Draco crashed on take off at Reno airport

[DCL415]

There was a short video on youtube but was deleted.

I hope Mike Patey and family are safe

[DCL415]

Mike Patey's video with what happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfctWAoDXvs

[C-GGGQ]

Ouch. Not much of that left. A testament though that he is unscratched. Tough little plane

[goingnowherefast]

Build another one with a bigger PT-6?

[corethatthermal]

He might need a mini windsock mounted on the cowling !

[PilotDAR]

He might need a mini windsock mounted on the cowling !

I dunno, he might have been tempted to try to make it point backward in flight...

[broken_slinky]

Build another one with a bigger PT-6?

He's in the process of building something even more wild. An 8 cylinder Frankenstein'd Cub with a prop off a swamp boat.
Watched the video of his take-off. Didn't take long for things to go completely south. Happy to see everyone walked away unscathed, shy of a broken fingernail.

[KissPlusOne]

As much as he says that he had aileron deflection into wind, and as grainy as that video is/was, I couldn't see the ailerons move until after things went awry.

If you watch previous videos of him playing around, you'll see he has a very poor technique. He just powers his way up and out. Which is fine when conditions are good, but it really shows when conditions are poor. Too much money led to its demise. If it was flown with more precision and care, I wouldn't be so critical! But he didn't need to develop a technique because of how much power he had.

Anyways, in the end, he walked away. That's a lot more important than the plane. And, it will likely be the kick in his pants that he needed to start using his head a bit more when he flys...

[corethatthermal]

Kiss, Good observation AND even though it is a negative towards the pilot, I would imagine it would be sincerely taken if he were reading this ! Koodos !

[PilotDAR]

Kiss makes a number of good points. More power can be fun, but it does not always make the flying foolproof. For the types which I have flown both the less and more powerful version, the more powerful version usually demanded more attention to keep the plane pointed the way you wanted it to go. I have never come to dislike the lesser power version of an airplane, as long as you planned to have enough room for the up and out.

[iflyforpie]

I dunno. I think I can see aileron deflection before he loses it.

He also decided to take off with no flaps to increase the effectiveness of his left aileron, which would otherwise be dropped and unable to destroy lift on the left wing.

However, the plane was doomed beforehand. If your wing is rising up before the takeoff roll... ...call it a day.