As Mark and others like to say, "your mileage may vary" as far as the FAA, NTSB, or other agency's response to a flying accident or incident goes. My response would be "it depends". My Pietenpol experienced carb ice and the carb heat was too wimpy to deal with it, so the pilot (not me) put it down in a rough unimproved field after it began losing power and then died. He's a high-time crop duster pilot, instructor, and commercial pilot with a lot of tailwheel time but none of that helped him when a bad weld broke on the landing gear and wiped it out, which dug the nose in and put the plane over on its back. Guys loaded it onto a flatbed, took it back to the hangar (he's the airport manager where it happened), sort of propped it up so it was back on its own legs again, and called the feds to come take a look. Anybody dead? Nope. Anybody seriously hurt? Nope. Law enforcement on the scene? Nope. Any major structural damage to the airplane? Well, come and take a look for yourself. They declined. No report needed. Hope you get it back in the air again.
Things can happen to certified engines too... and my Continental A65 had a certified Stromberg carb on it with a certified Champ carb heat muff on the certified Champ exhaust stack. http://flysquirrel.net/piets/incident/incident.html has a few pix. If you scroll down to the first shot of the bent and busted cabane struts about midway down the page, look at the underside of the wing over the rear cockpit and you can see dried blood from the only injury. That's from where blood dripped from the pilot's forehead as he tried to unbuckle himself from the harness, hanging upside-down. The ignition key on my airplane is top dead-center of the instrument panel. Yep, right where your forehead would hit in a sudden stop. The pilot's forehead snapped the ignition key off; we never found it. Oscar Zuniga Medford, OR Air Camper NX41CC, A75 power _______________________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at https://www.mail-archive.com/krnet@list.krnet.org/. Please see LIST RULES and KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html. see http://list.krnet.org/mailman/listinfo/krnet_list.krnet.org to change options. To UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to krnet-le...@list.krnet.org
