Friday, Nov 22, 2013 at 20:30
Far be it from me to speak ill of the dead - but SD had dealings with this gent in a professional capacity at Moomba, just a couple of days before he killed himself, and her opinion of him is extremely low.
She's not one to speak badly of people, but he upset her in a fashion I haven't seen anyone upset her for a long time.
Maybe he was under great stress from the drought, maybe he had other pressing problems - but maybe he was just a right ******, too. He was abusive and throwing his weight around, and acting most unprofessionally for a station manager.
I do feel for his wife and
young family, though - that is certainly very tragic, losing both husband and father at that
young age.
However, mustering is dangerous work - at low levels and low airspeeds, even the slightest miscalculation will kill you in milliseconds, and there's little chance of recovery at low height.
I have seen no reports on the accident, nor does it appear the ATSB has even opened a case on it, thus making it appear that the aircraft may have been an ultralight.
There's talk on the aviation forums of Luke Betts having purchased an ultralight STOL, 2-seater ICP Savannah. These are Rotax powered, and ultralights are controlled by the Recreational Aviation Association of Australia (RAA-Aus).
The RAA-Aus investigate and report on any ultralight crashes, and their accident report database is confidential, which I believe is wrong.
All General Aviation (known as GA - or aircraft with "VH" registrations) crashes are investigated by the ATSB - and all ATSB reports are public.
There have been way too many ultralight crashes this year, but little seems to be done to improve their safety record - and with RAA-Aus sitting on confidential reports, that means little knowledge is being disseminated on what has caused ultralight crashes.
There have been 3 air crashes on Mungerannie Station in the last 21 years. Kevin Oldfield was killed in his Cessna 172 in 1992 while checking stock tanks, and then in 1994, his cousin Grant Oldfield of Cowarie station was killed whilst aerial baiting.
On a lighter note, if you are registered with FarceBook, there's a number of stunning photos of the area, and photos of Luke and his family, under the "OBE Organic" page.
Just search "OBE Organic Mungerannie Facebook" and the webpages will come up.
You have to log in to see all the pics. There's aerial photos of
Cooper Creek in flood in 2010 and 2011, with one tagged as "taken from Lukes plane" - but the wing in the photo is a wing of a Cessna.
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Follow Up By: Ron N - Saturday, Nov 23, 2013 at 00:23
Saturday, Nov 23, 2013 at 00:23
G'day Phil - Thanks for that pic, it's the only one I've seen so far. Certainly not a survivable crash.
Not the best shot for ID, but I'd say the aircraft almost certainly is an ICP Savannah, because of the rectangular tailplane.
It looks like a classic stall crash to me - steep bank, left wingtip low, left wingtip hit the ground first, then the aircraft pivoted around the left wingtip, and went nose-first into the ground.
It could have been caused by engine failure at a low level, or perhaps he just banked too hard and let his airspeed decay.
It's surprising in some ways, that this accident occurred, because these little planes have a very low stall speed, about 26 knots (49kmh) with full flaps.
However, he wouldn't have been using the flaps under normal flying conditions, so his stall speed would be much higher, probably around 40 knots.
Of course, once you get to stall (inadequate airflow across the wing), the plane just drops like a stone - and if you don't have enough height to pick up decent speed again, and get the airflow back up above stall speed, then you just hit the ground like a falling rock.
The Rotax engines are not as reliable as they should be, and there are a fair number of reported Rotax engine failures.
However, at the end of the day, ultralights are classed as "experimental", and they're not required to meet the more stringent GA specifications.
Cheers, Ron.
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