Stearman Takeoff from a Public Road goes Horribly Wrong 

So much for my rocket glider idea.

Indeed - I'm going back to my CFI for a refresher which will hopefully include this - plus the avoidance of light poles.

😁

Apparently this is _another_ issue society faces where "just say no" isn't an effective panacea.

Hehehe

Bummer, it would have been a good buy.

@@robertheinkel6225 I was doing the same thing about then and had similar opportunities. (Remember when you could get an old Harley 74 for $75? Or an old J-3 for 2 or 3 thousand?) I stayed with bucking bales, and regretted it ever since. Just another old sore-back now!

I had a hop in a Stearman on my 18th birthday back in 72. The pilot gave me the ride of my life. He asked where I wanted to go & I said just up & do some loops!

yes,,,,,,,,,,,, dont fly if you dont have feathers,,,

That holds true for many situations in life. 👍

@Retroracer "and do I have on clean underwear"?

If you think you have to fly now! >>> Think also about what the crash report would say about you and the accident!

exactly what I thought when I poked myself in the eye putting on a pair of safety glasses once. I didn't tell my foreman because I didn't want to be the topic of the next safety meeting.

Look at those dummies who were 'flying' Air France 447, or the 'experienced pilot' (and crew) whose in-a-hurry-itis wiped out 583 people at Tenerrife in 1977.

Looks like an elaborate insurance fraud scheme to me.

@@None-zc5vg Yeah Capt van Zanten.

@@MarkSmith-js2pu There's not a hope in hell an insurance company will pay on this.

One would hope he doesn't have a license to drive a car!

I think the pilot recognized the stall condition and put the nose down to attempt to pick up a little airspeed. But obviously he had no idea where the light pole was in relation to his aircraft.

I don't see nothing superior here. Just hope the pilot is ok

I understand Get-There-Itis. Having been an active Flight Instructor five decades now, that is the element that causes things like this. Also, there are the Five Hazardous Attitudes: Anti-Authority, Impulsivity, Invulnerability, Macho and Resignation. It's just a guess, but I would say he has nailed at least three of these: Impulsivity, Invulnerability and Macho. If my son had done this, I'd burn him, the plane and his Pilot Certificates and Ratings at the stake. What a waste of a nice Stearman by a Show-Boating... "pilot."

I was in the area, 10 miles west. I don’t recall any storms. Jennings was having a Stearman fly-in

There were a large high tension power line that was higher up that it appears he saw and shoved the nose down to miss

It’s based (or was based) at Winnie Texas Airport

I don't think the guy had ever flown before by the looks of it, he apparently rarely ever had control of the aircraft.

I made the same response before I read your reply. I did how ever reference you in my second response. I was flying in the wilds of Alaska and rarely dealt with powerlines. Point is.... to stay alive and don't wreck your money maker. Good Comment.

Same here and a 450 would have done the trick.

He left 900 feet of open roadway behind him too.

@@b17drvr Likely a quart of piss too

You nailed it!! I've landed on roads. I would have had a pushback and short-field t/o.

Thoughtless of them to think it was a good idea for the guy to do this.

@@wildgoose419 Not their responsibility in any way, shape or form. We are called PIC for a reason.

@@LTVoyager I'm pretty sure the stall speed of a Stearman is above the local speed limit. The Sheriff's deputies were "holding his beer" for him on this one.

Just wondering if some are pilots , and could (secretly of course ) see something like this happening ?

Those cops are probably still setting their two to a car ,trying to figure out what caused the crash…….

Murdock from the A team can do it

Didnt the pilot walk the road noting the obstructions. He was dumb to take such risks.

@@caroltenge5147 That is why there are bold pilots and old pilots, but no old bold pilots.

Andy, you are so very right.@@andyrbush

@@andyrbush Bold is one thing - stupid quite another.

I wonder if he even did a run-up. Cowboy moron.

Altitude above you and runway behind you: the two most useless things in aviation. This pilot had both.

@@srscott10 You forgot GAS in the truck (fuel on the ground). Back in the 1960s these were THREE things that don't do a pilot any good. It hasn't changed.

@@utube4gar and weight in the trunk... quite a few of these reports are due to pilots not calculating how their aircraft will perform with the load they put on it, like that guy that crashed his Mooney into a berm at the end of a short runway with basically no way he would every have been able to clear it with his airplane.

He did not do a run up or have his shoulder harness on and left open roadway behind him. Not very well thought out.

Thanks Smitty!

Wow, I used to have nightmares like that…some situation forcing me to take off from a road, full of vehicles, and buildings, poles and wires EVERYwhere.

That poor Stearman was doomed the moment that the mishap pilot bought it.

So sad to see that beautiful plane with so much damage.

I was going to ask, "Who thought this was a good idea?" Obviously, not just the pilot. This required the consent of the city, the police and fire depts, and possibly the FAA.

Wisdom is to always fight against urges. The school of hard knocks is when you don't.

Ego.

That's true... It was a Duster and had been rebuilt when my Dad bought it... then I restored it again.

To put things in context, we are near the same age. When I was a teenager, my father and his best friend, retired TWA, traveled the country with an 18 wheeler flat bed buying up Stearmans. Nothing airworthy, what many at the time had retired as near junk. The converted duster Stearmans were being replaced with more capable specialized designs, Agcats and such. I remember them returning from one trip with a load which to me at the time resembled a load of hay in size. A jumble of tubing, wings, gear, you name it; all stacked and chained down. Oh, how times change. This sparked my early interest in aviation and got me started in an aviation career.

It’s gonna end up as soup cans

Gus m You can bet there are folks salivating over the chance that your “future soup cans” will come on the market. Just as it rests, a pile of pieces. My intention is to educate here, not to be that guy. Many, if not most aircraft from the beginning to the mid 1940s, were entirely hand built. The factory started with raw materials - metal tubing, welding rod, acetylene, quality spruce wood, fabrics, dopes and paints; supplied the workers with basic hand tools, acetylene welding torches, etc. ; then added many many hours of highly skilled craftsmen’s work hours. A new airplane rolled out the door. The operative word here is highly skilled craftsmen. Any part or component built by skilled hands can again be built by equally skilled hands. These craftsmen still exist in limited numbers and still ply their trade. One really can’t tell from a few photos, but that pile of alleged “soup can metal” could bring 30 to 40 T dollars. Completely repaired and rebuilt airframe and engine - $150 T and up

@@FlyWirescottperdue I once got to visit onboard Clay Lacy's DC-3. I wasn't around when DC-3s were originally built but I bet Mr Lacy's aircraft is in better shape than when it was brand new. He told us it was one of the youngest and definitely the lowest time DC-3 because it had belonged to some State's Governor and flew very little.

You think!

That's the pilot.

pilot's suffering from a massively over-inflated ego.............. eejit

Launch Pad Mc Quack would even have known better!!

@@artic9514 it’s not the city/police officials responsibility to evaluate flight risks and safety, at most the FAA should be involved in the decision.

Wonder what would have happened if he hadn't spent time in the grass and didn't try to force it off the ground early. I think he might have stopped straight ahead on the road before hitting anything. Sorry but his is just really bad airmanship.

@@gendaminoru3195 Success was in the realm of possibility. Colder air, slightly less fuel, and a clean run that stayed on pavement probably would have made it... just barely. It was kind of stupid to have the police in the middle of the intersection. That eliminated the one abort route he could have had. Still a poor decision to go, combined with a bunch of other poor decisions.

Brilliant! I need to remember that one.

@@davidzachmeyer1957 Thanks! I still vividly remember the first time it really played out. I had this clear thought that the bystanders would say "Man, he nearly cleared those apartments!" Or they would say 'Wow, he barely cleared those apartments." I sent my buddies over to the ferry dock, took off solo from Playa del Carmen, and went and picked them up in Cozumel. With just me in the plane there was no nearly or barely to it. :)

@@billstrahan4791 M Mlm

@@cecilbeach1264 Literally could not have said it better myself. I'm going to quote you on this for years! :)

I bet you the Stearman was eventually rebuilt. The number of them and parts recreated for them is pretty high.

"The engine sounds gorgeous " To me, it sounded like it was misfiring. Guess we need audio forensics.

I have had to deal with the "Get there itis" issues with my sailboat.....Something changes and my planning went sideways....I have laid to on the anchor and been late getting home because of it........But,, a bit of inconvenience traded for a safer trip is a no-brainer.....Even for me....lol

The jimmies, don't forget the jimmies, jimmie that Stearman right in between the traffic signals and the light poles.

You need both wings unless you're in an Israeli F-15. Even then, though, you have to land at 300mph.

@@markbartlett6287 That, and some crazy inner demon that stops you from reaching down and pulling really hard.......

I'm sure it'll be rebuilt

over a thousand

@@crazypeoplearoundtheworld304 That' good to know.

@@FranksFlightsGood to know. Still sad to see one lost. (Crazy People Around the World - suggests it will probably be rebuilt)

Loss of another Stearman. For now. . . some Bloke will be rebuilding it within 3 months.

Also helps to not have your head up your ass!

His runway wasn't behind him. It was a couple of miles away at the airport.

@@paulyoung181 Or somebody else's ! Paul , if you're the UK singer , can I just say how much I love your version of Hall & Oates's "Every Time You Go Away....." If you're not , forget all that , and I'll settle for " hello mate ". KwIm ?

A lot of bad decisions are 'weather related'. We think stupid things like 'I will only be up 30 minutes, that storm won't get here for 40' or 'if I don't fly today, the weather will ground us tomorrow', and off we go into the wild blue yonder. I got away with it not once but twice. Both times instructors told me I would be ok, both times I was thinking that maybe the clubhouse was nicer than being airborne. True to say, both times I was ok, but not by the kind of margins I like. Turning downwind with lightning about a mile off your port wingtip concentrates the mind.

idk, he yaws left about 20-30 degrees on that first impact with the pole. that's enough to stall his left wing and lose some airspeed while he's at it, at that point he was already doomed.

@@AvishalomShalit That's a good hypothesis, and you're right, there is some yaw involved. Not 20-30deg, but maybe 5deg or so. Watching the second video at 6:02, it doesn't look like much yaw (5deg) until after he hits that second set of obstacles (just before you see that traffic light go flying is the second impact, and that's where you see a lot of yawing, and a harder bank to the right). Perhaps that's the 20-30deg yawing you're seeing. What I'm seeing at the light pole is a quick but shallow bank to the right (like a correction) and then letting off the stick which causes the descent. If he wasn't planning on banking to the right, but rather it was a kneejerk reaction, he probably wouldn't have thought (or the time to think about it) to kick in a little right rudder to go along with that aileron. In a Stearman at slow speed, you'll get a considerable amount of adverse yaw from that, which would result in what I'm seeing from that perspective. Coupled with the pitch down, it could look like more yaw than what it seems as well. Like I said before, any impact that causes an aircraft to change direction will happen pretty much instantaneously, so if that light pole were to cause the yaw, it would be unnaturally fast...think stomping on the rudder of an Extra 300, but a little faster without any lag. Then you'd have the aerodynamic reaction of it, which would be a slower recovery, but pronounced as well...imagine you're doing a max effort slip wings level, and then you just let off on the rudder. I didn't see any of those telltales, only a quick bank, some adverse yawing, and a drop in pitch. Had he stalled the left wing in an uncoordinated left yaw after that, you'd see a pronounced left bank to go with it, but it remained wings level. If you look at the first video, he's not pulling enough AOA to stall the wing after that light pole, the trajectory, attitude, speed, and even down to the way the aircraft was flying suggest that there wasn't a stall. Before the light pole, he was close to it, but not close enough to stall. When you stall a Stearman under power, generally speaking you've got quite a bit of up elevator cranked into it and the nose will be pointing up a lot more than it was in video, because it's not the easiest thing to get one to actually stall. What you look for in a stall should be the tailwheel further down than the main gear, as you can land a Stearman on the tailwheel first without stalling it. For straight and level-ish flight, that's a good indicator of AOA. In the video, that tailwheel is about level with the lower wing immediately after the first impact, meaning the old girl was flying well above stall and had some AOA left to spare. It's for those reasons I don't think there was a stall or loss of control involved between the first and second impacts, it appears to be under control the entire time (CFIT). Also note the elevator just as he passes the bystander's head, you can see the squared off edges of the horizontal stab which means the elevator balance tab wasn't there to give it that classic rounded Stearman look, and that equates to the elevator having considerable deflection up or down. In this case the elevator appears to be deflected pretty hard down, and then suddenly pulled back right before the second impact. That's running the ragged edge of perception though, as the videos aren't really high enough quality to say for sure, it's entirely possible that what I'm seeing on the tail is an artifact of compressed video. Here's a thought...could the first impact have jarred him hard enough that he inadvertently pushed the stick down? Meaning, the impact with the light pole wasn't enough to affect the trajectory of the plane, but it was enough of an impact to push him forward in the cockpit, and with his hand on the stick, that would correlate to pitching down. More speculation, but something to think about...

@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper I sure would like to know how you use the . and , keys to go frame x frame after hitting pause. There's no keyboard. Maybe because I'm watching on my phone - not a desktop?

@@savage22bolt32 I have no idea how to do frame by frame with mobile, but there may be a website or app out there you could use?

@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper Judging from the messages you wrote, you are a very thoughtful person. I like your analysis, (even though I'm not a pilot, just had a few opportunities to fly over the past 60 yrs). 👍Thank you for the reply. I have an ancient desktop computer, I'll try the frame x frame next time it's booted up. PS, the best two flights I had were at 18 yrs old in a Stearman, & in my 60's a gentleman let me fly his WACO a few yrs ago. Sadly, I missed my calling.

Peter: Milk toast - lmao Sounds like discrimination against most of the GA fleet. Especially a little C150 : (

@@horacesawyer2487 I'm talking about being in the cockpit and knowing how your aircraft is responding given that you have 1300 ft to clear a 50ft obstacle. As Clint Eastwood used to say, "you're a good man and a good man always knows his limitations." This pilot was lucky to walk away and not kill anyone on the ground. This is not a game, it's real life son. As the Crop Duster below writes as have I, we would have made sure that there was a way to fly under the wires before attempting something this close.

YT has become an extremely visible dictatorship.

Although I agree Y/T does things I don't agree with- I'm curious why you think demonitizing videos leads to narrowing the audience?

Yeah but we don't learm from our mistakes because yhe same avoidable things happen again and again,and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again,and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again,and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again,and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again,and again and again and again and again and again and again and again

@@rjbishop12 Lower financial reward for discussing certain topics will lead creators to avoid addressing said topics. Therefore, smaller audience.

One thing I do when using cellphone to take a video is to record with phone sideways in hand or Landscape mode. That way the viewer sees more horizontally especially on a RU-vid video or social media. We would see a lot more.

He'll probably be expected to pay for the street light and sign as well.

The faa might make him pay an instructor for an hour to teach him why he should not have done what he did. Look at Harrison Ford, he did not get any special treatment.

@@markdaniel8740 That's IT!? If it were down to me I'd yank his licence for trying to be clever.

I definitely agree with senseless, but I also think the safety margin he neglected, was towing the plane to a perfectly good runway a few miles away at the local airport.. According to the article, he towed the plane to the parade, so, why not tow it back and then fly it home if it wasn’t already at the airport it lives at?? Thank God the guy is ok and able to fly another day!! This person will have a bruised ego for years to come, but they probably will never choose to make this kind of mistake again and hopefully other pilots will error on the side of caution after watching this persons mistake!!!

@@av8ir68 Oh I agree, but if your hell-bent on flying at least have some margins. Bottom line I agree with you as I would not have attempted it at all, he did and didn’t use all of the available road he could have to get airborne…..

@@Parr4theCourse There were so many red flags to be seen here!!!! We can both see them clearly and I’m sure that person could see them too, but as I will put it, GET-THERE-ITUS got the best of this person.. I’m just having a lot of trouble understanding the justification this person used to think this was a good idea??

@@av8ir68 I’m right there with ya, towing or flying I think ETA would have been the same, with that said I think I may change my root cause opinion to simply be: Showing off or showboating!

@@Parr4theCourse Its scary when you look at the camber of that road and attempting a takeoff with a taildragger. Airport runway is much much flatter

The pilot isn’t OK. He’s dying inside from severe embarrassment. I hope it’s terminal. Another case of reckless and incompetent pilots driving up everyone’s insurance.

He could easily have killed any number of people. Totally irresponsible if not criminal. No sympathy here.

@@marlinweekley51 Yes, it could've been much worse. I'm still glad he's not dead. Maybe I'm too lenient, since I've done lots of stupid things in my life that could've gotten someone else hurt or killed. May your Sainthood be recognized.

@@mikes8948 lol sainthood is a stretch but pretty sure I’ve never done anything quite that reckless intentionally.

It's called Optical Rectumosis

@@carlospar3727 My depiction in layman's terms is for one to have his "head up his A$$" Your depiction however is for one to have a "$hitty outlook on things" 😃 The terminology I would use for yours is...His optical nerve has been crossed with the rectal nerve.

There is no pilot's licensing in the US but someone attested to his ability in order for him to get certificated.

The Incident Command System isn't designed to cope with people wanting to fly aircraft in dumb places. No decision tree analysis required. I agree with Mr. Perdue: This was just plain poor decision making on the part of the pilot.

@@DrewNorthup Well, actually, the local government WAS involved because the cops cleared the road. They had to be told to do that. Which means the local government knew of and approved this beforehand. But hey, those folks (almost certainly) ain't aviation experts so probably just took the pilot's word for it that this would work, and they thought it would be a way to grab attention for their small town on the evening news of the nearby big city. Maybe drum up some tourism and all that. So, lack of due diligence on their part for not looking out for the safety of their constituents, not to mention the pilot. I mean, how many folks in this town lost power, telephone, or cable TV due to the downed wires? How many commuters and school buses were delayed, how many businesses lost their expected clientele for the rest of the day, all because this major road was closed for hours along a number of blocks during the investigation and clean-up? So instead of getting good PR, the local pols got bad PR and angered many of their constituents. ICS CAN be implemented proactively for planned events instead of the more usual thing of setting it up to deal with emergencies that just happen, whether planned for or not. But it's obvious pre-incident ICS was not used here at all. Otherwise, this whole mad scheme would have been shot down during risk-assessment in the 1st planning phase, before the 1st operational cycle commenced. Now, once the plane crashed, sure, ICS happened in the response. But definitely not before. So, bottom line: Idiot pilot has stupid idea and pitches it to stupid local pols who stupidly approve it without any thought. I mean, if they'd had even 1 thought about it but still decided to go with it, they'd at least have had fire trucks and ambulances standing instead of only police cars. So there's plenty of places to spread the blame. But still, the root cause was the pilot's stupidity for thinking this alternative was better than towing the plane a few miles down the road. But all this begs the question... How did the plane get there to begin with? What failure on the previous flight led to it landing on this road and how preventable was that failure? Also, how much do you suppose the successful forced landing influenced the decision to take off from there, forgetting that most planes need more room to takeoff than to land?

@@TheBullethead the plane was towed two miles into town from the airport so it could be towed in a parade! I wonder why this plane was so important to be in the parade in the first place? Maybe a flyover of the parade route or an event at the airport could have been a better option for showing off this plane.

@@kevinwaterman389 Wow. That makes this crash even more inexcusable on all fronts. The guy didn't land there but decided to take off from there, and was allowed to do so by the powers that be. Words fail.

@@TheBullethead It's all in the video . Lovely old aircraft being towed by a lovely new John Deere tractor . In The Parade . I wish I'd been there to see the beautiful classic . But , come-on , not in a parade , surely ?

The police would have been blocking traffic for the parade. If he planned to take off right afterward they'd just have to stay in position a little longer.

I have always understood that the FAA has to review and authorize such “events” as this one.