Flight Training - August 2014 - 56

ADVANCED PILOT»

ACCIDENT ANALYSIS

Hot and heavy

Poor departure planning has consequences

» By David Jack Kenny

DON'T SKIMP on weight and balance
calculations, especially when density
altitude is a factor.

DENSITY ALTITUDE ISN'T the most
difficult aerodynamic phenomenon to
explain (we might nominate ground
effect), but it seems to be one of those
concepts that not everyone internalizes
well. True, it's not directly implicated
in a lot of accidents-typically about a
dozen a year in airplanes and helicopters combined-but attributing that to
consistently rigorous departure planning might be optimistic. Certainly,
the most spectacular of those accidents suggest that the whole notion of
departure planning and performance
calculations got lost along the way.

56 /

FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

The Piper Lance that crashed into
an Arizona high school, for example,
was loaded within its weight and
balance limits, but the remaining 200
pounds of payload capacity didn't
compensate for density altitude 1,500
feet above the maximum addressed in
its performance charts.
There was no good reason to
assume the airplane could get off
the ground at all, and crosswinds
10 knots above its demonstrated
component probably didn't help. As
it was, the Lance never climbed out
of ground effect before it crashed and

burned-after which several boxes of
ammunition on board began going off
in the fire.
Other times the devil was in the
details. The Cessna P210 that went
down in Idaho in August 2011 was
loaded just short of maximum gross.
Density altitude was a little over 7,000
feet, manageable for a turbocharged
big-bore engine-but the pilot chose
to take off downwind, then attempted
a low-altitude turn. The airplane
began descending immediately, hit
a wing tip, and cartwheeled, killing
the family of four. An upwind takeoff
with a careful wings-level climb to
gain altitude and airspeed might just
have worked.
Density altitude accidents aren't
restricted to heavy weights or high
elevations (though the latter do add
the additional risk that flatland pilots
will forget to lean the mixture).
The only real requirement is warm
weather. Yes, they've occurred at
Angel Fire, New Mexico, base elevation 8,379 msl, but recent years have
also seen fatal accidents at Stockbridge, Georgia (770 feet msl) and
Leonardtown, Maryland (142 feet
msl). The common factor was higherthan-usual temperatures.
Many of us who don't fly for a living rarely come close to the operating
limitations of our machines, making
the need for departure (and arrival)
planning easy to forget. The time to
remember is not while mushing along
in ground effect, watching the trees
rush toward you.
David Jack Kenny is the statistician for the Air
Safety Institute.



http://FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

Flight Training - August 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - August 2014

Contents
Flight Training - August 2014 - Cover1
Flight Training - August 2014 - Cover2
Flight Training - August 2014 - Contents
Flight Training - August 2014 - 2
Flight Training - August 2014 - 3
Flight Training - August 2014 - 4
Flight Training - August 2014 - 5
Flight Training - August 2014 - 6
Flight Training - August 2014 - 7
Flight Training - August 2014 - 8
Flight Training - August 2014 - 9
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Flight Training - August 2014 - 31
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Flight Training - August 2014 - Cover3
Flight Training - August 2014 - Cover4
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