Friday, March 6, 2015

"Actor Harrison Ford reportedly in stable condition after plane crash on golf course"


18 comments:

ricpic said...

Anyone here a pilot? I read that the trainer Ford was flying is a notoriously dangerous accident prone plane. Anyway, he lucked out crashing on a golf course: no shortage of doctors.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

What some actors won't do for a little free publicity.

bagoh20 said...

I don't know that plane, but I have flown into and out of that airport in small Cessnas. As you take off you go over that golf course then right over Venice Beach and you are over the Pacific almost immediately. It's all dense city and people down there, and getting back to the runway right after takeoff with engine failure almost never works. He had few options, and really did very well to land where he did without killing people including himself. A miracle, good luck, or good piloting. probably all three.

rhhardin said...

On the Delta slide-off accident at LGA, I haven't seen any speculation at all.

It was landing in an 18kt tailwind, the news says, which is weird. That speeds you up a lot, and most important reduces the rudder authority as you slow down.

So they'd have to rely on nosewheel steering at a much higher speed than usual.

So you have to slow down more than normal, and your rudder steering is worse than usual, and you're on snow and ice.

rhhardin said...

Crashing on a golf course isn't a mark of skill. It ought to be a uneventful landing.

He clipped a tree top, I heard.

That's not a mark of skill either.

All the landings I ever made were dead stick. You get lots of practice judging height and speed that way, not relying on power to drag it in.

That's out of favor in modern times.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Looks like we're down to good luck or divine intervention.

edutcher said...

What's cool is the paint job.

Amartel said...

Han Solo totally shot first. Greedo was acting in self defense. Justice for Greedo! Finally.

Amartel said...

Now if only he'd plummetted into a pool of carbonite.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

That golf course is not flat and has plenty of trees around it. The difficulty comes from having no altitude to set up. He had to do a 180, find a spot and get too it without a stall while landing downwin. You almost never have the altitude right at take off to turn around, but if he didn't he was in the ocean, or into dense residential. He had only one option, and he had to realize it, accept it, and execute with no window to think it over. I think it was very good piloting.

The thing about flying in a place like L.A. is there is rarely any alternative landing field in an emergency. Most airports, like this one, are packed into city congestion with no open spaces near by. Hell, it's often challenging to land a hang glider around here with a stall speed of 14 mph and just a few feet of runway needed.

As we say here, any landing you can sign autographs after is a good landing.

JAL said...

Check this out to back up Bagoh.

http://www.golfdigest.com/blogs/the-loop/penmar.jpg

Not many places to land and stay alive.

Chip Ahoy said...

If the good Lord wanted us to fly he'd given us wings.

Chip Ahoy said...

Psych!

See, that's illogical because if the good Lord wanted you to fly he'd give you brains enough to figure out how. And he's up there right now wondering what took so long.

But then that's illogical because the good Lord did no such thing. Both wings and brains (to figure out how to fly mechanically) evolved.

But that's illogical too because who proved such things as evolution and deity endowment contradict each other? Why must that be an assumption? Why must there be dispute between science and religion? They cover two different areas. Science helps us understand the material universe and religion deals the values about what to do with all that.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Next on my list of commuter audio is "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I thoroughly suspect that I'll find it annoying as containing far too much filler.

That's the problem with the nonfiction audiobooks. The printed books they're based on are written for length. I much prefer the recorded lectures. Still too much filler, but they're generally more to the point than audiobooks.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I listened to some other audiobook by Richard Dawkins, IIRC. I think it was about science in general for kids but somehow he got into religion.

Something about how God should have told us about germs and dinosaurs and the fact that we're on a planet and all that.

I'm probably misremembering; combining scraps, bits and pieces from multiple sources. It's tough to keep it all straight.

Hey! I just had an inspiration. Maybe I should write it all down in a single text. You know, for posterity.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Garage rock meets the personal insights of an inveterate slacker.

Matthew Sweet presents: "Divine Intervention."

Deep.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Susanna Hoffs is kind of cute.

Thought I'd mention that, just in case anyone was wondering.