this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
176 points (95.8% liked)

News

23376 readers
3647 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Warning: Crash video autoplays in article.

A pilot died during a gender reveal party when his plane crashed after dispersing pink smoke in the air above the gathering.

A video posted online shows a couple standing in front of a large lit up sign reading “Oh Baby,” before capturing the pilot flying low to the ground while releasing the pink smoke above the pair in San Pedro, Mexico. Just after flying over the couple, the plane’s left wing quickly snapped and the aircraft spiraled out of control and crashed in a nearby field.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They dont know what happened? That pilot used a crop dusting plane to do a strafing run, realized he was headed nose first into some palm trees and yanked up on the yoke. He sheered the wing straight off his plane and died for the mistake.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Sure that’s what caused the crash, but why did the wing snap? It didn’t look like the plane was in overspeed, and the airframe should be able to sustain any input maneuvers under normal flight conditions.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the airframe should be able to sustain any input maneuvers under normal flight conditions.

Let me frame it this way for you, my car's pretty reliable, but at high speeds I know that making a hard turn will end in catastrophe.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

making a hard turn will end in catastrophe

Sure, if you end up smashing into a tree. But it’s not like the wheels are going to snap off or the body buckle. If you’re on an empty airfield tarmac, it would be perfectly safe. On some cars there will be a risk of rollover, but designing cars that tip over when extreme input is applied is itself fairly controversial.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Sure, if you end up smashing into a tree. But it’s not like the wheels are going to snap off or the body buckle. If you’re on an empty airfield tarmac, it would be perfectly safe. On some cars there will be a risk of rollover, but designing cars that tip over when extreme input is applied is itself fairly controversial.

Oh God, please tell me you don't have a driver's license if you think any of this bad logic is a reasonable rebuttle.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Ok, let's forget the trees or any scenery for a moment. Let's say they don't exist, and that the plane is in an open, and empty area.

Planes are very finicky things. If the angles aren't right, it won't be able to fly. If you look at an airplane wing from the side, they are normally shaped a bit like long tear drops. After gaining it's initial momentum, the plane is kind of lifted by gliding through the air pressure. Plane wings are shaped that way to make the air move faster over the top of the wing. When the air moves faster, the pressure of that air decreases. So the pressure on the top of the wing is less than the pressure on the bottom of the wing. The difference in pressure creates a force on the wing that lifts the wing of the plane up into the air.

Airplanes are full of many things that are pretty complex. If we changed airplanes to be able to "roll over" for safety, we would lose that special system that allows the lift to happen.

Since planes are so finicky, planes with different purposes will usually be built differently. Since they still have to be able to fly, adding one thing may sometimes means removing another thing. Those particular planes were never meant to make those maneuvers, and they weren't built to handle them. It would be like upgrading a car's engine block to be turbo-powered, then keeping the same coolant system and expecting it to run fine. You have to respect the equipment and follow guidelines, as they are usually there for a good reason.

The idea was that everyone would know not to do that (via their pilot licence), and that it would be ok to have specialty planes. The plane was never meant to move that way, and the wings weren't fortified for those angles.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

This is a crop duster, not a stunt plane. It's not designed for that maneuver, so if you try, wings snap off. Iow, not normal flight conditions. Unlike civil engineers, you can't slap a factor of safety of 10 on an airplane. It won't fly.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I think you’re underestimating his speed and overestimating the strength of airframes. Most planes can easily get to speeds where inputs can exceed structural limits under normal flight conditions. There is even a V speed for it, Va or maneuvering speed. A quick google suggests that Vne, or “never exceed” for the PA 25 is -35 knots and Va is 104 knots. Now I have never flown one and I haven’t completely verified them but they sound about right. At 104 knots he can over G the airframe. Assuming a standard safety factor of 1.5 and a g limit of 3.8 (basic assumptions but I can’t find actual data for the PA25) and at max weight you can expect severe structural damage with full control inputs at 127 knots. If he wasn’t carrying that much and was lighter that number comes down as well. Finally, there’s the fact that it was a crop duster in Mexico so who knows what the maintenance history and actual condition of that wing spar was. Either way, even if it was in top form hitting 130 knots on a show boating low pass isn’t that crazy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

The pilot has probably been beating on the airframe like this for years.