This forum was started in October 2003 and is distributed weekly to approximately 10 000 email recipients across the globe. Its purpose is to allow the exchange of ideas, tips, and advice for the purpose of aviation safety. Back issues have kindly been made available at http://efc.org.au/_sgt/m3_1.htm . Contributions are encouraged, and welcome.

Dear Gary,

I was really dissapointed that you printed the Denver article without crediting the author. The author is Bruce Tognazzini. A simple Internet search (http://www.google.com/m) for the title "What Really Happened to John Denver" would have revealed the author. You could also search for any sentence in the article for example "On October 12, 1997, John Denver, popular folk singer and amateur pilot," would also have revealed who wrote the article.

You can view the article at the authors site AskTog: http://www.asktog.com/columns/027InterfacesThatKill.html

Sincerely

Al Sjöberg
Design Engineer
PilotAbility.Com

Gary,

The NTSB John Denver accident report did presume that reaching over his shoulder and pressing on a rudder pedal was the final cause, (sadly, there are almost ALWAYS other contributing factors, the chain of which is always breakable). The airplane was previously owned and hangared and I believe built at Santa Ynez Airport (KIZA), near Santa Barbara on the California coast. I fly there two or three times a year to visit long time aviation friends, one of whom built and flies a beautiful EZ. There are several Long EZ's there and all thought it was not a good idea to have the fuel selector where it was in this case, but the builder felt having fuel run between his legs was not a good idea.

Reading further, I had not previously read or heard that other pilots had experienced similar fuel starvation events in the same airplane. I wonder why they ran out of fuel. Hmmmm....

A question I'll have to ask other EZ drivers concerns the fuel selector choices. In a high wing aircraft, BOTH works fine. In a low wing aircraft, there IS no BOTH. And that question is whether a Long EZ will gravity feed, in which case a BOTH selector would be fine, or does it need to be sucked or pushed by pump pressure, in which case a BOTH would feed air before fuel.

In any event, the author is right about one thing in particular - if a pilot accepts the responsibility to go aloft, he/she alone is responsible for getting back safely. It's like riding a motorcycle, eh? You can delegate authority, but not responsibility. As we say in the military, it may not be your fault, but is is your responsibility.

Again, we're reminded an airplane will usually fly a bit heavy, but it just won't stay airpborne without fuel at all! I was a long time fan of John's and had occasion to meet him once at a performance here in Park City, Utah. He was a wonderful environmental advocate and his energy and presence are sorely missed.

Lou Siegel, USA

Hi Gary
Awesome story on John Denver!!! Never knew what actually happened to him, just assumed foolishly that seeing as he was a celeb that drugs or alcohol where involved. I have been with a fellow student pilot on a x-country and while bombing along he decides to do a FREDA check and takes the fuel from the both position to the off position!!!!??? and carries on to the radio part of the check.....!!!.....so I ask him sheepishly why the off posiiton (although we were both newbies he was just about ready for his COM flight test so I thought he was way ahead of me in the power curve and did not want to make a fool of myself .....life preservation over-rode that impulse) so he looks at me for a short while......and goes OOOOPS!!! And quickly selects both again, can happen so easly I suppose. They really need a warning speaker like on the 'van if you turn off the fuel on all aircraft methinks.....need to design cockpits for us idiots.
Regards
Mike, SA

Amazing true story

This just shows that their was some sort of compassion in WWII . Charlie Brown was a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17 was called 'Ye Old Pub' and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.

After flying over an enemy airfield, a pilot named Franz Steigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he 'had never seen a plane in such a bad state'. The tail and rear section was severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was all over the top of the fuselage. The nose was smashed and there were holes everywhere.
Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at Charlie Brown, the pilot. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and blood-stained plane.

Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to and slightly over the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe.

When Franz landed he told the c/o that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remains of his crew told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk about it.

More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. After years of research, Franz was found. He had never talked about the incident, not even at post-war reunions.

They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now - all because Franz never fired his guns that day.

Research shows that Charlie Brown lived in Seattle and Franz Steigler had moved to Vancouver, BC after the war. When they finally met, they discovered they had lived less than 200 miles apart for the past 50 years!

Saying that there is nothing out here in the sticks to keep yourself occupied with, is not completely true in Chad. See, there are actually very few sticks out here. The sticks that are around, are either eaten by goats (I could write a whole volume on goats in Africa and how I loath them), or cut down to cook the said goats. Circle of life and all that you know. Suffice to say that you’d rather not want to come back in your next life as a goat �or a stick.

Having not really had time to pack for Chad, I didn’t bring any ATP study material along. With all of this nothing around to do after a days flying, studying towards passing the ATP exams would possibly have been considered� entertaining. It’s situations like these when the difference between ISA and JSA become fascinating and you could spend hours on the intricacies of those “essential state of the art” systems we use daily in aviation like MLS, RNAV and Doppler.

Yes, being able to calculate drift angle is so much quicker and easier using my calculator and 7 formulae, than just looking at what the instrument tells you�if you could actually still find one in an aeroplane that is�

All this is brings me to my actual thread amazingly enough. This being GPS� or GNSS as we should be calling it these days. That honest to goodness piece of magic in a box without which I personally don’t think contract flying in African Skies would have been viable.

If Air Traffic Service in Africa is in a state of disarray�terms that come to mind describing Navigational Aids could be things like; black hole, hurricane Katrina, the never-ending pit of despair� you know, disasters.

Out where I am right now, the controller sometimes wants to know which radial we are on. That’s all well and good if the VOR was actually working. In Juba, Sudan, the VOR does work, but to save the trees and hug the mosquitoes, they decided to make it solar powered. Yes, solar powered. What a nice idea. Now, when the sun shines and the weather is CAVOK, the VOR works beautifully. Unfortunately, the sun doesn’t always shine and usually that’s the time that you actually need the VOR�and of coarse this is exactly when the darn thing doesn’t work as the sun is not available to power the thing.

This is where that gorgeous little magic box that tells you where you are comes into play. Never mind that Uncle GW has a big fancy (probably red) button sitting on his desk in the oval office with the words “OFF, screw everybody” printed on it. Look at it as you want, GPS/GNSS is today what the sextant was to Columbus. Without it the world will most probably deflate and go back to being flat again.

As much as nobody would like to admit it, GPS is being used as the means of primary navigation everyday, in the vast majority of cockpits around the world. And why? Because it works�well.

We still fly with maps in the flightbag, but I must admit that they hardly get stirred. This obviously isn’t the same with regard to those wonderful Jepp enroute charts. They still get a good workout regularly (and those sneaky buggers at Jepp know it so that’s why they make them so thin�so they’ll tear and you have to buy new one’s!)

In the contract environment, paperwork takes up a lot of your time, and anything that saves paperwork is welcomed. Nothing is easier than just having a pre-programmed route in your magicbox and copying down the distances, times and even fuel usages onto your Navlog, in stead of sitting down and plotting the old fashioned way.

And then there’s that all important GO TO function for when you get to your second destination and the HF blares in your ear that you have to cancel the next leg and go pick up a med-evac at point X and take him to place Y. Push the button, turn the aeroplane until the arrow points up, and wait for the thing to beep and tell you that you are there. What a pleasure.

Same is true in an emergency. Hit the NRST button, and hey presto, you might even have a real airfield within your reach in stead of choosing that nice smooth looking riverbed in the middle of the rebel occupied savanna as an emergency landing field. I have heard of guys force landing aeroplanes in the bushes, when less than a kilometer away there was a perfectly good runway. Hey, it happens when you’re under pressure.

I don’t really need to sing the praises of GNSS as a system, we all know about it.

Amazingly, this same piece of magic has created some real problems too. Now that we are ALL flying accurately, on direct tracks criss-crossing the airways, the risk of two aeroplanes occupying the same piece of sky at the same time has actually increased! Especially in and around CTR’s where aircraft are climbing and descending through opposing levels constantly. Descending into Juba a few month ago through broken cumulus, a Let 410 popped out of a cloud very close to us on the reciprocal track. Luckily in Sudan, we had received the traffic information and one of us altered our track�but it very clearly demonstrated the point. Something to watch out for back home too.

Once “they” combine a GNSS with a transponder/TCAS system and put it all into a nice small and affordable package� life would be a dream indeed, but until then I guess we’ll just have to work on that situational awareness thing some more.

I have had the wonderful news recently that I’ll be going home to SA soon. In the last 7 months I have had 4 weeks and 4 days at home. I need a break now.

I don’t know where my next tour will take me, but I’ll be sure to keep mailing these off to Gareth, for as long as he’d like to use them.

N'djemena, capital of Chad

Sunrise over Chad from FL120

Reach for your dream...then tie it down

Doctors without borders, the real deal NGO

The noonday sun in a sandstorm

A sanstorm (Haboob) approaching, no way of landing in these, next destination please