diamondaviators.net

I have often noticed that based on visuals I overestimate climb performance. I never trust my eyes, and for terrain rely on TAWS. But I learned that lesson playing with clouds.

Very sad. The pilot made a terrible mistake with the best of intentions.

Dan Gryder jumps too quickly to "I KNOW what happened" for my taste. He recently had to apologize to the family of a pilot who died in an accident and he said she was below minimums on the approach (I don't believe he had any solid evidence for that).

Colin wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 3:18 pm Dan Gryder jumps too quickly to "I KNOW what happened" for my taste. He recently had to apologize to the family of a pilot who died in an accident and he said she was below minimums on the approach (I don't believe he had any solid evidence for that).

Dan Gryder was arrested in Griffin, GA a few years back and was terminated from his job (career) as a Delta pilot. He doesn’t have what I would call a blemish free flying record. I would take anything he says with a large grain of salt.

Yep, That's a solid way to get fired from an airline.

https://www.avweb.com/news/pilot-arrest ... -incident/

Really sad accident.

The previous flight from Spanish Forks shows ample evidence of imprecise flight not at VFR altitudes and poor speed control.

Have flown out of this airport many times on my way to and from Montana. Many times at very high density alt due to summer heat but never anywhere near max gross wgt.

The diamond is a wonderful climber so with proper planning this should never have happened. I often would use thermals to climb to altitude. Never flew thru this area at less than 12500 in cruise.

This must be the first time I’ve ever heard of a post crash fire in the DA40. Fuel leak?

I can’t stand Dan Gryder. He is a jacka$$. His videos are devoid of content and full of promises that are never fulfilled and teasers. His big idea is to establish some kind of min speed to avoid stall spins. This reveals a basic lack of understanding of flying and the flight envelope.

perossichi wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:08 pm This must be the first time I’ve ever heard of a post crash fire in the DA40. Fuel leak?

Same here, but there was a DA42 in Europe last year that burned up on impact.

I think it would still be correct to state that there has never been a post-crash fire in a survivable DA40 accident. There was one many years ago in a CFIT crash in IMC, but like this one, the largest piece of wreckage was quite small, and the cabin certainly was not intact. It really doesn't matter much (as far as survivability goes) that there is a post-crash fire if all of the occupants are already deceased...

It's kind of a questionable exercise to try to read too much into the currently available information. The same goes with projecting experience one might have with your aircraft's performance onto another.

For example, Flight Aware records the state of stuff fairly infrequently. In this case you see roughly 20 seconds between track log entries. A lot can happen in 20 seconds. Generally in these accident-related recordings the last chunk you see is considerably before impact. Maybe too low to get readings? And the data in Flight Aware is limited anyway.

When it comes to the aircraft, empty weights are known to vary by as much as 150 lb. That's an entire person (or 25 gal fuel). Plus most of us have Power Flow, but not all do. And doubters notwithstanding, this particular option (which it appear N321PF did not have) makes a considerable difference in climb performance. So while some may hesitate to carry 4 "adults" - not all of which are equal - others have done it under the right circumstances with no ensuing drama and staying with W&B limitations.

Paul wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 1:23 am With afternoon thermals and any sort of wind, a DA40 will not have a consistent climb rate. Sure the book might say 700fpm and experience may confirm that but once you get the updrafts and downdrafts going, your climb rate is going to average 700fpm and vary from -200 to 1,500 with no real way to tell which it will be and for how long. Plan accordingly.

I have also experienced that. Hanging on the prop and watching the VSI see/saw as you describe.

The invisible medium through which we fly has an agenda of its own. It's common for me to see, in level flight in seemingly non-turbulent conditions, airspeed drop or increase by several knots. small vertical bubbles of air will do this. And you are not really holding "level", but maintaining constant pressure altitude, which means that, geometrically, you can be slightly climbing and diving

A thought experiment:

A 4 knot light breeze paralleling a downward 30 degree slope of terrain has a descending vertical component of 2 knots. That measly 2 knots will reduce your climb rate by 200 FPM.