REFLECTOR: Flying Magazine - 2009 Velocity accident

Wed Oct 10 16:35:13 CDT 2012

Great letter, but they will never publish it. Much too long.
If you really want to get this published, you need to find a way to edit
this to ~100 words or less.
Best to start out with something like "I normally love Peter Garrison's
article and would gladly have him marry my first born,
but....................."

On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 4:35 PM, Scott Derrick <scott at tnstaafl.net> wrote:

>  Brett,
>
>     Excellent letter and thanks for doing the due diligence that Garrison
> obviously did not.
>
>     I'm looking forward to reading it in Flying, if they have the balls
> and integrity to print it.
>
>
> I would change
>
> "At best deep stall would secondary "  to  "At best a deep stall would be
> secondary "
>
>
> Scott
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: Flying Magazine - 2009 Velocity accident
> From: Brett Ferrell <reflector at velocityxl.com> <reflector at velocityxl.com>
> To: reflector <reflector at tvbf.org> <reflector at tvbf.org>
> Date: 10/10/2012 02:12 PM
>
>  *Here is the note I intend to send to Mr. Garrison and the editor of
> Flying.* * The articles reference are on my website, and I will include
> them when I contact them directly (*editorial at flyingmag.com<http://mailto:editorial@flyingmag.com>
> *).*
> --
> I'm writing to correct several inaccuracies in the Aftermath article in
> the most recent (October 2012) edition of Flying magazine.  First, the
> title of Mr. Garrison's article associates this accident with *Deep Stall*,
> which has not been established by the NTSB<http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/ocmh5t451xyjp1iinsmxnret1/O10102012120000.pdf>,
> Velocity Inc. <http://velocityaircraft.com/>, or any other competent
> body.
>
> At best deep stall would secondary to the *actual* cause, in-flight
> separation of one blade of the three-bladed Vesta constant speed
> propeller.  It's interesting that Velocity was mentioned in the article,
> but not Vesta, but that is a side issue.  Second, the discussion of "three"
> deep stall Velocity accidents is disingenuous at best.  One of these was by
> factory test Pilot Carl Pascarell (former test pilot for Swearingen,
> Continental Airlines Captain, US! N jet pilot, and aerobatic show pilot, *Note
> 1*) while investigating how this situation (*Note 2*) might be created.
> He elected to stay with the airplane (though he was wearing a parachute),
> which was repaired and flying again within the three weeks (*Note 3*).
> In the case of N141NH, the accident was caused by flight into the vortex of
> a Boeing 727 (*Note 4*).  The third was caused by modifications by the
> builder to decrease canard effectiveness (*Note 5*) None of these can be
> fairly construed to reflect on aircraft's design as they were placed into
> situations that no airplane should (flight outside of the W&B envelope,
> into the wake vortex of a jumbo jet, and intentional reduction in canard
> incidence angle in relation to the main wing).
>
> Further, he states that the lack of injuries was "*likely ... because
> their airplanes fell into  water, and the rounded undersides of the
> fuselages provided some shock absorption.*"  This is completely
> unsupported by fact.  To the contrary, in the aforementioned Sport Aviation
> article (*Note 2*), Mr. Pascarell reported "*the descent rate appeared to
> be very low, and there was no discernible forward motion*", which is why
> he elected not to bail out.  He instead rode the aircraft to the water and
> escaped uninjured, reporting in Kitplanes (Note 6) that he was descending
> at less than 1,200 fpm.  This calls into question, also, Mr. Garrison's
> assertion that the Houston crash aircraft's on-board Garmin's reported "*7,000
> fpm*" descent which, if true, would then argue *against* this being an
> instance of Deep Stall at all.  Then Mr. Garrison implies with his "*At
> the time, it was widely believed t! hat the stable stall produced a very
> low rate of descent. This implied an unexpectedly high, in fact
> unprecedented, drag coefficient, and novel, semimagical vortices were
> posited to explain the new phenomenon; but ground tests, conducted by Rutan
> with an airplane set up vertically on the back of a truck, failed to
> produce them.*" that this low descent rate has never been proved.  But an
> experienced test pilot with a functioning vertical speed indicator and
> packed parachute is enough for me, particularly since Mr. Garrison does not
> provide any reference to the testing that supposedly demystified this,
> apparently irrational yet experiential, belief of Mr. Pascarell's.
>
> Next Garrison asserts that Burt Rutan did aerodynamic testing "*with an
> airplane setup vertically on the back of a truck*".  Maybe, but the only
> reference to this I can find is from Kitplanes (*Note 7*), where it
> states Rutan did this with "**a small scale model of the test aircraft"
> and a car, but then goes on to show Danny Maher's full scale truck-based
> test bed, designed in cooperation with Jim Paxton, Chief of Flight
> Operations at NASA Langley (*Note 3)*.  It does not mention any
> flat-plate testing that Danny may have done with this test bed, but it
> would've been ideally suited to it.
>
> Finally, Mr. Garrison asserts that the vibration of propeller blade loss
> might have been confused with flutter.  However, since this Velocity was
> outside it's mandated 40 hour test period, and Mr. Garrison himself
> indicates the accident pilot had flown it for "*250 hours with a
> two-blade fixed-pitch propeller*", the accident pilot could hardly be
> expected to suspect flutter at such a low airspeed.  The Velocity's Vne is
> 200 kias, and is as such extremely docile and stable at a mere 128 kts.  It
> seems that Mr. Garrison is not sufficiently familiar with the Velocity, and
> did not chose to check his facts with the factory before publ! ishing this
> highly speculative and very flawed article.
>
>
> Notes:**
> 1) Carl Pascarell http://www.airbum.com/Pitts/PittsParty.html,
> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/carl-pascarell/30/425/3b9
> 2) Sport Aviation, July 1991, Velocity... Solving a Deep Stall Riddle,
> page 54
> 3) N81VA, probable cause MIA89LA117,
> http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/yfe1djv2cjd3j3qahv1awf3b1/L10102012120000.pdf
> 4) N141NH, probable cause MIA93LA011,
> http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/cddyc255bkcba0mvfd2jqwyo1/T10102012120000.pdf
> 5) Sport Aviation November 1997, page 112, Canadian Council News, Deep
> Stall
> 6) Kitplanes, November 1991, Testing on the Ground, page 75
> 7) Kitplanes, November 1991, Testing on the Ground,page 72
> 8) Sport Aviation, September 1991, Deep Stall Cont..., page 55
>
>
>
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