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Pegasus Quantum 15 G-MYZJ flies away with no pilot (and hand propping)

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

That’s one way to get rid of a body…

EDBW, Germany

It says a lot for the aircraft type, that it managed to fly on without crashing shortly after getting airborne! I must have been well trimmed and very stable! (unlike the pilot!)

It probably is the weirdest accident report that I’ve read!

EIKH Kilrush, Ireland

It reminds me of another bizarre accident that happened in the early 1990’s at Harbledown Wood Airfield, Dunkirk, Canterbury, Kent..
A visiting examiner at The University of Kent, Canterbury (where I worked for 25 years) came across from Germany in his Piper Cub and parked for 3 days with the Master Switch left on.
When he returned to the field to fly back, he had a flat battery.
A local farmer lent him a battery & jump leads to start-up.
Being worried that he might not be able to start again, the German pilot kept the engine running at idle whilst he returned the auxiliary battery back to the farmer.
Those who knew the old Dunkirk field will recall that the parking area is about three quarters along its length, at the top of a very steep downslope, tarmac runway. The academic had failed to chock the plane.
Whilst absent, the plane crept forwards onto the runway and the wind ‘weathercocked’ the plane to face along the runway at the top of the very steep hill.
It then proceeded to move forwards and go down the hill where it must have gained enough speed to take off and disappear into the woods.
When the academic returned – finding no plane – he contacted the police (and me at the University) to “report that his plane had been stolen!”
The Police Helicopter was called – together with 3 police cars!
After ½ hour of searching they spotted a tail of a plane which was vertically nose-down in the midst of the trees!
The moral to this (and the original post): When starting an un-piloted plane always use chocks!

Last Edited by Peter_G at 17 Dec 19:27
Rochester, UK, United Kingdom

@mod, does this not belong in the “funny random stuff” thread?

Antonio
LESB, Spain

@Peter_G thanks for making my day after a long one…

Antonio
LESB, Spain

Well, maybe, but it has a serious angle. Quite a number of people have had “runaway” accidents doing hand propping. One pilot (who used to be active here) had such an accident with his homebuilt and narrowly missed badly damaging a commercial turboprop. He gave up flying after that. I met him around then. He was very lucky.

It is not possible to trim any “normal” plane to fly at a constant altitude. I think it must have been trimmed back a certain amount, so when it got airborne it fell back onto the back of the curve and sat there, flying along at something around Vs, probably slowly climbing until performance limited. Amazing it had stability in roll; most planes don’t.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Maybe you should google the reg, this thing was a flexwing microlight, very different from a normal plane. I’d have thought a flexwing would be much less likely to get airborne by itself than a fixed wing. I don’t think it even has trim

Hand propping is totally safe provided you follow the right (very simple) procedure, as with anything else in flying really.

United Kingdom

I did google it (that’s how I found the ASN).

It may be “simple” but I have met some perfectly smart people who did it wrong. One fairly obvious way is to not choc it. Why? Because you are flying alone and have nobody to pull away the chocks. Probably the right way then is to choc it, get it started, and pull the chocks away when the engine is idling in a stable way, and you assume that it will remain that way while you get into the plane.

Pretty dodgy if you have a non-pilot passenger sitting in the plane

One could have a tail tiedown with a radio controlled release

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

This guy escapd the darwin award by not being injured… That would have been funny also if he were.

LFMD, France
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