There are no OLD, BOLD pilots. What happened to Jim Tweto? Possible explanation.

I'm now committed I can no longer reject or else I would end up in the trees hey guys I'll have another episode of this guy was speaking I'm captain Chris and this episode I've titled it there are no old bold Pilots recent events the tragic loss of Jim Tito with Flying Wild Alaska I thought it was important to a video on Bush flying in general and some of the risks that are associated with that position and how it relates to Jim's crash I'm going to share a story of my own uh first of all and then you'll see how that relates to his story as well for my own personal experience my job that day was to pick up six gentlemen grow fishing at a remote Lodge and fly them back south to two different destinations now when you're flying up north or you're flying remotely typically you'll fly product in and you'll most likely fly out empty or you'll have just passengers with light gear on this particular occasion I wasn't aware but these gentlemen were out picking berries and had additional fish that I wasn't aware that they were going to be bringing back with them now I had planned quite a bit of fuel because it was a long trip to the South and back and so I had planned the entire trip to pick them up drop them off at their locations and then return back to home base now we load them all up and it's a fairly long strip it's a 4 000 foot strip uh but it is of sand so it's fairly quite a few soft spots you're actually trying to take off on the edge of it you don't actually go down the center of the runway because there's more vegetation on the side to actually accelerate better with these heavier loads taking off into wind is uh of great importance as well so that's essentially what I was attempting to do the unfortunate part was the direction I was going to go was towards Rising terrain so I was hopeful to take off towards lower train but because of the heavy load and uh I needed the extra wind over the wings for the lift and we attempt to take off and what happens is the aircraft gets into ground effect and I'm unable to climb out of ground effect so because of the strip length and how long it takes you to accelerate and sand um you know you're fairly bogged down initially so you're not going to accelerate like you would on pavement and you need to get the nose wheel off and then in the ground effect and then you'll climb out from there I would say typically if you're in a piston aircraft if you're not Airborne by the halfway mark in ground effect then you should be rejecting the takeoff in a turbine I would say half to three quarters because you have the ability to Go reverse and it just gives you that extra break that you need in order to stop prior to the end of the runway so I did the attempt got Airborne it was no good I tried the other way but if there was a Tailwind so I knew that I wasn't that wasn't going to work I turned around asked who wants to get off and there's a few guys obviously willing to volunteer because that experience itself would reject in ground effect is fairly fairly aggressive now I left all their gear on the aircraft and removed uh three gentlemen who I we I call for a 206 to come pick them up the idea would now return back to base and then the 206 would grab these guys and knee up with me at home base and I would then fly them south on the final takeoff roll we go blasting down the runway and I get to the point where it's a I'm now committed I can no longer reject or else I would end up in the trees so I'm in ground effect I'm accelerating and I'm trying to climb a Terrain and it is rising terrain so what ends up happening is I put myself in a terrible position and I can relate to Jim um because you're trying to take big loads out of short strips towards Rising train and there's there's a lot of risk associated with that I had the stall home stalhorn going I had to over torque the engine a little bit because there's a bit of a let and essentially I was able to climb out but after that flight I quit flying the bush you know after four or five years and four thousand hours of flying out there numerous risks risky trips you know between weather weights there's a lot of factors that can get you uh I think you just kind of you either get smart or you're just sticking out there taking a chance right now how does my story relate to Jim well he's going out in a in a single Legend aircraft uh to pick up a load off a riverbank strip uh he's picking up a gentleman with a bear so a fairly good sized load in addition you got to think about all the stuff they're going to have they're going to have the rifles with them or he's going to have his rifle with him additional ammo food fuel a tent you know uh additional baggage that he might need in order to you know process the animal there's a lot of additional items that someone's going to take into the woods with them when they're going out on hunting trip now I'm not sure what time of day was but it was I believe sometime in the afternoon so now you're into the warmer part of the Season depending on if it's true had any rain prior to that so maybe it was a little bit slick there or or just the heat in general what typically happens and it's unfortunate is that you you accelerate down the runway and you get to a point where you you have to continue and as you continue you'll you'll get the aircraft Airborne in the ground effect but then once you get out of ground effect you've essentially gotten too slow right you're too slow so now you're on the back side of the power curve and the propeller is what's holding you in the air not the wind over the wings so you put yourself in a terrible position in a slow flight and it's it's very difficult to get out of that without without giving up potential energy or essentially giving up altitude now if you're on takeoff you have no altitude and you have no speed so you wind up with a sea fit accident it's actually control flight into terrain it's going to be a interesting to see what the investigation comes up with I'm my best guess which is might trigger a few of you but just from my own experience they're essentially going to call it a seafood accident possibly something to do with the weight might be an issue as well we'll see what kind of uh what kind of numbers we come back with he wasn't a higher performance 180 with three bladed prop and I believe 300 horsepower which is a good a good amount but I flew a 206. you know you can you can Hollow about 1200 pounds with those things right maybe a little less with a 180 I mean more towards a thousand so if you put Jim in it his passenger with all that gear and a bear you're definitely at the maximum weight and in addition it may not even be the way that the aircraft itself is a limitation it might be the airstrip itself so the strips is really short you only have some takeoff role you know unprepared strip you're you're gonna have to actually bump baggage people kind of think that oh we can take off with you know he's at maximum weight he may not even be at maximum weight it just it may be at maximum weight for that airstrip itself right so you need to keep in mind that the higher elevation airstrips um as well as strip condition whether it's been wet or not there's a number of different factors winds sometimes strips are one-way takeoffs because you're trying to avoid Rising terrain or the directional flight to the weather so you're down low you know you're it's uh you know your low overcast skies and you want to be going west you don't want to take off Eastbound and make the turn in the valley where you can't really see you want to take off and follow the river right so you'll take that tailwind and take that chance of of having very low AirSpeed or having a shift a wind shift that could cause an accident Jim's a little better well known because of his timeline Discovery Channel there where they Illustrated his business and that's another factor I think people need to think about as well is that he has a lot on his slide trying to run a business of that size you may not you may not be able to just switch into pilot mode right you're like you have some you have some different items at the office you're still dealing with maybe you have another aircraft uh you have some damage you know at another airstrip so you have other things on the go that your mind isn't really on uh the task at hand which is fine right and because you've done it so many times that routine or that confidence is there and you kind of get in just into kind of a regular mode and you you look at the load and you're like huh this is pretty it's going to be close you know but I've done it before I should be able to do it again it'll be interesting to see what the investigation brings my condolences go to the family it's a terrible tragedy and it's always uh it always hits the community really hard um tragic loss for sure that's it for this video guys if you like this one check out this one remember share like And subscribe and we'll see on the next one thanks for watching

Channel: This is Your Captain Speaking

Views: 170,775

Keywords: #bushflying, #jimtweto, #pilottraining, #cessna

Id: dF0JFm3Z38M

Length: 7min 59sec (479 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 28 2023