pressure on the elevator to lift the nose. My plane is very nose heavy though so it may be a little different. Is the 35 the same way?

Re trim, it might not be that. I don't remember what the control lock does in a 36, but in a 35 it definitely locks elevators (OK, ruddervators in a V-tail) in the nose-up position.

Re nose-heavy, my personal airplane was a 35, maybe 3,000 hours in that. I also flew quite a bit in the 36 series, both as instructor, and as contract pilot flying a clients' company-owned airplanes. They (35 vs. 36) were really different with respect to pitch axis. The 36 is, as you say, nose heavy. The 35, and its close sibling, the 33, are just the opposite. The CG is much further aft in the shorter airframes, and you have to be careful about weight distribution. It's all too easy to load them with the CG out of limits, too far aft, with potentially disastrous results.

I'm academically aware of the rear CG of the short bodies but I don't have any first hand experience. The control lock is a good thought as well- I don't usually keep the control lock in my plane as it's hangared, but I need to keep it in the plane when it's parked on the ramp away from home.

My bird has an after market turbo system making it very easy to be forward of the CG envelope.