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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