Self-Taught Ultralight Pilot Ignores 3 CFIs, Dies In Self-Inflicted Ultralight Crash C247
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- čas přidán 19. 05. 2024
- Courtney discusses the saga of a self-taught ultralight pilot who seemingly heeded advice from professionals but ultimately choose to go flying without training and dies from a stall at 600 feet.
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Courtney Bertling is a FAA-Certified Instrument Ground Instructor (IGI) and an Advanced Ground Instructor (AGI).
#quicksilver #ultralight #microlight #sportpilot #ultralightpilot #lightsport
Note: A LEGAL ultralight is limited to 1 seat and requires no pilot certificate to fly. A 2-seat "ultralight" is, in fact, a Light Sport Airplane and requires a pilot certificate to fly. There is no such thing as a "legal 2-seat ultralight."
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Do you try to urge someone to get training when clearly they are in need of some? It's not so easy. And sometimes, it's all for naught like in this case. What say you?
I want to buy an ultralight can you give me some training where are you located I'm in Tennessee how can I contact you'?
Never worry about doing right and good, especially when life is at stake. Hard shouldn’t enter your mind. Everyone is accountable for what they do or don’t do. What if their next flight is on a real plane, with the wife and kids?
I hold a private pilots with an instrument rating. Lots of hours. I know what I'm talking abut when I say.. YOU CAN NOT TEACH YOURSELF TO FLY. The only guys who reallly did that were a couple of brothers in 1903.
Agree!
I read books about flying airplanes before I flew my Quicksilver. No one told me that ultralights don't handle like airplanes. They are very rudder dominate. I got lots of training in 2-place ultralights, but they handle a bit different than single place and there is no way to train in a single place. I looped my Quick in bean field on my second flight trying to steer with the ailerons. I bent some tubes and damaged my ego but walked away. I have been flying ultralights since 2005 and still learning. I just found about Bobby Bailey's fatal crash in April for want of a lift strut bolt. I try to assume my bird is not airworthy before every flight. This takes discipline. Thanks for the post.
I'm glad you're still here to share this story!
no plane steers by aileron
Yep! I had an employee who bought a UL and was going to teach himself. I insisted that he first fly with me in my Supercub. We went up for an hour and he was getting the hang of it…..we practiced near stalls and landings. Next lesson was at end of week but on Wednesday he got into his new plane. Climbed steadily to 300 feet then engine quit. He didn’t pitch over and got into spin. BUT luck, God or ? was with him. He hit a farm field right at the junction of two fresh plow passes. His only injuries were two broken ribs, a broken collar bone and a broken nose.
BTW….be aware that most ULs have poor flight characteristics, especially adverse yaw. They have tricky flaws for the novice.
Yikes! He's lucky to be alive. Does he even fly now?
@@CourtneyTakesFlight I have no idea. That was 20 yrs ago. But i can say i never again saw him at the airport and nobody ever mentioned giving him lessons. One other tale…A business guy in SD wanted to get an ultralight and to convince his wife they were safe, took her to a local airshow in Sioux Falls . He said that as they got out of their car they looked up to see a UL doing loops. He said, “Wow! I didn’t know they could do aerobatics”. And just then the wing folded and, of course RIP. They got back in the car and he never again mentioned learning to fly. Apparently wives prefer live husbands.
I used to have a wild idea that i could build and fly my own ultralight. (Think Kilinger on MASH)... After taking some Light Sport lessons, I realized i would have been about HALF RIGHT on my building and training methods...half. Get trained folks!!!
I'm glad you saw the light!
Very wise words, the stupidity of trying to teach yourself to fly is not worth it, as this poor guy found out.
Thank you. Yup, he found out the ultimate hard way.
You can learn a LOT by self-study, but you have to be very smart, very thorough very disciplined, very patient, and very risk-averse. Most people are far from that. Recipe for failure. Aviation can severely punish mistaken thinking, cockiness, and inattention to detail.
Correct.
I've been studying for over a year. Watching videos (mostly yours, over and over!), I bought the FAA Airplane flying handbook also. I've watched your take-off and landing video countless times, and I am confident I know the procedures to take off and land. But I sure the hell wouldn't do it without 1 on 1 instruction. That being said, I am ready to "take flight"! I joined EAA UL20, Capitol Area Light Flyers. I will be getting the 1 on 1 hours I need to safely fly solo. Not only that, but I have a family member who is also a member, and he has a Cessna 172 that I can also learn, because eventually I want to obtain my PPL. We had a fly-in this past Saturday and after listening to stories of terror some of the pilots in our club have endured, just cemented in me that I'm not doing without training! @Courtney, thank you so much for the videos you share. You have helped me tremendously! You've taught me so much that I can go into training already having some knowledge of the controls, landing techniques/speed/approach, full throttle take-offs every time, and so much more! I told a few of the guys in the club that I follow you and study your videos, and they all knew who you are. I'm not sure if personally, but nonetheless.
Thank you for your kind words. I wish you great success with your pilot training.
For anyone similarly inclined to self-learn look at it this way.. Take Note: Learning to fly is not simply learning what to do.. It's to a VERY LARGE Extent learning what NOT to do.. self-teaching would allow you to learn what not to do, but you'll very likely be dead at the end of the lesson.
Agreed.
Dunning-Kruger strikes again. It’s too bad this happened. RIP.
Yup.
I had a guy contact me interested in getting into ultralight 2 summers ago. He's 67 yro and bought a used Aerolite 103. I gave him ground instruction plenty over a few month period. I stresses that it was important he get up in a 2 place and get some stick time before he'd be ready. I had him going up and down the runway "slow" to get used to ground handling. Then we moved onto just getting the nose off the ground. He was doing good until I noticed each pass he started going a little faster until he was off the ground a couple inches. I ran out to him and stressed that if he goes any faster he's gonna find himself as high as the hangars or trees! 3 passes later and it happened! High as the hangars scared the shit outta himself and he chopped the power and pancakes it snapping the LG bolts luckily no injuries or other damage. A couple weeks later I come out to the field and he'd there plane already outside, he goes "well I was hopping up and down the runway UNTIL I was taxiing up to my hangar when I ran the wing into the hangar door" Thats Strike 2 under my wing of instruction. Strike 3 was running out of gas going up and down the runway..... 🤦 Guy just won't listen and everyone at our field warned him he's gonna leave in a body bag! Hasn't touched the plane since thankfully! He absolutely would have ended like this poor fella.
Yikes! What a story. It's almost as if you'd want to take the ignition coil off the airplane so he doesn't kill himself. I'm sure there are others with stories just like yours!
@CourtneyTakesFlight He hasn't touched the plane since so I think he came to his senses. I really wanted to see him pull it off but something in my gut was telling me flying was just not for him. He said he raced dirtbikes and worked on cars all his life which I said "that's great but its not flying" I said "I'm trying to teach you to play an instrument you've never touched before" try teaching a 67yro how to play piano 🎹 We needed a symphony and we got horrible sound instead....
Well said Courtney!
TY
ACTUALLY - at the time of the accident, winds suddenly were gusting 15 to 25 when they had been much less as he made his way to the airport that day. This wind was also noted by a local that commented day of crash, winds had picked up.
7:53 AM 70 °F 60 °F 71 % NNW 5 mph 0 mph 29.16 in 0.0 in Fair
8:53 AM 73 °F 57 °F 57 % NNW 8 mph 0 mph 29.17 in 0.0 in Fair
9:53 AM 76 °F 58 °F 54 % N 9 mph 0 mph 29.18 in 0.0 in Fair
10:53 AM 76 °F 56 °F 50 % NW 8 mph 17 mph 29.18 in 0.0 in Fair
11:53 AM 77 °F 55 °F 46 % WNW 8 mph 21 mph 29.19 in 0.0 in Partly Cloudy
12:53 PM 76 °F 55 °F 48 % NNW 15 mph 25 mph 29.19 in 0.0 in Partly Cloudy
1:53 PM 78 °F 56 °F 46 % WNW 16 mph 25 mph 29.20 in 0.0 in Partly Cloudy
2:53 PM 78 °F 55 °F 45 % NNW 15 mph 24 mph 29.20 in 0.0 in Partly Cloudy
3:53 PM 76 °F 56 °F 50 % N 13 mph 25 mph 29.20 in 0.0 in Partly Cloudy
4:53 PM 75 °F 51 °F 43 % NW 14 mph 23 mph 29.21 in 0.0 in Partly Cloudy
5:53 PM 72 °F 53 °F 51 % NNW 12 mph 0 mph 29.22 in 0.0 in Partly Cloudy
6:53 PM 70 °F 53 °F 55 % N 12 mph 0 mph 29.23 in 0.0 in Fair
7:53 PM 66 °F 53 °F 63 % N 9 mph 0 mph 29.24 in 0.0 in Fair
The self-taught pilot didn't teach himself much about weather either. Whether there's turbulence up there or not, you'd have to be a pretty bad pilot to just simply stall like that.
@@CourtneyTakesFlight thanks
I’m an inactive private pilot with time in several different airplanes, including my own experimental homebuilt. I would never get into an unfamiliar aircraft without adequate transition training for that specific airplane.
That's wise. I like to think that most of us would do the same.
Sometimes it works out. The Wright brothers come to mind. But many times it doesn’t. Like this guy and many others. Every time I hear someone mention flying cars, I cringe. I don’t really want to share the road with some of these folks on the way TO the airport. Much less the sky! I’m guessing nearly everyone knows or has heard tell of one of those know it all “sky kings”. You know the type. The 30-40 year old pilot with 80 years of flight experience. 🤔 The darwin awards and gravity have a tendency to weed those “pilots” out.
Thanks for sharing!
The Wright brothers practiced a lot in gliders before their famous flight.
@@lucasdos3497 I have no idea where they found the time to fly. There is too many places to surf fish around Kittyhawk. Caught a LOT of nice fish there on Hatteras. I was buying a plane to fly back and forth on the weekend to fish. The deal was dependent on the seller upgrading his plane. Don’t remember what he was trying to buy, but his deal fell through.
@@lucasdos3497even the Wright brothers had fatalities in one of their flights..
@@alaskaaksala123 When comparing to the Wright brothers, you also have to realize that they were pretty smart men. Those who today think it's a good idea to teach themselves to fly tend not to be the sharpest knife in a drawer.
Totally untrained folks tend to Intuitively associate Slow air speed with caution & safety like Terrestrial transportation experiences.....
Good point!
Here are the keys to my aircraft, fueled go ahead go fly it.
'Are you crazy'.
🙁
Yup. They're out there.
What is the source for...
1- He heeded advice but chose to fly anyhow
2- It stalled a t 600 feet
I can't find that anywhere
Various places on FB. His friend at the airport who announced the crash also cited the 600 feet number.
@@CourtneyTakesFlight thanks, the only witness i found was " i saw him leave for the airport" and a fb post , i told him not to fly it
In the old days a lot of us learned like that........ yep. And nothing honestly wrong. It worked then and it'll work now
It's working? Explain how this self-taught pilot died.
@CourtneyTakesFlight why would I explain? So a guy dies. That's on him. But just like you said in your opening statement. Plenty of pilots have self taught, and are just fine. That's how it was done. It worked then and it still works now
@@CourtneyTakesFlight Fair enough. Then again how many certified, thousands of hours pilots have killed themselves (along with many passengers) due to their self error? There are news stories everyday of dead licensed pilots.
100%
It is possible to self train but it is foolish. I have my multi engine rating with over 1000 hours but I would insist I get some time in a light sport first.
That said it can be very difficult finding an instructor in many areas. Do it anyway even if you need to travel!!!
Agreed. If you can't afford to travel to get training, you can't afford to fly.
he died in a crow hop? that is almost impossible unless people don,t know what a ceow hop actually is! the method was told before ww2 in all contruction books regarding airplanes ( yes, i read about all the 5 online available in online lobraries, and half of the technical design calculations are basically idiocies...). .but the crow hop method uses ground effect to get a feeling for the airplane in very slow floght just above ground! so how did he die? and the UL was homebuilt, hmmm? and now it,s the training that killed him while nobody actually knows if the bird was built correctly!
He died in a second crash following that first crash which was a crow hop. He apparently stalled at 300 feet and spun in
as someone before me told: it is nkt rocket science and all about stall speed...
i.m quite convinced that all those crashes happen bcs people don,t even read a single page of any flight insteuction manual at all.
i read "stick and rudder" last winter...it is basically horrible ro read as ghe author always tells what people "think and say"...so hebp,ants a lot of misconcemptions into every chapter which he then corrects...a very idiotic and tiresome experience ro read...but surely came feom his experience with student pilots...
people shoukd get the basics: min. speed= stall speed for every maneuvre and flight condition...and never go too close to that, for that one needs ro know the basic rules for higher stall speed multiplied by factor due ro higher weights and G loads, ...as high desity altitude gives already "corrected " speed on pitot fed wind speed meters....
ok, so why do they crash: maybe bcs they just don,t use any avionics at all! or when they use a GOS these give "over the ground soeed" not relative wind speed! only the latter is relevant...lack of education and knowledge about physics...most people don,t even jnderstand any FAA literature! many instructirs don,t do either, they just repeat over and over again empty phrases...but knkwing a phrase does not mean understanding the content...
sorry for typies...and i suggest ro read at least stick and eudder before trying to fly anything...then fo for at least one flight and try it out with some rented airplane and it,s pilot...
it is not difficult, but you need to get the basics like on a bicicle or when you learn walking! contacting a Slovakian club for UL lessons they told me : 4 hours, the rest is just for patternwork or for the law...crazy! or real?
and for those who learn with crow hops: don,t leave ground effect, get a working wind speed metering device, no matter if you built it yourself or hwatever, stick a tabella onto your panel with basic G loads and minimal speeds for your design( if you don,t know those don,t fly anyways! learn the basics...took me 2,5 years to learn all the details in aerodynamics...) ...and when you play stupid and force something you will die! 30% of all private pilots died not long ago on their "hobby"...
oh yes: get an idea about wingloading and drafts, many ULs simply get blown away on landing by a draft or upwind, turned all over and so on...second a sidewind kills your lift! similar ( or basically exactly as ) in a crab or sideslip floght condition....the margine fro ULs is very barrow, as ghe wing loading is so low! the lower the lading the lower the speed...the smaller the margine! fighters take off in storms...yes, but any bird would never do so...
try to find those speed values for your bird and kind of flying, i
t sadly is burried somewhere in hundreds of pages of FAA material or in marginal instruction...all you need is 3 tabellas...turns, altitude/ high desity altitude, sidewinds( good luck finding anything for the last one) , then you get an idea about flight conditions and stall speeds , which change deliberately in diff. conditions....at least, no matter if anyone will give me instruction for my money or not, those are the numbers i write on my panel all around the speed scale! this is what i was taught by a military pilot on a Sxottish channel, he flies like that! and it works on a DS-1 !
good luck, clear skies...and i wonder if i get an invitation for training.. for my gard cash off course...or i learn it alone...
There's no excuse for stalling, just keep your airspeed high, it's not rocket science. Would-be pilots should at least train up first on a home computer flight sim to learn the basics.
Taking lessons with a CFI should be their first step.
@@CourtneyTakesFlight I read somewhere that some guys who begin PPL training impress their instructors so much that they ask their student- "Have you been using a home computer flight simulator?", and the answer is usually "Yes"..:)
Tbh the cost of training needs to be lower. It’s a gate keeping system that leads directly to risks like this. I feel like most training shouldn’t cost more than the plane tbh. I understand people need to get paid but how much is non realistic?
Training is expensive. If one can't afford it, they probably can't afford to fly.
I haven't checked costs lately, but a experimental pilot course with 20hs required of training should be $3-4k. This is a $30k plane. I don't know why you think training could cost more than a plane.
go to a ski resort and take a ski lesson. You'll discover that flight instruction is inexpensive.
@@RogerPrintz I mean… it’s still a paywall that limits and targets individuals with little to no experience. It’s capitalistic at best and down right predator, wrong and stupid. Without a paywall how well do you think this sport would flourish? Or other ultralight sports? How many fatalities could be eliminated just by offering a low cost alternative or flat out free training. If you buy an aircraft or car shouldn’t you receive appropriate training and instruction? It’s wild to me that it’s not this way.