John Lodge crashed. Damn! Damn! Damn!

Is he ok?? Who is John? A gyro?

Fill us in Gabs??

Edit: I found this on the other forum... looks like just pride and wallet was hurt, so very lucky..... I hope he has a speedy recovery from the ordeal



http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/2015/09/ ... /72754616/

100 feet in the air blue head 582 quit. Landing in an open field. He is OK. Sport Copter gyros are life savers!
Gyro is not so well.
http://dailyridge.com/lake-wales/2015/0 ... ake-wales/

I'm sure glad he is here to talk about it... whew!!

But, I have to ask... sorry if this question seems disrespectful, but who trains pilots not to be prepared/able to land a gyro with an engine out at 100'? If it was trees or swamp or other unfriendly terrain, fair enough... but I have had heaps of engine outs and haven't balled one up? To me, if the engine quits over favourable terrain.... just land it? Go from a climb to an approach?

I am sure instructors must reinforce engine out procedures? or do they?

I am not knocking John, I am simply wondering why a simple engine out would cause such a crash? To me, it looks like the rotors are still pretty straight, so they mustn't have been turning real fast when it rolled over? It will be interesting to hear from John when he is up to it?

John is on here as airborn sooooo when he feels like it I am sure he will fill us in.
I am glad he made it out OK.
We don't know the details and I am always cautious about jumping to conclusions .....
I have seen it way too many times when things just don't come together as they should.
It is a shame though. John is a very nice fella and I am glad he is here to tell about it!

Yes, that is great news.... I am NOT having a shot at John.... remember that.... we just need to find out the circumstances that caused a good gyro to crash from something as ordinary as an engine out (over favourable terrain) maybe there is something missing in the instruction side of things?

I know, it is easy to panic....

That silence when the flame goes out is really eerie

I'm off outside to play with the car.... a friend is coming to help me bleed the brakes

Back in later

I am glad that he is OK......too bad about the gyro, But muz does make a good point...It could have been just the hard landing that caused a roll over.
But again that is why it is good to practice engine out procedures, and don't fly over anything that you cannot land on.

Just heard on the radio chopper down in Eustis FL....I wonder if it's the school......Freaking full moon!

Everyone....,

I just got off the phone with John's wife and he is still in the hospital this AM and should be released soon.
He had an engine out and landed and it bounced a bit and tipped over.....HE WALKED AWAY from the accident and is just getting
checked over good before going home later today. No broken bones or serious damage to himself as of this report.

His wife would like everyone to be Thanked for their concern and thoughts!!

Thank Goodness...John is my friend and I would have been really bummed if he had been seriously hurt or ..........

Get better soon John and you still have the AG-1 to fly!!!

Good to hear.
John don't you ever fucking scare yourself and us again like that!
Glad you made it out OK.

I want to know how he managed to snap the mast off without bending the blades, other than a few buckles down the skins behind the spar

Turn the pic upside down and it looks like he landed tail first then that caused the buckling and prop strike nearly cut the keel off and I assume
(I am not an accident investigator) the blade mass maybe twisted the mast and crumpled itself and collapsing.

The blades are relatively straight as you said muz except I suspect the ends which are out of pictures frame.

It looks like a folding mast. It is.

Yeah, I turned the pic (and nearly got vertigo)

The prop shouldn't have cut nothing? If the blue head stopped, the prop prolly would have been stationary at low airspeed....

I will eagerly wait to hear from John

I only speculate on that because I can see the lower blade has damage that looks like it happened while in motion.....
of course if the engine stopped that would be weird for the blades to be moving unless they where free wheeling...that's my revised guess.

I can't see why it cracked in almost two unless that was the focal point of initial impact of the rear wheel and keel...

hummm.....


Either way glad John is still around to tell us himself what he can. When he can...if he does.

I don't want to speculate (but I will)

I reckon he has landed it and tipped it over taxying (turning too fast with the rotors at low speed) the rotors weren't driving hard, or they would have had the scimitar shape bends

I have personal experience with three Sportcopter crashes two I was the pilot and one fatal with my friend Doug Goodman.
The damage in the photo is consistant with a Sportcopter wreck that was slowed down before impact.
The Sportcopters are designed to break progressively to eat up energy. It works. Its also why the fuel tank is sperate from the seat, which has space foam for padding.
If I ever buy another gyro, it will be a.Sportcopter im sure. I wouldnt be typing this if it wasnt for Jims design.
Wolvy, tell your buddy if he wants to discuss the psychological effects of a crash he
Pm me.....sort of becoming an expert on the subject.

Benry,

John is fine, he's had a few scraps in aviation and is a tough ole' dude!

He has a bruised shoulder from the restraint belt on his left side but other then that he seems OK with what happened and
now it's more about why he lost power and had to land unexpectedly.
he said if he hadn't flared to early he would have been alright on touchdown and would not have bounced which lead to the
unfortunate events as pictured.

Good to know SC has a crash worthy gyro though.

I am designing my gyro not to crash so I should be able to avoid these issues.

I will just keep redesigning it on the ground and it will never fly and that's how to keep from crashing for the skeptics out there who think it is impossible to build a crash proof gyro........!!




just kidding... I'm a thrill seeker and I couldn't live with myself unless I am testing out the meaning of life by defying death!!

All, and I mean all of the Sportcopters with blue head 582 S I know have had engine issues many times more than the 503.

Quite strange. I have investigated many accidents and I've never seen a prop broken off like that before unless it struck something under considerable power.
I did however see one incident though where the engine lost power and just before the flare out in a nose down attitude, the engine burst into full noise again virtually driving the machine into the ground. We thought that he would have been dead for sure but he walked away with only a sore hip pocket. The blades were 5 minutes into their first flight, and at $3000 it makes it an $36,000/hour flight. It wasn't the first time that he had walked away from a crash!
His wife threatened to do some unthinkable things to me if I let him order another another set of blades.