[Larry Mednick]

Here is a copy and paste I received. Not sure who wrote it originally, but among other things the take away was loss of control is suspected by whoever wrote this.

“I got this from a friend and thought you should know. Most likely you knew Sam. “Samuel R. Peachy, of Belleville, PA was a legend in the aviation community that was well known for hosting fly-in picnics on his farm for his family and neighbours which was a special delight for the children as he dropped candy from his plane. Sam has piloted many aircraft over the many years of his life, from helicopters to airplanes and he was comfortable in all. During the Oshkosh AirVenture Airshow he would often be seen doing the demo flights in Highlanders and Hummel airplanes. Unfortunately Sam took his last flight on Friday July 8, 2022 when he was flying a powered hang glider and witnesses saw him contact the ground. He was killed instantly by blunt force trauma. Investigators are not sure of the caused it appears he lost control was not able to recover.

Sam will be missed by his loving family which includes his wife Barbara, four daughters, two sons and many grandchildren. Your thoughts and prayers are asked as his family tries to deal with their loss.”I got this from a friend and thought you should know. Most likely you knew Sam. “Samuel R. Peachy, of Belleville, PA was a legend in the aviation community that was well known for hosting fly-in picnics on his farm for his family and neighbours which was a special delight for the children as he dropped candy from his plane. Sam has piloted many aircraft over the many years of his life, from helicopters to airplanes and he was comfortable in all. During the Oshkosh AirVenture Airshow he would often be seen doing the demo flights in Highlanders and Hummel airplanes. Unfortunately Sam took his last flight on Friday July 8, 2022 when he was flying a powered hang glider and witnesses saw him contact the ground. He was killed instantly by blunt force trauma. Investigators are not sure of the caused it appears he lost control was not able to recover.
Sam will be missed by his loving family which includes his wife Barbara, four daughters, two sons and many grandchildren. Your thoughts and prayers are asked as his family tries to deal with their loss.”

[Larry Mednick]

It is not a matter of IF but WHEN you start up at full throttle. Besides what’s mentioned above, I will say also positioning the trike in a manner that full throttle prop blast behind the trike and as much run off space as possible in front of the trike are considered before getting in it.

Since I sell the parts I can tell you that no less than probably 10 of our trikes have been damaged by running into something on full throttle start ups. You might think high time pilots/instructors are not the ones, but that’s not true. We even had a leading edge strike into a trailer and the pilot assumed his wing was OK and then flew it with a massive turn at trim. He called me and we grounded and repaired the plane with a new leading edge. So check list or no check list, BE PREPARED to shut down IMMEDIATELY on high power starts. As I say it could be a frog caught in your carb, so don’t try and assess the problem, just kill the engine. Also remember some brake systems can hold 100 HP start including the REVO, but not after it’s moving. So a little extra brake pressure on start goes a Long way. And ALWAYS have seat belt on and bar in hand. ALWAYS!

[Larry Mednick]

While i personally don’t have any details except what the article said, I do know a few things leading up to this tragic event. First off, for those of you that didn’t know Sam, he was one of the best and highest regarded light Sport fixed wing pilots in the country. His stick and rudder skills were among the best. He pretty much never missed a Sun N Fun or Oshkosh and flew more than anyone at every event. His daughters are pilots as well. Nothing was more interesting than watching a young lady wearing a huge, long Amish dress climbing up on the tire of a Highlander to get it and fly it. The whole family were passionate aviators with mad skills in airplanes.

So aboud 3 years ago, Sam Peachey contacted me and told me he had bought a little Aeros ANT and he wanted to get instruction. Sam came down from PA, and did,I think, just 1 intro flight in the back seat for maybe 30 minutes. Then he had to get back for some reason I can’t remember. Fast forward to Sun N Fun. 2022, I am standing in line to sign in for the flight briefing to fly at SNF and Sam is right behind me. So we start talking and I ask him if he ever got more training and ever flew his trike. He said no, and that he really needed to get with me to get his training so he could fly it. That was 3 months ago. So I don’t know if he got training or just talked himself into soloing his trike, but I suspect it’s the later. IF that was the case, this was a very senseless accident.

So many fixed wing pilots think trikes are similar to stick and rudder planes or easy to fly or whatever… I too have had fixed wing instructors even, discontinue their WSC training and take there part 103 trikes home to destroy it. No fatalities on the 103 YET… but try hard enough and anything is possible.

I have been overly clear with fixed wing pilots with a false sense of capability that have not completed training. But with Sam, I didn’t make that case because he never acted like he would even think about doing it. Now maybe he did get training, and I don’t know about it. And I intend to find out definitively. But I am speculating that he got the itch to just go fly it after 3 years of it sitting…

Great guy, amazing pilot and wonderful promoter of aviation lost. I hope this story, if I have my facts correct, can save others in the future.

[Larry Mednick]

Gino, my notification bell is right next to my name. If you or anyone has an issue, take a screen shot and email the photo(s) with description the problem to evolutiontrikes@yahoo.com and I will see what we can do.

Thanks,

[Larry Mednick]

Email me at evolutiontrikes@yahoo.com And I will get it taken care of for you.

[Larry Mednick]

Hey Tom on some trikes where the mast is more vertical, adjusting the front strut length will only affect the swing through (angle of the dangle) and not control bar height. On the Cygnet’s the mast is nearly 45 degrees so you get both. Be very careful about swing through as your trike has a higher thrust line and REQUIRES enough swing through to be safe on full power takeoffs. Without enough swing through the backs of the floats or rear wheels can actually leave the surface first which is further compounded by having a smaller wing which usually has less drag up top making the higher thrust line more critical.

Northwing makes 2 different length down tubes (uprights). A standard which is 61” and an extended down tube which is 64”. The cool thing is the cables mount in the same spot with simply more down tube below the cable bolt on the extended down tubes. You must add a +3” control bar in order to not affect your anhedral. If you have 61” and want your control bar higher, then you are in a jam and need to go custom. Our REV X uses 54” down tubes but now you need to figure out custom cable lengths. But one more problem can arise especially on a large wing like a 17m. The wing struts start to become very horizontal putting more stress/leverage on them…

[Larry Mednick]

I’ve got mediums and small liners in stock right now. I’ll order more of the larger sizes on next order which may be a while…

[Larry Mednick]

Thanks and Yes, practice above 1000’. Cut power in a climb at 1100 for example and then see if you can arrest the descent for one full second at multiple altitudes like 1000’ then try 1020’ and so on. If you can arrest descent for 1 full second or more, that would have possibly been all you needed to land safely.

If you have a passenger onboard to help you practice let them use the rear hand throttle and then let them watch the altimeter as you reach 1100’ (for example) and you not watch the altimeter so you don’t know when it’s coming and then they kill power so that you can practice your reaction time which as I’ve mentioned is a huge part of being able to have a positive outcome. Then note your altitude when you arrest your descent and see what your minimum altitude loss can be…

[Larry Mednick]

Good question, if you lift off and point the nose up and lose the engine, it’s going to probably be different than if you lift off, sit in ground effect at full power until the bar is back to neutral, and then control your climb angle shallow for the first 300 feet. However what is even more critical than that is how quickly, the pilot snaps the control bar in at the first sign of loss of power. If you wait until the prop stops or even a full second, it could be the difference between having enough energy to flare at the bottom or not. When I say quick that is 2 fold. Reaction time and speed in which the bar is snapped back. Also once the nose lowers to a nose down attitude, you don’t want to hold the bar in, you really need to return it back to around neutral bar and as I say, attempt to “ride the glide” meaning holding the bar in can make the trike fall towards the ground and not accelerate on the preferred glide path.

Lastly many pilots will want to round out at the last moment with a tighter radius, but counter intuitively a softer larger round out is usually better with a limited energy approach. In the case that the energy is too low to make a power off landing, usually the nose wheel is not going to hit first first if the trike has a normal amount of swing through designed into it, and the only reason the trike may stall is if the pilot does literally nothing after power loss. In either case it’s the main gear that will take most of the impact. That doesn’t mean the forks won’t fail if the main gear holds up. After the mains hit then the nose wheel will probably impact and either hold up or collapse. If it collapses, the trike is going over…. Also worth noting is if you hit the ground with the bar full out at the same moment you impact the ground it will make a huge difference in the trikes survivability. Bar full out is your best bet to save the forks and stay upright in a hard impact landing .

The short story is knowing what to do and doing it without delay are what’s required to land with an engine out at low altitude during climb out.

I personally had an engine out on climb out last week though more like 250 feet (garbage in bowls after students trike sat) the student was one of mine that soloed several months ago and has been flying plenty. His words were he didn’t even know the engine lost power when I snatched the controls out of his hands and said “my plane” it was a non event and a very short lesson, but a great lesson as it turned out.

Anyway I have had a few of those over the decades and all great landings so far. So it can be done.

[Larry Mednick]

Especially with ethanol in it.

[Larry Mednick]

Guess what guys? We are adding a world map to this site to allow everyone to pin there location as either a pilot or instructor. This will be a HUGE help and from what I have seen so far on the group, a main interest is people want to find each other or find an instructor nearby.

In the meanwhile, flight schools please feel free, as others have already done, and list your free, flight school ad with photo(s) in our Classified section.

[Larry Mednick]

A little birdie told me there is at least 1 mainstream manufacturer working on an electric power system for light sport aircraft. They know the battery tech is not there YET. but will be in market position as soon as the battery density triples. They can literally already do all their testing and everything regardless of how short the test flights are. I don’t think it will take 10 years, but I think 3 or more years and we can build and buy electric aircraft equivalent to combustion motors (power/weight/endurance)

I have over 50 radio airplanes and helicopters and ALL of them are electric and I wouldn’t even consider “gas” since my flight times are more than enough for RC. No clean up, instant throttle response and much higher reliability. I really do love electric for those reasons alone.

[Larry Mednick]

Yes, Bar in hand. About 6 months ago or so there was a video of a full throttle start up with the bar locked to the front strut in Brazil I believe. Maybe someone here has the video they can share. It was a double fatality all because the control bar was locked. Possibly the only thing worse than hitting something is taking off only to stall whim seems to happen above 50’in the air. We have had a handful of fatalities that way… 2 years ago a guy out in TX started up full throttle into a rolled hay bail which proved fatal.

[Larry Mednick]

Hi Jonathan, at the moment you won’t get email notifications for every comment in the thread. I may not have replied to your comment and just replied to the thread. Thats why its important that everyone check Trike Action at least 3X a day 🙂

Wow, that 47 HP motor would be about perfect in our REV X which is N numbered. I too share your exact feelings on quality/price in aviation. A friend of mines trike did catch fire in the air with an electric system about 10 years ago. Luckily he was low and landed close enough to my Father (I wasn’t there) to extinguish the flames. No injuries, but think about how long it takes to get especially a light trike down from 3000 feet. Spiral away for sure, but still.

<font face=”inherit” style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Kamron at Northwing called me a </font>couple<font face=”inherit” style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”> months ago to tell me that he had sourced a really good electric propulsion system for his ATFs. And that is yours apparently! So cool that we</font><font face=”inherit” style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”> get to talk to the man himself! </font>

<font><font face=”inherit”>I think we should build an electric REV X maybe next year or as soon as we can take on the additional project. I look forward to familiarizing myself better with your set ups. By the time we do a 582 with radiator, fuel tank, ceramic exhaust, springless exhaust, intake and after mufflers and motor cradle I think we are pushing very close to $10,000, so something like a $5,000 option for electric on a $40+K machine seems really in line so </font>long<font face=”inherit”> as the quality is there to back the price. </font></font>

Thank you for being open here with pricing, weight and endurance. Surely most will be disappointed if they haven’t followed electric closely. But this is all a far better than where we were even just a few years ago. Looking forward to the future. Thanks for all the info.

[Larry Mednick]

Hi Jonathan, what is the retail price for your electric package and what is the horsepower of the system?