Gyro Accident Tasmania

[asra]

Human error, faulty part, wedgy. Good design will provide redundancy for all of those. In the Home Hill incident, although It may be the same system as used in helicopters it was

[birdy]

Aye Birdy, Hows that banana bender behaving...................Havnt had t send him back yet, if thats wot y mean. Couldn"t post a picture could ya??Nah, sorry, thats beyond me abilities. I also get the impression some people are trying to flog gyros to the gullable public implying they are as safe as certified aircraft. A properly setup and maintained gyro is.And its even safer if you count the design simplisity and precision you have in the controls, with or without power.

[asra]

Thought I would have to go and annoy the yanks , it was getting quiet in here. Might"ve been that stone I threw in the bushes. Going on the stats uncertified gyros dont appear to be as safe as certified aircraft. Some of the reasons might be training, maintenance, and flying a machine outside its design limits or the pilots limits. That last one could be part of training or it could be that some people who are attracted to it as a sport dont take to training too well and have no fear.Maintenance is the main thing that sets them apart from certified aircraft. Starting with mustering pilots, before getting into gyros, most would have experiance maintaining bikes and other gear sometimes with what they"ve got and if they dont get it right its a long walk home. Then there"s the aircraft crowd replacing part numbers at specified hours. There is also those with a background in engineering and mechanical and I would guess, a number with no practical background to put towards maintaining their aircraft. A lot of different qualifications used in gyro maintenance.The other thing is that there are a lot of different designs, most with modifications and also one of designs. I like it that way but it sets them apart from certified aircraft. Uncertified replacement parts. As Tim has demonstrated with rod ends, they are stronger and more durable than what is considered an equivelent in aircraft grade. But whats the quality control like. The same applies to most uncertified parts.Thats the main difference between certified and uncertified. Certified means less chance of getting a dodgy part or someone stuffing up the maintenance.I guess there"s not many accidents involving control rod failure but as the control rod designs include redundancy, are simple and cheap and can be used on both full cabs and open frame machines, it seems too much of a good thing to let it go down the gurgler into the forum archives and be forgotten about.If a bit of redundancy can be added here and there at no extra cost or weight, gyros will only get safer.

[Mark Horan]

Peter makes a good point about maintenence here.In the aircraft world, we gyronaughts all fly uncertified machines. It doesnt matter if the lucky few can shell out 90 grand on a factoy built machine, the moment they take delivery of the shiney,new, flash machine, the maintenence regeime falls to the owners skills.Personally, I like to think that I have a good maint schedule on my Gyro. I have reasonable mechanical skills and I use my logbook religiously, change oil at regular intervals and always do a good pre flight before I go up.Unfortunately, I always seem to do a more thourough pre flight after reading about someone elses misadventure in the accidents section of the forum. Also, when flying, and an hour from home at 1000 feet above the ground, I often hear a "funny twang" or get caught in a whopper of a updraught that makes me wonder if I have done all I can when maintaining my machine.I generally fly a couple or three times a week and I own a professionally built roscoe gyro, but I am aware that the skills of the builder can be lost to the maintenance of the pilot. There is no aviation NRMA when in the air and not many places to "pull over" when flying around the great dividing range.When ASRA put the next TA course on in NSW, Ill have my name on the list.Mark

[chook]

Pete, your comment on certified aircraft components begs an argument. When building my last gyro and purchasing the 115 odd AN series of nuts, bolts and washers for that machine from Western Airmotive at Jandakot at exhorbitant prices, 3 of those bolts were faulty in that the formed threads were either non existant or misaligned.On their return to the shop they were just replaced and the faulty ones discarded into the bin - no followup - no corrective process!And I"ll bet that if one of those bolts had"ve failed resulting in my death there would have been no comeback for my wife! You pay a premium for no good reason.I still insist on using aircraft grade components but frankly it"s a feel good thing!Chook.

[asra]

Can"t argue with that Chook, but I did say less chance.

[Tim]

More often than not nowdays the only difference between certified and non-certified is the additional exhorbitant cost of the insurance premium to cover the company should that part fail prematurely. Note that the end user is not covered, only the parent company, looking after themselves. Such is the case with the 900 series Rotax engines.Originally AN hardware had to meet stringent Army/Navy standards but even that is no longer the case. Now the bolts are manufacturer "certified" as an economic consideration and they (the manufacturer) accepts the risk themselves. Obviously it would be pretty hard to prove that an inferior bolt failed causing an aircraft to crash.What exactly is a certified Aircraft?? CASA are not going to "outright certify" anything (they are not that stupid). All that they can do is "certify" that to the best of their knowledge, the aircraft has been built using "certified" materials or components. To do this they have to rely largely on information supplied from the manufacturer. Even certified engines from Lycombing and Continental will fail, and they have had some 60 years to get it right. Running at 2500 rpm as they do there is no reason that they should not be good for 5000 hrs. There are plenty of smaller younger engines that are putting them to shame for duration, realibility and economy.

[asra]

That is certainly making it sound like there"s as much chance of getting a bad part in certified as uncertified. The problem is there seems to be more accidents in uncertified gyros than certified aircraft, fixed or rotary wing. I think the early autogyros also had a much better accident record. I see on the US forum that some of the ideas that Fergus put up have been kicking around for a few years though I hadn"t run onto them before. I just took it for granted that if one control rod let go when I was pulling the gyro around I would become redundant.

[eigyro]

Yes Peter, these fixes have been around a long time, but have only occasionally been implemented.I think the Calidus is the first commercial offering that has split the axes, which is half way there.Herrons idea is more elegant in that only one extra pushrod is required to provide full redundancy to both axes.Pushrods dont fail that often, but it seems to be as unrecoverable as a PPO, or nearly so.If I were operating off tarmac, I might not worry about it, but when I have used a standard stick on grass runways,I have been horrified at the amount of punishment the rods and stick get.This may be different on machines with suspension fitted, but on a stock Bensen it is really bad.

[Greg Mitchell]

G"Day Fellas,Thought you might like to know just how lucky Allan was. Not only did he have to deal with the impending impact as he crashed into the Tamar inverted but he also had to survive the Tamar itself.Stories abound about the treachery of the river. Seagulls sucked down into whirlpools and boats overturned by opposing eddies. As the river runs the water appears to boil. Whirlpools bubble up from nowhere and opposing eddies spew white water into long straight channels. Currents run every which way and our 17 foot boat got spun around 360 degrees by one "twister" that nearly knocked me off my feet.Allan spent 15-20 mins in the river dealing with much worse than what you see here. Mitch.

[Greg Mitchell]

a few more

[asra]

Thanks for putting that post up Fergus. I thought I"d keep it kicking around the forum for a bit because its the sort of info we dont get in the gyro mag.Looking at those pics, Allan"s ticket was cancelled before he got the prize not once but twice. Waste of time him buying a lottery ticket. It would get cancelled if he won.

[Greg Mitchell]

http://www.examiner.com.au/news/loca...k/1492724.aspx

[Waddles]

[birdy]

Typical. No matter wot i do, you gota go n do one better. Thank crist you was over the water ol mate, coz you is one of them "irreplacable" kinda blokes.