Homebuilt plane kills three

[Growler]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=homebuilt-plane-crashes-into-a-hous-2008-08-22&print=true

An experimental, build-it-yourself Velocity 173 RG aircraft aircraft crashed into the living room of a house in Las Vegas Friday morning shortly after takeoff from the North Las Vegas airport, killing the pilot and two people inside the home, the AP reports. The pilot and one resident of the house died at the crash site, while the other died after being taken to University Medical Center in Las Vegas. The names of the victims have not been released.

This is why we will never see flying cars: do you really want cars flying over your home, or a drunk driver falling out of the sky onto your kid's school??

[Union Thug]

1. Yeah. Build it yourself planes have never sounded like a great idea to me. n/t

[2KS2KHonda]

3. There's no reason a homebuilt plane should be any less safe than a mass-produced one.

I have flown hundreds of them and never had any problems. Any machine can break no matter who put it together.

[Howardx]

5. theres thousands of homebuilts flying today

my dad is building one in his garage right now.

http://www.eaa.org/

[2KS2KHonda]

6. Sure. I've helped build several myself (EAA member for 44 years)

:D

[DJ13]

2. But George Jetson never had a problem!

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5601108,00.jpg

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Among other reasons...

Flying cars:

1) Malfunction or out-of-gas and you plummet
2) Bad driving and you really crash (from the sky)
3) How do you direct/control traffic with no lanes. Put another way, how many air traffic controllers would an average city need?
4) How about zero miles to the gallon? (As in hovering for a few seconds)

How we ever believed that stupid shit is (now) beyond me.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I remember an article in Readers Digest

in about 1950 touting the advent of the personal helicopter. Everybody was gonna have one. I think it was ghost-written for Igor Sikorsky (published under his name).

[wtmusic]

7. They're cool looking planes but low-wing "pushers"

so they require experience to fly. Unfortunately many do-it-yourselfers don't have enough.

[2KS2KHonda]

9. The canard design makes them impervious to aerodynamic stall.

They're as easy to fly as any conventional plane and MUCH easier than any tail-dragger.

[Ganja Ninja]

10. I don't see anything that says the plane was poorly built ..

or that there was something wrong with the plane or it's construction that caused the crash. So I don't understand why the "build it yourself" designation makes you think that was the reason the plane crashed.

There are plenty of regulations and required inspections involved in building and flying one of these aircraft. And just because some activity may have an inherent risk involved is no reason to start passing laws against it.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. Should have added a parachute...

No, I'm not being trite - If this sort of system was compulsory on light aircraft we'd have a lot less stories like these.

[Ready4Change]

12. Those often require a fair bit of altitude to deploy.

Yes, they are a good idea in a lot of cases, but they aren't a cure-all. For example, if a plane has a problem shortly before landing or after takeoff, there probably won't be enough altitude for a ballistic chute to help.

[Dead_Parrot]

13. According to the BRS FAQ...

...FAA tests show full deployment within 300 feet, which isn't too bad. Of course, in this particular case they might not have had that sort of altitude, but even a partial deployment may have helped the people in the house.