Clipperstorch wrote:
He’s good at filming and he has a death wish.
I propose “Drinking vodka in Kabul”.
The FAA is investigating according to AVweb
martin-esmi wrote:
The FAA is investigating according to AVweb
I wonder what exactly the FAA is investigating (and not the police). I would think this is first a task for the NTSB ?
If it is staged, than purposely leaving the plane to fly pilotless (for no good reason), obviously is not good aviation practice in any sort of way. But is it illegal (in a legal sense)? Perhaps?
Another thing is most negative comments seems to be from pilots who are more on the “pilot” side of things rather than “aviator” side of things 
A bit amusing actually.
Reading the report from the FAA/NTSB will be interesting.
A big fine and a license suspension would be the minimum to stop this behaviour consisting in crashing a working but old plane to make a movie and views.
He’s not the first, actually there is a similar ditch story here:
This second guy seems to have removed the video.
What makes me angry most is the fact that there are probably a lot of people with hangered planes that are looking for parts that was on his plane, and now everything is not even good for junkyard.
Assuming it’s proven as staged, will he have to pay the costs of removing it from the park lands? Probably not insubstantial costs.
If it goes as far as a full investigation, the NTSB may helicopter it all out.
If it is staged, than purposely leaving the plane to fly pilotless
91.13. They can get you for pretty much anything with that, but certainly abandoning a plane in flight strikes as pretty “careless and reckless”. Nt to mention whoever is responsible for the land (BLM?) going after him for the cost of removal. And his insurers probably won’t pay up.
(A friend of a friend crashed – genuinely though not a great tribute to his piloting skills – in federal wilderness land. Now THAT was an adventure to retrieve).
He will probably argue that this was not careless… “Your Honor, I very carefully made sure that there was no fuel in the aircraft to rule out any possibility of fire and I was above complete wilderness to make sure that nobody would get hurt!”
I deliberately didn’t watch the video – I don’t want to give him more views.
On another forum, someone discovered there was a nice meadow within around 3km where the engine stopped. My aircraft is a descendent of the Taylorcraft (Auster was originally known as Taylor Aeroplanes of England, and built designs derived from the original Taylorcraft designs) and it has very good low speed handling, you don’t need much of a field to make a landing that not only leaves you undamaged, but leaves the plane usable once you’ve fixed whatever caused you to make a forced landing.
They aren’t making these planes any more and it’s a shame another one has gone to the scrap yard.
The Taylorcraft BC12D is a phenomenal performer for its 65hp. It is much better than a Cub, Luscombe, Jodel for short fields, and it’s probably also faster. We used to fly one out of a 350m wet uphill/downhill strip with tricky approaches. I would have been very sceptical about it in the J3 or similar. The Taylorcraft just gets light on its feet and floats into the air. Coming in to land you could slow it way down, and the big wing never sank or dropped to either side.
I think solo I could stop it reliably in 120m. People hold many aeroplanes in reverence (Insert long list here) but the BC12D is a very competent and overlooked aircraft for VFR bimbling. I see one on Barnstormers for 14500 USD and you could have a lifetime of fun with something like that. I think it’s the aeroplane that I would buy if I lost it all and had to start again. Here was the one I had, and where we used to fly it. Shame on that American in the video.
