Any aviation buffs out there?

Hi Lee,

Yes, you are right. However, that’s precisly why the builder has a minimum take off speed that is required for all kinds of conditions and weather. The plane takes off after said speed is reached or better, no matter what conditions are. It’s rated at 180mph for rotation, as an example, you de-ice the plane wings, and take off at 180mph or better. Each plane that leaves the Denver airport, at a mile up, also takes off from Sea-Tac airport at the same speed, even though it’s 3000 feet lower. We’d have crashes everyday if it was up to a pilot to determine conditions and the speed they need to take off with, because it would involve every single takeoff and landing proceedure. Agin, the builder of planes took those decisions away from pilots right after Wilbur hit the sand.
It would be more likely to presume that the pilot who assumed he had 5000 feet to work with, took his time before punching it, eating up runway.
Length of an airstrip is more for saftey and ground traffic and not scaring the hell out of passengers and pilots to boot. Airstrips are rated by weight for the most part. You have a 747 pounding on a airstrip that hasn’t been designed for it to handle the weight of big aircraft, you’ll have holes, bumps, woop-de-dos and all sorts of irregular pavement in a big hurry. Any STOL aircraft, like a C-130, can get off the ground in 1100 feet, but if it’s too heavy for the strip, it doesn’t matter how long or short it is.
I agree, it’s usually a combo of things.

Hi Lee,

First, in case you haven’t felt the love lately, I still do carry a great deal of respect for the person. You. You had me in the beginning when you made reference to a certain person I think…was Orca Winfry. 🙂
As I said above, thinking you have more runway then there is, certainly could have happened. Opps!
An example, that I’ve experianced flying commercial many times, I’ll use two airfields to illistrate. Reno and San Diego. When the wind is blowing in a certain direction, that determines which direction the tower says to take off. Any flying machine is perfectly capable of taking off, in any direction, no matter what the winds doing. By design. The added air speed over the wings by shear direction, adds to lift, making it safer and not so much runway to use, should emergency conditions arise. When taking off out of Reno, and the wind is in a certain direction, you take off heading straight for a mountain down stream. They need to get altitude in a hurry for obvious reasons. Some may have noticed that when the jet is turning onto the runway, the pilot is starting to give throttle before they have straightened up to align with it. As opposed to getting all lined up, then stopping, then punching it. This is a pilot’s choice, because most will take any doubt, as much as they can control, that there will be no issue with that mountain. Leaving 1500 feet of unused runway behind them. Or more. Same in S.D, where buildings are at one end. They can use every bit of runway and still comfortably clear any obstacul if they choose, but one hic-up from an enjine, might make things a bit uncomfortable. Sea-Tac airport is 11,000 feet long, and agin, if something mechanical happens, they have room to brake, abort takeoff or whatever. Hopefully. Sea-Tac, 200 yards past the end of their runways in one direction, south, is nothing but fuel storage tanks, and beside that, a golf coarse. When landing in that direction, from my buddy who is a captain for Alaska, some pilots made a choice to land short, cut accross mid field, to get to the terminal, and take out any doubt. And, because they can without stressing equipment. This was many years ago, but the pilots had a meeting, and were told to take a bit more runway weather they needed it or not. Seems a few were being a bit too cautious, and after a few planes clipped and broke off the last 3 to 6 lights that go over a freeway directing them to the very start of the runway, with the body of the plane under the tail(angle of attack), landing in front of the numbers, was a bit much.
In this case, from what I heard, the tower instructed the pilot to turn left and proceed with takeoff. This is why conversations with the person in the tower are being done right now. The pilot made a ‘hard’ left because visually that’s all he saw and did as intructed. Had a clear runway with no signs or visuals of being anywhere but where he should be, he took off. The tower guy forgot to give the pilot the rest of his choices though, which was the other left turn, and from my own conversations I’ve had with tower personal, that comes in the form of degrees. Like take the next 45 degree left onto runway such and such. If the pilot saw the left turn visually, and had to make a 90 degree turn to get to it, he would have hesitated and asked the tower for clarifacation. Agin, opps. So, being the good pilot they were, wanting to give passengers a nice smooth easy takeoff, he lollygagged down the runway slowly accellerating, then added the power needed for liftoff. Thinking no sweat, we’ve got plenty of runway to work with. I’ll assume, that about halfway down that runway, the pilot and co-pilot were starting to get vissually confused and not recognising land marks they usually saw, or were starting to question things, then things started to escalate in a hurry. In most situations that pilots incure, adding maximum power is the only choice to have a chance for recovery. Although rotation was declared and they got airborne, knowing that the pilot’s eyes were straight out the front window at this point, not even looking at instruments for obvious reasons, he thought keeping the angle of attack at a lower angle, to make darn sure airspeed wouldn’t be lost, thus clipping the tress and so on was what happened there. Will be interesting to hear the black box tapes. I only say pilot error, because even though a series of events happened, as you say, he is the captain, and everybody needs a sure thing to blame.

Hi,

As is the norm in America today, the bottom line is, get blamed established, because my lawyer wants to file my lawsuit, and get on to other matters while waiting for it to traverse through the system.

On a side note with aviation. My son-in-law’s sister is a corprate pilot, for sometime now. She flys a Citation 10. I’ve known her for years, and often talked aviation with her. Still trying to get her to take me for a spin around a flight pattern, when she brings her boss into town from Arizona. Yea, yea, I know she can’t, but she did say, if in town, I’ll call you, and you can come down and view the plane in person. Good enough for me. Anyway, if you were to picture the sterotypical dumb blond look, you just described her, and if you talked to her briefly, it would reinforce that thought even more. She’s only 26 now. About 8 years ago, she was an instuctor working at a small airport in Auburn up here. Didn’t even have a manned tower. People would sign up for lessons via phone at headquarters, then meet her for the first time at the airport for a lesson. She litterally had several customers over the years, refuse to fly with her, ask for a man instructor, and in no way am I going to fly with a dumb blond chick. She got over it. Looks are everything I guess. She just made the cover of some aviation mag telling about women in aviation. Ahhh, the preceptions.