Flipping a Super Cub in Alaska's Backcountry

[Applause] [Music] [Music] oh so hi i'm sean mclaughlin i'm the ceo of air frames alaska and we're here above the talchilatna river season and i hope with this video to kind of explain to people i was a pilot and the things i did wrong to end up here [Music] now to get it out of here basically they're going to put wing covers on the back of the wing so it doesn't start flying as they're taking it back and they put supports on the vent truck in case it gives way during flight we don't hurt the wings so from the night before i was already worried about this takeoff cause i knew there was a ton of water here and i walked this runway in the morning and i even put that second baller there on the right because i knew there was a divot there and then the left-hand cones i put down carry cones with me to try to be safe i knew that there was more water on the left-hand side of the cones and it's going to take off right from here so i'd done it all before i thought about it i coned it but i was super worried about the water and in worrying about the water i focused a lot on the drag the water would create and think about how am i going to hit takeoff speed and that's where i made my biggest mistake i was so focused on speed and trying to get my tail up i didn't think about the fact that the drag on the front tires would actually be more than what i had for tail weight and that's what caused caused the [Music] accident [Music] we're going to hook up our winch we're going to use these shovels to keep the tires give the tires a little more steadiness balancers positioned on each side dan and scott all right we're doing a walkabout there's scott there's our ropes there's the plane we that's a mixture of water coming out of the wing there's local that's steady nice job crew [Music] so with this take off i was totally focused on the fact that the ground had become more wet since i landed i was worried about how i was going to get up to speed with all that drag from the water on the tires and i was just really thinking heavily about that and i made a couple of decisions based on that one i decided to keep the plane as light as possible so i had no one in the back i had no gear uh i decided that was let someone else take some you know other people out of the moose meet out i then decided that i wanted to get my tail up in the air really quickly so that i wasn't creating more drag with the tail running through the water and and then i really the whole thing was about when i got to the i thought i was going to take the whole runway to get to speed because of the drag so i was ready to go full throttle and then grab the flaps and i was going to basically pop the flaps when i thought i was ready i was totally focused on that my mind was totally not focused on where my tail was at all i was thinking about drag so i was thinking just sort of all of a sudden i got this tunnel vision about what what my biggest risk was in this takeoff the other problem is i can just tell you i just don't practice an aborted takeoff as much as i do in aborted landings so i practice aborting landings a million times and i can do it my sleep but i've never really had in my whole career as a cub pilot to date had to do an aborted takeoff so it just even wasn't in my dna i hadn't practiced it enough and i just recently changed my style to pop flaps at the end because i was worried about the water so i was all focused on that almost immediately after full throttle um i'm bombing down there and the fir my left tire hits a puddle you'll see it in the video and the whole aircraft jags to the left and now i'm off my runway and i should have just aborted the runway the takeoff at that point but instead i started trying to use a rudder to get myself back over onto the runway and it's got a dog leg in the runway as you probably saw so i did all that i'm focused on that and when i should have aborted i kept going and then worst of all is that as my tail and then i hit some more water the tail started to come up and i actually had the impression that i was actually taking flight that i was getting light on the wheels so instead of thinking oh pull back on the stick and get my tail back down or pull throttle i was thinking okay it's time and i actually amazingly as i'm flipping i actually pulled flaps and when the engine stalled out i was at full throttle pulled flaps which is the exact opposite of where i should have been given the sensation i cannot for those of you who haven't aren't part of the cartwheel club in a super cub yet the sensation of your tail going up feels a little bit like taking flight until you've experienced it i'll never forget it now but my first instinct was hey i'm getting light and i must be getting light it wasn't my tails coming up over my head [Applause] terry what were you saying about my prop i said we just need to find a cape and we can mount it as a full curl it's pretty symmetrical isn't it it's pretty smooth how about the prop can the prop be fixed not after mysteries on that way i almost stuck it in my head a minute ago i'm not used to turning around after latching the cowling and have the problem [Music] you

Channel: Airframes Alaska

Views: 166,380

Keywords: plane, plane crash, super cub crash, moose hunting, moose hunting plane crash, pa18 plane crash, super cub, alaska plane crash, helicopter, bushwheels, alaskan bushwheels, alaska hunting, alaska crash, alaska moose hunting crash, backcountry flying, flipping plane, super cub plane crash, airframes, airframes alaska plane crash, sean mclaughlin, FAA, FAA crash, FAA training, FAA seminar, educational flying

Id: gyn2BLtY8qg

Length: 8min 54sec (534 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020