Sparky Imeson

The latest edition of the Idaho Dep't of Aeronautics publication "Rudder Flutter" has the story of Sparky's accident on 6/3/2007 in the mountains of Montana, told by Sparky himself. Very interesting reading and since many people on this forum visit the Idaho back country from time to time, I thought his words might provide some food for thought. It is especially noteworthy how quickly they went from being "comfortable" to down! The link will take you to a page where you can click on the link to the Fall 2007 issue.

http://www.itd.idaho.gov/aero/Rudder Flutter/RudderFlutter.htm

Thanks for the info, DON'T STALL!

Idaho as a state you can say many things about, but one thing is their aeronautical department has their stuff together. Their strips (eg Johnson Creek) are so awesome.

Sparky? I had one of his tail dragger mountain flying tapes back about 20 years ago. I was just learning tail wheel and also wanted to fly in the mountains. It was pretty good.

Key words: "survival vest", "406 ELT", "Down drafts", "lowered the nose and broke the stall" (with higher obstacles ahead), "flames"............ and the rest WOW! What impressed me is how little distance he walked in many hours. Also SAR flying right over they did not see him. Lots of lessons to be learned. Comments about vertical impact G's verses horizontal G's and survivability where a real eye opener. The survival VEST idea is golden. Thanks.

Down drafts can be so strong you can't out climb them. I'm not sure they would have made it with with out the big JC (not the pilot in the story). But the pilot did the right thing, did not stall and flew the plane. The only thing Sparky implied I dispute, it took an experienced or professional pilot to not stall. Every new or experienced private pilot should be able to recognize and break a stall with min altitude loss by rote or instinct. Practice your stalls and stall recovery at a safe altitude, today, not once every two year during a flt review. It might save your life some day. (stalls: power on, power off, accelerated, turning or climbing or combo, over and over till its instinct.) Of course lowering the nose when hard stuff is ahead is hard to do, but its better to fly into it under control than spin in.

This was a real eyeopener for many people. But many mistakes were made.
1. unfamiliar with the area
2. no survival gear on their person
3. didn't tell anyone where they were going
4. flying after 1000 in the summer and mountains
5. the only mobile person left the scene
Sparky and JC were part of our Mountain Flying clinic and we all learned alot that weekend. Luckily they survived, inspite of not following normal mountain flying rules.

JC said the first plane flew over him around 4:00, ~5hrs after the crash, 4 more aircraft went over him before it got dark. when he would hear a plane coming he would try to stand up and signal, but by the time he got up the plane was gone. Remember he had a broken sternum and back. He finally just stayed standing hoping someone would see him. After dark he kept warm by scooping rocks out of the wreckage that were still warm. The next day, the sun was finallly in position and reflected off of the spinner,which was noticed by a helicopter. That Spinner was the only thing not burnt to a crisp, everything else was black. Black in a forest which had been burnt <20yrs ago, so was still full of black trees/stumps among the 10' tall new growth. When the National Guard arrived to pluck him out, they had trouble finding the site even though they had the GPS coordinates and a spotter. It was quite the ordeal for those guys and we also learned a lot.

Vest a great idea

Just came across this on TV:

http://www.scottevest.com/

They hold all kinds of stuff but with out the fisherman vest look

300 Feet AGL!?!

I think the biggest mistake was flying at 300 AGL, and after that not having the vest on with the GPS PLB in it. I took the ground school the friday before in Bozeman, and thought it was excellent, although he really scared me with those slide sequences going into all those tight mountain strips.

Sparky Imeson is a class act all the way around, excellent writer, instructor, very funny and forthright. It could not have been easy to write that article.

Hans

One of the things that this reinforces for me is the importance of minimizing vertical speed when performing an off-field landing. I had a prolonged discussion once with a group of fellow fliers who thought the best approach was to land with the slowest possible forward speed. I argued just the opposite, that minimum descent speed was more important and that forward speed is bleed off quickly by the airframe in contact with the ground, but there was nothing to bleed off descent speed except for your body to absorb the blow. Now in Sparky's case, the trees obviously create a life threatening condition to forward speed, but in the Midwest when landing in a corn or soybean field, I plan to dive for the field and have as close to zero descent speed ad I can muster.

nucleus said:

I think the biggest mistake was flying at 300 AGL, and after that not having the vest on with the GPS PLB in it. I took the ground school the friday before in Bozeman, and thought it was excellent, although he really scared me with those slide sequences going into all those tight mountain strips.

Sparky Imeson is a class act all the way around, excellent writer, instructor, very funny and forthright. It could not have been easy to write that article.

Hans

Click to expand...

I agree with you about 300 AGL. I fly over the mountains here in Idaho, and I prefer to stay 1,000 to 2,000 AGL above the highest terrain unless it is too high or I am on approach to landing. With that much altitude, you typically can glide to a reasonably big meadow or a fairly straight stretch of logging road in a clear area if you lose your engine. At 300 to 500 AGL down in a valley you have very little time to do anything but mess your pants.

The only good reason for being down that low is approach to landing.

Dean Wilkinson
AeroLEDs LLC
www.aeroleds.com