This is gonna get a bit emotional... I was good friends with the young man who was flying that aircraft and his Mother who I worked with. Mitchell was the kind of kid every parent wished their child would be. He was smart, kind and generous and very hard working. He did a stint in the army and used his GI Bill to start flying. He earned all his "tickets", (even multiengine seaplane), and was so excited to start his first flying job. It sounded to me like he was trying to drop the banner. But as was said, upon the release, the banner was acting like the tail of a kite to keep the plane straight and it seems, that was the end. Learn from this but please don't criticize him. I don't know what kind of instruction he got at the company but he was such a fine young man and would even teach me a thing or two. His mother and father are absolutely crushed. I took him to dinner when he called me and asked if I was at Torrance airport. He flew up from French Valley to get the last hours necessary for the job. I was so proud he was going to get to do what I never did. Fly with the angels Mitchell.
I mean no disrespect to the young man but I want you to know that crash critique is the BEST tool we have to stop it happening in the future. The pilot made several mistakes in this flight that resulted in his death and learning from those mistakes is the best thing that make his death not be in vain. My apologies to you and his family, he sounds like a great kid!
I towed banners for years in a Pawnee. Usually banner accidents are in the pick up phase or are related to engine stoppage during the flight at low altitude. If you are at the stall and release the banner, there is usually a big yaw movement because the banner has been counter acting the various prop forces and is suddenly released. Banners are towed at very slow speeds and low altitudes. As soon as you start loosing altitude and power isn’t solving it, you gotta dump the banner. Looks like he waited until he was actually stalling to release causing the spin.
Very good point about the sudden yaw forces on loosing the drag of the banner (high power, low speed). The aeroplane departs in an incipient spin to the right immediately after releasing the banner indicating he may have been pushing a lot of right rudder to keep it flying straight at high power and low speed with the banner on.
I towed banners in Florida for 4years and 2300 hours. I never planned on going to the airlines. I was doing it for fun. I had 3 acquaintances crash on banner pickup. I flew all of our big banners At between 55-60 mph. At 62 miles per hour the banner would fly sideways, and people couldn’t read it. If you fly slower the banner would droop, and you we’re getting close to stall speed. It is like anything else in aviation, if you do it right, you get to live, if not, it’s unforgiving.
@@emergencylowmaneuvering7350 My instructor was an airshow pilot and back country pilot. I didn’t know any different. My instructor drilled into me to keep the wing flying at all cost. From watching all of the crashes I see, I may have just been young, dumb and Lucky.
That was a huge banner that I reckon was producing a huge amount of drag. In the video you can see it flopping around just before the pilot jettisons it. But too late. That poor pilot was a human being and my heart goes out to him and his family. I hope he soars in heaven now. Mahalo Juan.
Our family lost a new addition in the 60s from a banner towing accident. Mac McDermott had been married to my cousin just a few months when he was flying banners over a Vikings game. One of the banners fouled as it was being picked up, and in spite of releasing it, he was unable to recover, and crashed his Super Cub in a stall/spin. So sad. This accident brought those memories back. Prayers for the family of this young man.
Towed banners last year as a low time pilot. I’m not sure increased flight time would necessarily mean more safety. The type of flying most of the population does would never prepare to handle that type of flying. Only through training and experience towing banners would you get proficient. The risk involved is unfortunately part of the job. I will say I loved every minute, good and bad.
I gave up my flying ambitions shortly after receiving my commercial certificate. My friend was flying cargo part time to build hours and he died when his twin engine aircraft lost an engine at low altitude. The MX department wrote up that the engine needed to be replaced before the accident and the company kept it flying. Ironically the news reported that they managed to extract the checks he was flying from the wreckage and deliver them safely. I flew skydivers for a short time (for free) and it was a constant tension between doing what the skydivers wanted (FAA rules meant nothing to them) and following the rules to preserve my certificate. My fellow pilot/friend working for the same outfit had a skydiver jump out of his plane and died when the chute malfunctioned. I left that $0/hour job when I had a parachute deploy prematurely and almost rip the tail off the plane I was flying. I remember during my commercial pilot training still only having my private pilot certificate that more senior pilots would mention that being new to the commercial aviation means you would likely not know anyone who has been involved in an accident or fatality. Soon enough they said that will change. I was shocked at how quickly that became a reality. Once on the "inside" you would find out that people or people related to people you know died in aircraft accidents at an alarming rate. This was back in the early 2000's and flying jobs were very scarce and the pay was terrible. Granted that was 20 years ago so maybe things are better but I just couldn't accept the risk and took a different career path.
FWIW, I worked in a call center providing internal support for a Point-of-Sales provider for about a decade. We had about 500 people who worked the floor over three shifts each day. I personally knew about a half dozen people who died, especially call managers. At least three, maybe four call managers had heart attacks, some of them right there on the call center floor. I suppose that any time you work with a group of a thousand people for several years, you are going to know several who die. However, I recently read the words of a former astronaut, who commented that flying is inherently risky; you either accept those risks, or you get out. "The harsh reality is you’re seven times more likely to die in a GA aircraft than in a car, per mile; 3.5 times more if measured per hour, according to NTSB 2011 statistics. “The idea of flying being safe came from the airlines because they have a phenomenal safety record,” says [John} King. “But telling students that GA flying is safe is doing them a disservice." www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/risky-business/
I had no idea how those banners were picked up until now. Living near the lakefront in Chicago we see those banner planes all summer long. On windy days it seems that they have barely enough engine power to make any ground speed when flying upwind. It always struck me as dangerous and now I know why. Thanks, Juan, for helping us non-pilots better understand the risks and for advocating for better ways to do things.
We fly as slow as possible. A lot of the banner planes you see are intentionally flying as slow as possible. Both so people on the ground have time to read and also they cost many thousands of dollars to print and make so ripping them up doing 100mph is not such a good idea. There is definitely more power, but it is not used other than to pick it up and climb.
I watch a banner tower frequently here at a local airport. It's basically a dive bombing mission to put the hook on the ground at exactly the right point and then go nose up big time to pull it off the ground. It is a real thing to watch and I can imagine takes a lot more than a couple of hours of training to pull off repeatedly. Sometimes he misses - but usually by the third attempt he gets it and goes flying around Atlanta. (non-pilot also).
My son has flown w arial banner for about two years or more now. He started there in Hollywood then transferred to Tampa location. Reading all of the above comments is exactly what he says about flying close to stall speed ect. As a mom of an only child (28 yo as well) it’s scary. This is the third fatality since he began working with arial banner tow. God be with that poor family.
I was at this airport at the time of this accident. The winds were coming from the west and we were using runways 28L and 28R. ATC advised the pawny of low altitude at 600 feet. Pilot told ATC everything was fine...
@@blancolirio When we have a banner behind us we have to use much more nose up trim to maintain a certain AofA since the banner is behind us and essentially pulling the tail of the plane back. To maintain slow flight it takes much more back pressure/trim. When the banner is released you have to be actively or be ready to be pushing forward on the stick to prevent the nose from shooting up. We also have a LOT of right rudder in. Same thing applies. When the banner is released the rudder becomes much more effective since the banner is not pulling back on the plane, which I believe explains the initial right wing drop. Winds were out of the west so his ground speed is with a tailwind.... No way his ground speed should have been that low. Behind the power curve/high Aoa/low alititude is a dangerous place to be. Interested to see what the NTSB says.
@@joncronk9642 I’ve towed glider’s but never banner’s. I’m curious why you need up trim and not down trim. In my mind the banner is pulling the tail down and the nose up. But obviously that’s not correct.
Very sad. 28 yr old pilot with 325 hrs. flying. “A spokesman for the NTSB said Thursday that Knaus had around 325 hours of commercial flight experience but less than 20 hours of flight experience with the type of banner plane that crashed.” -NBC6 Nice young man according to friends.
Does the FAA require hours to gain experience or do they keep the hours low so as to overwhelm the inexperienced? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
@@brentbeacham9691 whatever their reason it’s certainly not gaining the industry better skilled pilots or making younger pilots necessarily better or safer. They probably feel a huge time pressure to make those hours to get that better job. Sad this kid died, he was very young and had a lot of ahead of him.
My first job after my Commercial license was banner towing in Cessna 180 tail dragger. I had no tail dragger experience prior. On one of my flights I had a rocky approach to the banner and actually caught the banner on my main gear. Nothing worse for a young pilot to hear from ATC “what are your intentions”. Fortunately for me this was Toronto Island airport and was able to climb out over Lake Ontario. Ended up landing on a nonactive runway with the banner stuck to the gear. I was ill-prepared for this level of flying. Just a lucky day for me.
We carried a broomstick with a hacksaw blade tape to the end for that very reason 😂, but one time I had the lead rope catch on the left main spindle nut 😂 I had to stay in right turns to bring it back over the drop area
I must admit, I didn't know banner towing was such a dangerous feat. Now I do, and the year is 2023, when we can send information right around the planet in milliseconds, I can't think of a good reason why this practice should continue at all. The record of the company that owned the incident aircraft, on their own, tell me that it just is not worth the trouble, and potential dangers.
At our aero club here in New Zealand the only person who did banner tows was the boss. And he got banned from actually making the banner up when he spelled New Zealand wrong on a banner once 😂
Juan, I agree with you on all points you raised. Not only that, but the fact of the matter is that with the Colgan Air crash, both pilots had well over 1500 hours of flight time. The FO was fatigued, and the captain should never have been allowed to fly at all; he had failed multiple checkrides. Had the captain simply flown the aircraft as intended, the crash would never have happened.
I agree with Juan and everything you're saying except the blanket statement that the Captain should not having been able to fly solely due to having failed checkrides. While working as a CFI I've seen people fail that were top tier talent for reasons that every CFI I've talked to has responded, "Really, he failed them for that?", and I've seen exceptions made for sub-par students by DPEs for X,Y, or Z reason. It's not a great system and holding people accountable for YEARS afterward is a bit of a flaw in the system. Also, let's say he failed his PPL for... VFR visibility requirements. Now, however many hours, ratings, and years later, does that failure really matter? It shouldn't. He has proven through passing a recheck, INS, COMM, maybe CFI, etc, that he knows that material. He failed two check rides while with Calgon Air as well. Those are the ones I'd be cautious about and want to know more about.
The pilot was 28-year-old Mitchell Knaus a US Army veteran and a commercial pilot. He had 325 hours of commercial flight experience but less than 20 hours of flight experience in the plane that crashed.
Excellent post, Juan. A level-headed discussion is indeed necessary in regard to the 1500/ATP requirement for air carriers. Quality training is the key.
I have a bunch of banner tow experience myself, and it looks like the banner is too big and the ambient temperature maybe too high for the size of banner. We only hired high time bush pilots for our banner tow operation.
Good evaluation of the training situation, Juan. As a crop duster, I always hated the reference to us as "low and slow." We gained max airspeed zoom reserve in the field in low ground effect before the pull up just over the obstructions so as not to bleed that important airspeed too much. (Low and fast). Airspeed is life down low. Altitude, which is airspeed according to Wolfgang, has to be traded quickly and trying to save altitude is fatal. Banner tow, because of the banner on a string way back there, starts out low and slow. Very dangerous. I'm not sure about stall from too slow before release of the banner or the startle pitch up upon release. Some tow guys will have to report on that. When a Pawnee pilots emergency dumps 150 gallons of spray too quickly (the gate can be manually moved slowly letting the spray out more slowly) the nose pitches up significantly. The trim is just a spring in the tail attached to a cable going forward to the stick, so that is part of the problem. When the load is gone quickly, wham the nose goes up. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We have to get the nose down regardless. Fear of being near the terrain, which is quickly overcome in Ag, may have contributed to this stall/spin, at least the secondary stall. We need to fly all the way to the crash.
So, for a non flyer like me, what I'm getting is that dumping the banner caused the plane to assume a nose-up attitude, and the pilot may have been too shy of the ground to push the stick over and gain airspeed necessary to avoid/recover from the stall? Looking at this from your perspective, was the stall recoverable from that altitude of he/she had more aggressively pitched down sooner?
@@brendanh8978 I think his issue was that he was on the edge of the flight envelope, and the sudden nose-up put him on the wrong side of the power curve. If he had the experience to anticipate it, he might have pulled it off. Of course, if he had that experience, he might have recognized the situation and dumped the banner sooner.
@@bp-ob8ic "for a non-flyer", buddy. "Flight envelope" means nothing to this gentleman, and so does "power curve". The pilot just dropped the banner too late, and by the time he finally decided to do it, the torque on the plane caused by the propeller pushed it into a spin. He couldn't recover because the stall actually started before the banner was dropped, and wind on the banner had been keeping the plane from spinning. Any more detail than that is more than 99.99999% of people will be able to comprehend without being given a classroom lecture on the physics of flight.
@@brendanh8978 I thing he did recover from the initial stall/spin when the right wing started down. He got the nose down and wings level, but then pulled on the stick and stall/spun again when the left wing dropped out. The airplane cannot stall itself. The critical angle of attack is when the wing stalls, not why. Pilot pulling back on the stick is why it stalls. The pitch up from release and the heavy trim spring may have contributed here. The ground or buildings rush probably is what caused him to stall/spin down low just before we lose sight of him. Even in a bad place, we have to keep flying and put the nose (with rudder) between two things to absorb energy by shearing wings.
I towed banners way back in the day in a Cessna 172. Every flight was an exercise in slow flight, watching as the oil temperature approached the red line. I usually flew at full throttle with my hand near the release knob, and used it instantly when a banner got twisted and airspeed decayed. Banner towing vendors normally include a maximum banner size chart for different airplane types, and that banner looked pretty hefty for a 235hp Pawnee. IMO the ATP certificate could be obtained in fewer hours by employing a certified airline style program as is being used at several carriers and colleges. If the military can train a jet pilot in under 1000 hours, it seems the ATP certificate is a viable target in the 750 hour range in a focused airline training program.
I agree, I think the banner size is a big issue here. Not just weight, but also drag. I looked at it again, and the difference in banner altitude vs the aircraft altitude, it is clear that it wasn't the pilot causing the high angle of attack, it was the banner dragging the the tail down.
@@JohnSmith-zi9or Flying a fighter is FAR more difficult than an airliner. In an airliner you manage the GPS and autopilot and are dual piloted. Fighter’s are single piloted and you’re managing offensive and defensive weapons systems along with navigation while in a high threat environment.
@@JohnSmith-zi9or Flying tactical aircraft has to be second nature, like walking or picking something up. Outside of training, there's no time to think about what you're doing and that also applies to emergencies. As an example, you have at most 10 minutes of EPU fuel in a Viper which means you can't enter a hold and run a checklist for an hour. Yes, I think it's fair to say that flying tactical aircraft (this particularly applies to the single seat community) is at least on par with and sometimes harder than commercial aviation.
@@JohnSmith-zi9or I have 35 years flying and instructing in airliners and am confident that a focused training program would turn out safe airline pilots at 750 hours
I graduated from Broward College AMT school at North Perry and we used to watch them train banner pilots, really incredible. One hit the BK on pines Blvd years prior. They hammer it straight up in heavily modified aircraft.
Pilots name is Mitchell Allen Knaus. US Army veteran. All American kid. Age 28. I am his Father Mike and I came upon your post on RUclips. Mitch knew the job was dangerous, but he wanted those hours. It’s still devastating to us, but he was such a professional while flying. Don’t have final NTSB report yet, but reports had the plane going slow and not climbing. Mitch communicated to the tower that it’s starting to climb and everything was fine. I do believe the altimeter was faulty. He was new to Fl and he just wanted to build his hours to move on to another job.
I see these guys all the time during the summer, and I'm always amazed how slow they're moving. Always did wonder how they picked up those banners... 😁
Witnessed this same type accident in Virginia Beach many years ago. Fortunately the plane fell into a tree in a home back yard with the prop hub stopping about 4 feet from the ground. The pilot only received a few scratches. Very lucky!
I was hired in 2007 at Piedmont Airlines on the Dash 8 with 201 hours with a wet Commercial SEMEL after graduating University of North Dakota with a BBA in Aviation Management. I was the lowest time pilot out of the 25 in my new hire class. I earned all my certificates at UND and I felt the training was excellent. Piedmont at the time was the only regional airline to have an AQP program. It was quite a bit grueling for a new pilot like myself, and with a very high failure rate for Piedmont new hires, it was very intimidating. I felt having gone through all the training at UND and Piedmont initial training, I was adequately prepared to fly in a safe and controlled standardized environment. Looking back, I'm not sure how the heck I did it - I still have training anxiety for every CQ here in 2023 flying the Boeing 757/767 for UPS. I guess this is good anxiety - we want to perform our absolute best and be the safest pilots we can be. The 1500 hour rule didn't solve anything and wouldn't have prevented the Colgan accident as both pilots had well over that requirement. Maybe reduce the minimum requirement to 500 hours and focus on airline style training and standardization at the early flight school level. We already focus more heavily on upset and recovery maneuvers in airline training, which I think is adequate and beneficial. This is not taught at Part 61/141 flight schools enough. Looking back, I wasn't fully confident and comfortable until about 1,000 hours (800 of those flying the Dash 8 all over the Northeast region in bad weather). At 10,000+ hours flying and being at UPS, I'm still learning and forever improving and refining my flying skills. I still make mistakes but am always eager to evaluate them and improve.
incredible career sir! are u truly happy working your job? how bored are u during your career flying? do u feel an inside sense of pride and satisfaction doing what you're doing? or do u ever just feel like 'glorified bus driver' (I know youre not). amidst trying to get my PPL myself to pursue this career myself
I love this comment Sir.❤ I just got my Private and I'm looking to moving up the ladder. I have 150 hrs and this is great advice and motivation. I believe in safety and always want to be at my best in the seat.
Awesome. I, too, believe the 1500 hour rule unnecessary. The airlines will see who has what it takes once they start training new hires. I instructed in college and little bit after, flew 1000 hrs in my first year, and got majorly burned out. I did not choose aviation as my career, but some of my friends, who are phenomenal pilots/instructors and want to make aviation their career, are struggling to find work outside of instructing because of hour requirements. Insurance is insane. But, hey, time is the nature of game in aviation. It's just annoying when you see fantastic guys getting burned out doing 1500 hours of steep turns in a 172 when they could be furthering their career.
Awesome path . As a new pilot myself, I thought all of the stress and anxiousness would go away . But it seems to get worse as experience grows- so much to be aware of at all times- plus staying ahead of aircraft and procedures. Performative stress, it makes sense why pilots go grey faster than most in other professions … even going thru training, I could tell the industry is not really ideal for training airline pilots considering they want 1500 hours in a prop plane- doesn’t really make any sense . Screw the FAA- it’s the airlines who haven’t done enough to figure out a proper solution to their pilot training/funnel system- this is what happens when the Gov tries to regulate and mandate every detail ‘to a T’ - those companies now have to obey a standardized law that doesn’t even make a whole lot of sense…
I had no idea the banner could affect the plane like that. I also didn't know they had to pick them up, I just assumed they took off with it or it is released from the plane once airborne.
When he released the banner the aoa rapidly changed. Hence why he instantly tip stalls at release. Seen it happen before, lost a pilot that way in 2015.
De-monetising content which will educate up and coming pilots is a disgrace considering the amount of trash my son watches on RUclips that is definitely not educative. Excellent video Juan.
@@ToddDunning Decide what? Whether you need to see the Fireball? I was in pilot training in the USAF when a fellow student burned in. YOU DON’T NEED TO SEE THE FIREBALL TO BE EDUCATED 🐓🍭 DeSantis 2024 🗽🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸
I dont understand the point of the 1500 hr rule. I looked at the Colgan air accident. The Captain had 3379 hrs, the F.O. had 2244 hrs. I completed my instrument rating, and had started commercial with 166 hrs when this rule went into effect. I had to quit to support my family. Now at 52 im looking to come back to aviation when I retire from my current career. I hope they lower the hour requirement, but institute pipelines for fo's to fly with experienced captains. The right training is key.
RIP the pilot JB and I pray for those friends and family. Sad state of events JB. You always have the most thoughtful and forward thinking questions for us to mull over. Thanks for your time and resources for bringing us this update. Take care and fly safe. 🤟🏼🖖🏼
Juan is a rare example of an established ATP working at a major who supports lowering the ridiculous 1500 hour requirements. There are so many union pilots trying to protect their huge pay checks by gatekeeping even though they didn't have the 1500 hour requirements themselves. Both pilots in Colgan exceeded 1500 hours considerably.
They might not have had 1500 hr mandate for 121, but they certainly needed thousands more hours by the time they got to a legacy, unlike today's gravy train to the big paychecks.
Perhaps you could explain how "gatekeeping" protects huge paychecks. Supply and demand drive any market. A shortage of pilots drives up wages. Just look at the current wages at the regional carriers that are hemorrhaging pilots. As to not having the 1500 hour rule themselves I can assure you that in the not too distant past all major US airline minimum hiring standards were more than 1500 hours with a turbine requirement. The Colgan FO had a commercial license, 1470 hours of piston time, and 6 hours of actual instrument. She had an additional 774 hours at Colgan. Congress acted because feeders like Colgan wouldn't do it themselves.
I once witnessed a stall/spin accident when a banner towing airplane was picking up the banner. He picked the banner pulling up as usual, but then dropped a wing and crashed after a 180-degree spin entry. The pilot was very experienced at banner towing, he was on the job for many years. I was on final right after him, relatively close (this was standard practice at that airport, as banner-towing aircraft did their pick-up operation on a grass strip next to the paved runway). The tower immediately instructed me to go around and divert to another airport. After I landed, the scene kept replaying in my head, enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. I phoned the other airport ad learned that the pilot survived but was a pretty bad trauma case and had been rushed to the hospital. Fortunately he survived.
"knee jerk reaction" - that sums it up quite well. "We're legislation and we're gonna do something about it, no matter if it makes sense, but the next press conference we'll just say we did everything we could!"
My heart goes out to the family. Yes, traditionally goes to young pilots, inexperienced & eager enough to take the work. My first aviation flying job at 19 years old in 1979 towing banners at Texas Tech football games with a Super Cub. Cub is/was the same frame & engine as the Pawnee. Also flew Pawnees from Lockhaven PA to Lubbock. High & hot, sweaty work. Field elevation was 3200 feet with a density altitude far above that. We didn’t use the flyby pickup. We laid the banner on the taxiway, hooked it up & took off. Luckily we had about 600 miles of flat cotton fields in all directions with which to gain altitude before heading into the city.
@@tanarosegreen6175 completely wrong about that. I used to deliver both from the factory. The frame, landing gear, engine, controls were Al the exact same part numbers. The only difference was high wing vs low wing. Have a significant number of hours in both. They are the same airplane. Note: this was in the early 80’s. I understand the Pawnee now has a different engine. I understand that pilots that don’t have time in both aircraft or aren’t engineers and don’t have any experience in manufacturing won’t be able to wrap their heads around this. I can only say, go fly both. Google is your friend in this situation. The PA-18 and PA-18A for agricultural version were from the same platform. Search "Piper Pawnee Development". From the Wikipedia page "During 1953, Fred Weick was approached by Piper to become a consultant on the agricultural version of the PA-18, the PA-18A, in particular to design and test a distributor for dust and seeds.[1] A few weeks later, Piper sponsored Texas A&M University to design a dedicated agricultural aircraft based on the AG-1 but to use as many PA-18A and PA-22 components as possible. The resulting design, the AG-3, was smaller than the AG-1 and had a steel tube fuselage which was fabric covered.[1] The AG-3 was a single-seat, low-wing monoplane with the wings braced to the fuselage with struts. It had a conventional landing gear with a tailwheel and was powered by a 135 hp engine.[1] The single seat was placed high in the fuselage to give the best visibility and an 800 lb-capacity hopper was fitted in front of the cockpit.[1]
@@tedspradley Your claim that a high-wing tandem seating plane and a low-wing single seat plane have the same frame and landing gear is not plausible. Perhaps your memory is a little off?
Very sound advice Juan regarding younger pilots building time and the type of flying they are doing. By the way, the stall speed on my 1947 Cessna 120 is 49mph! DMMS! Back in the day for me (and probably you) 1,500 hours was the norm. Take care. Great analysis. Condolences to the pilot’s family.
Shame for not empathizing with those who lost family members who entrusted their lives to two ill-equipped and incompetent pilots on that Colgan flight.
@@twolfjaeger9626 if you're that far into training and then give it away over an arbitrary change in legislation, you were not really committed - simple facts. I'm a career pilot, i've made countless sacrifices in life to make it happen. So have most of my colleagues. No one cares . Aviation is not an easy game to play, and usually washes out those who don't really want it.
I have a buddy that used to banner tow. He ended up stopping after he had an incident that could have ended like this, however managed it properly. His engine started running rough/cowl started shaking and he started losing altitude/could not maintain. Pitched plane to maintain speed. He was over a beach and called out to another banner plane to spot if below him was clear (the banner could injure/kill). He got the all clear and dropped the banner. He was then barely holding altitude but was able to limp it to closest airport. It could have ended much worse. Owner was still pissed at him for dropping the banner. The cylinder either started to separate or threw a rod and was shaking violently when he reached the airport. In this video the pilot may have hesitated to drop the banner over people…and waited too long/lost too much altitude as a result. They are also under pressure to not drop the banner both internally and in the case of my friend the owner. My buddy was a newish pilot flying traffic watch and banner tow to make extra money and get hours to get into an airline (exactly this scenario). He eventually made it into some regional and then finally quit and joined the FAA. I know he also earned his CFI… I know he wouldn’t have been taking these types of odd jobs had he been able to get into an airline sooner.
Thanks Juan for raising this issue again with the 1500 hour rule. It's the pilot unions that really lobbied congress for the 1500 hour rule and are the ones who are the biggest barrier to removing it or changing it to something much more reasonable. Even the construction unions have a pipeline of new recruits with apprenticeship programs. No industry can sustain itself over the long term by not having a solid and sustainable pipeline of new recruits.
@@JohnSmith-zi9or 1500 hours flying the pattern won't leave you one bit more prepared for any professional role. Mere flight hours was always a Washington-grade joke of a standard. Or, as someone else put it, it's not 1500 hours, it's 1 hour 1500 times. It does NOTHING to make them better pilots, and arguably makes them worse. It certainly keeps them from building REAL experience in that phase of their career where they can learn best.
@@JohnSmith-zi9or We were talking about "There is absolutely nothing wrong with the 1,500 rule." It doesn't do the job as advertised. That IS a something wrong. It raises the price for new pilots without a corresponding increase in safety. That IS a something wrong. ARGUABLY, by reducing the number of pilots, it increases the workload on the ones we have, thereby reducing safety. That seems like a BIG something wrong. Now, hearing that the 1500-hour rule isn't absolute is quite interesting. It still fails to serve the role it was created for. That's not changing the argument. That's answering it.
It’s an awful rule that’s likely responsible for killing some GA pilots trying to rack up meaningless hours with zero corresponding increase in safety in 121 operations. It also wouldn’t have prevented the accident that inspired it.
In the Hang Gliding community, this would be called a "lockout". It occurs when the glider (or in this case the banner) attains a position or attitude that causes the tow line to affect control of the towing aircraft (or vice versa). In this case, it appears that the banner is low enough to be pulling the aircraft into a severe nose-up AOA. i.e. the aircraft is "hanging on the prop". Likewise, the banner is acting like a "kite tail" and is limiting aircraft yaw, somewhat delaying a spin. It is highly unlikely that the aircraft had sufficient control authority to overcome the effects of the tow line. As soon as the pilot pickled the tow-line, the "kite tail" effect was lost. Unfortunately, the aircraft appears to be so deep into the mushing stall that it lacks the elevator authority to pitch the nose down or rudder authority to maintain yaw control despite pilot input. Too low & too slow. It only takes a few seconds. A low-time pilot may not have had sufficient experience to instinctively know (s)he was locked out until it was too late.
I don’t think this is related to “Lock out”. I’m a former banner tow pilot, glider tow pilot, hang 3 both mountain launch and ground tow. I used to stall my banner tow plane all the time. It doesn’t produce any lockout or overpowering of the tail at all. What would be possible is that with the banner, you could actually fly well below stall speed because between the banner holding you back, and the prop pulling you. Once you release the banner, you are well below stall speed and need altitude to recover flying speed.
@@thomasaltruda I'm confused, excuse my ignorance, but if u were flying BELOW stall speed, wouldn't you.......stall.......and fall out of the sky...at low altitude? what am I missing here? isn't hte banner just a huge source of DRAG, which makes flying below stall speed even worse? from your response, it sounds as if the link I'm missing is that the banner is acting like a kite creating lift......but is that really the case.....? never would have imagined that.
@@KuostA Not a pilot, especially not a banner pilot, but here's how I read it: The stall is as much a control phenomenon as it is a lift phenomenon. By having the 'kite tail' banner, the control element is obviated, and the plane can remain (semi-)stable in the air by depending on the engine's direct thrust and the induced airflow over the wings. (By induced airflow, I mean that directly off the prop, rather than the 'airspeed' airflow from the airplane's motion through the air.) Once the banner was released, the airplane was no longer so aerodynamically stable, and the spin put him right into the ground.
We had a Pawnee go down here in St Petersburg Fl The north perry accident sequence looks simular to the accident at Albert whitted. We found out later on that day the towing cable got caught up in the elevator. The pilot released the banner but couldn’t break the stall from that low and that’s all she wrote.
That incident was very different and from what I know, due to not following procedures. That happened due to how he threw the hook out of the window before he ever picked up a banner. Unfortunate nonetheless.
In my opinion the Pawnee isn’t a great plane for banner towing. Sure it has all the power needed, but the stall characteristics were very dramatic. When I towed it was in a 180hp cub with plenty of mods. In a deep stall sure we’ll get a wing drop but it wasn’t as dramatic as what I’ve seen with the Pawnees. There were times that our climb performance was sketchy and in that scenario I usually would ask to climb in the box and leave the airport at altitude. The banner acts as an anchor and it is very impossible to spin with the banner attached. It’s terrible that this happened. Hopefully the NTSB gets to the bottom of this and explains why he couldn’t climb.
My son-in-law is caught up in the maelstrom of building time for the majors. Not only is it a grueling process, it is hideously expensive if you can't find some means of mitigating the costs with a flying job that pays. His route took him to becoming an instructor pilot, which can be as dangerous as banner towing. He's within 300 hours now of his required 1500, but even after getting the time, you need some of it in turbines, multi-engine time and the all important ATP rating. all of which is on his dime.
If he hasn't done his written's for ATP yet then he needs to do them asap! My son's flight instructor went thru this same sh$t a few years ago. It was hell. He flew beech twins for a while as SIC. Came back and instructed a little longer then Finally ended up at Southwest. This was right before covid. If he doesn't have his commercial yet (many cfi's don't), then he must do that as well.
@Dryan I want to correct some misinformation. To get a CFI certificate, you first have to complete your commercial pilot certificate. To the original commenter, tell your son-in-law not to worry about getting turbine time or his ATP certificate. He can get hired at a regional airline as soon as he gets 1500 hours -- I would advise him to apply even sooner -- and he will get his ATP certificate along with plenty of turbine time.
To build time for the airlines many years ago, I instructed, towed banners, flew sightseeing tours, and hauled cancelled checks for the banks. Instructing is nowhere near as risky as towing. All of it was fun.
If he was a time-builder, he was also likely reluctant to dump the banner, even if his chief pilot continuously stressed that as the first thing to do. He waited too long, and ran out of options.
Pawnees with a fuselage tank had a distressing tendency to burst into flames in a crash. I didn't know that at the time I flew them. I agree, towing banners is a fraught activity for anyone, but especially for a low time pilot. That banner looked huge. RIP, young fellow.
You are very correct because the PA25 - A-B-C Models had the fuselage Fuel Tank located between the hopper and the Engine.[Just AFT of the hot engine] The PA25-D Model had the fuel tanks moved to the wings and also the Lycoming IO 540 260 HP Engine. A young PA25 Pawnee AG Pilot once told me that his biggest fear was not crashing and dying but crashing and getting burned alive in the Pawnee. This pilot went on to fly AG for many decades in AG CATS - Radial and Turbine Powered.
Surely the difference between small hour builders are more difficult to fly than right seat in a newer Airbus. Affordable training is the key to resolving the shortage and it’s nice to see the airlines stepping up, regardless of their motivation. It will all work out in a perfect world. 😟
Way before 2010 pilots were towing banners, spotting fish, patrolling power and pipelines, instructing, towing gliders, flying jumpers, flying VFR/IFR 135, etc etc to build time at starvation wages. I was one of them. This didn't start with Colgan. The only difference is there were few jobs for 1500 hour pilots, much less 250 hour pilots back in the day, and airlines were not hiring like they do today. Career stagnation was rampant. We heard a lot of BS in the 80s and 90s and 00s about a "coming pilot shortage", but there wasn't one until recently. That is not to say that your points about the legislation are incorrect, only that this isn't a new phenomenon. The thing about Colgan was fatigue and lack of stick and rudder skills---the latter honed very well with all the aforementioned jobs....these skills are only diminishing in the community as automation takes a larger and larger piece of the workload.
Juan’s take is an interesting opinion but “darrellhay” view is closer to reality. Banner towing is definitely a speciality but the pilots who get through it learn a lot more than they would by flying a flight director! Pilots have been getting experience this way for generations, sadly it doesn’t work out for everyone. MUCH RESPECT for the Banner towers!
I can tell you all about “airlines not hiring”. Returning from two years in Vietnam and Thailand with over 200 combat missions, 2000+ hrs and multi-jet time, there were no jobs for me. Many applications later I decided I had to move on and go into civilian business. It worked out successfully and I have my own company, but the inability to utilize a year of USAF training and four more years of daily flight operations was such a waste when you think about the quality of the experience.
I appreciate this explanation about the state of aviation some decades ago. I was lied to by a Navy recruiter, and as a result, did not enter into Naval Aviation, even though it was my absolute DREAM career upon college graduation. As I hear stories like this, I'm somewhat relieved it didn't work out for me, as it must be painful to build military flight hours like this and not be able to transition into civilian aviation. I graduated in '82, so I feel pretty sure I would have suffered the same fate in that timeframe and would have stories not unlike @darrellhay now that I'm old and gray. THANKS
Nope! "Government" didn't pass the 1,500 hour rule, politicians in Congress did. That's a big diff! Besides, I like seeing a little bit of a gray hairline on the air carrier pilots I ride behind.
I thought it was pretty well established that it was a reaction post 2008 to an oversupply of pilots, pushed largely by unions to protect their members
Colgan was due to fatigue, not pilot inexperience. But it was used to justify the increase in required hours. Last time a push was made to reduce it, I know Sully came out against it, I think the pilot unions did too.
Incompetence was a key factor if not THE root cause in the Colgan accident. The captain had a history of failed checkrides prior to Colgan. He had four FAA certificate disapprovals. Three occurred BEFORE he was hired at Colgan and included disapproval for his private pilot instrument, his commercial pilot initial and his commercial multi-engine land. If I'm not mistaken he also failed his ATP captain upgrade. And according to publicly released documents, he consistently failed the stall recovery task. Even if he was fully rested going into Buffalo, he was likely (still) not proficient in stall recovery.
@@privateer0561 Experience != Competence. Those pilots had well over 1500 hours...Didn't help them one bit...No amount of fatigue would cause me to pitch up in a stall AND/OR retract the flaps.
Retired AA 777 here also(DFW) I teach the CTP course for ATP along with many retired AA and other active airline pilots. The CTP course is good introduction to airline style concepts and general CRM we use everyday. Restricted ATP will allow prospective pilots to acquire their ATP certificate with less than 1500 hours. (with restrictions) I say everyday that I wish this introduction was around when I started because of the good information the course provides to very low time students. The restricted ATP is an alternative to the hard 1500 hour pitfall a lot of students encounter as you indicated. I do agree with you assessment of the danger we put ourselves in at a very vulnerable stage of our careers. Unless you are military, this is a very hard senero to avoid. Just my 2c. And don't forget --------------- positive rate ------- gear up!
I think the most ridiculous requirement set forth after Colgan was that you have to have to have 10-12 hours in a flight simulator of an aircraft of over 50,000 pounds prior to taking the ATP written!!! That has zip to do with taking a written. I agree with you on your assessment on this one 100 percent.
The 1500 hour mandate to apply seems stupid, but also keep in mind that the practical limitations have been higher when the market was tighter for flying jobs. I didn’t get my first regional interview until I had almost 3,500 hours back in the 90s when airlines had 700-1000 applicants for every pilot position (according to one chief pilot I spoke to). Now that the market has changed so drastically, I agree that the pipeline programs are a better way to go, but I’m saying this time-building approach isn’t new. I built time as a flight instructor, banner pilot, and flying traffic reporters. It’s largely useless time, but it’s not new.
@Dryan I would agree. 1000 hours minimum, none of this R-ATP, 1000 hours, 750 hours military, 141 school, nonsense. It should be a straight-up 1000 hours total time and not a hour less.
I believe with colgan all the pilots involved had more than 1500 hours so this was just another case of congress wanting to “do something” vs trying to fix the real problem
If banner flying is considered by you to be dangerous and as you stated, has a relatively long record of accidents, should we not allow this type of flying to take place just to advertise an event or the name of a politician. The lives of pilots and people on the ground are certainly more important than a banner.
I could not agree more. I am considering a transition out of my current career in health care back to aviation. I have 1800 hours, only 250 fixed wing. While not high time pilot by any means, I have good solid experience in a complex aircraft (MH-65, USCG). I also have a son looking to aviation as a career. I would want to see a shift away from raw hours towards quality & type of training.
SkyWest Airlines would be interested in you. They value military helicopter time. Knock-out the commercial multiengine rating comfortably within 60 to 90 days, fly all glass cockpit from the start, get instrument current again and you would be back up to speed and airline ready in no time!
I would not be surprised if the release of the banner caused the spin entry. The banner is stabilizing the plane on yaw. He probably was in a deep stall, and the banner prevented a spin. Nose down before the release might have prevented the spin.
@Austin O2 I would expect so. But the spin was right after the release and not before. If you consider a deep stall (high pitch, high decend rate but stable) out of control the I would agree with you
You're assuming that he could have pushed the nose down. That banner is heavy and it's attached with a long lever arm relative to the CG of the aircraft, if your airspeed has already decayed then the weight of the banner will drag your tail down and no amount of control input will help.
@TissuePaper I am actually not assuming that he has enoght control authority. It is very well possible that you are right. In that case there was no way out for the poor guy.
Amen to what you said about transitioning these young low time pilots into the right seat immediately after getting their Commercial Instrument ratings. I was an advocate for that since I had to drop out after accomplishing those ratings because I needed to make a living and ran out of money, to keep training or attempt to take on these kinds of dangerous jobs to build time. I was in debt, newlywed and a child on the way back in 2005. My dreams of becoming a full-time airline pilot went down the drain because of the 1,500 hr. requirement. I hope all the best to the new pilots who will be able to live that dream as congress and legislation need to step aside and use common sense why we have a huge pilot shortage problem. The rest of the world is on the right track to continue getting that young pilot with low hours immediately in the right seat while they still have interest and up to date on the regs and bring safety conscious just after their check ride. Pilots trying to build that time to 1,500 become laxed and dangerous because they want to speed up the process to get to the airlines, and they finally get in and bring their laxed laziness to the right seat. I know! Friends who went on to the airlines don't do their checklist like they are supposed to. Good Luck to all of those trying to follow their dream and live to the age of retirement to enjoy telling their kids and Grandkids about their career as an airline pilot.😊
Great post, Juan. I lived in the Florida panhandle when I was an active duty C130 pilot flying out of Hurlburt Field. The beaches there were perfect for these banner tows and they were everywhere up and down the beaches. The point I'd like to make here is that the size of these banners got bigger and bigger and bigger as the years passed. Along with larger banners comes more drag and a lower margin of safety. Perhaps the FAA/NTSB should make some recommended/mandatory changes regarding the size of these banners?
I'm a current flight student potentially considering an airline career and the 1500hr rule is one of the huge obstacles. I understand the need, neccesity, and want for experianced pilots in the flightdeck but I don't see how a generic and seemingly picked out of thin air number accomplishes the intended objectives. I would think a structured training program that takes you all the way up until you're ready to fly the big jets like the rest of the world is plenty adequite but alas we aren't the ones to make the rules.
The military flight hours are FAR lower. However, there are a multitude of aptitude test’s proving capabilities. These numbers aren’t pulled out of thin air. The data shows that anyone under 2000 hours has a much greater chance of mishaps.
Both the Colgan air pilots had over 2,000 hours TT at the time of the accident. Focusing on being the best and safest pilot you can be every minute you’re up there, next to training is the next biggest factor to conducting a safe flight.
Juan is the person to evaluate the incorrectness of the present training and hours after training situation for airline pilot preparation. I went very young training to Commercial in airplanes, Army helicopters RVN and National Guard, crop dusting in airplanes, and pipeline patrol when old. My concern is that you survive, Connor, both training in a 172 as if it were a powerful jet and the total lack of "Stick and Rudder" training out of that very good flying text we used before PTS and then ACS. They are hanging you out to dry at Vx or Vy as appropriate in the 172 or Cherokee or Cirrus. On long runways in light piston airplanes, leaving thousands of feet of unused low ground effect energy get students killed when crap you need it (150 hp is not a lot) or the engine quits. Vx pitch attitude, especially, but also Vy pitch attitude at three seconds after startle engine failure is not a safe pitch attitude and nowhere near Vx or Vy airspeed. They will teach you to pull back on the stick to maintain altitude in the pattern (which you will not use in the jet) no matter what and limit your bank to prevent stall rather than use the design safety feature of the nose going down (dynamic neutral stability.) That is dangerous in an environment where you can neither recover from inadvertent stall nor do you have unlimited horizontal space available. Yes you might have to really turn some time some place. Have they taught you to lead rudder? If not, that is why the nose goes the wrong way just a bit in every turn. This is problematic on short final where you should never move the yoke like a steering wheel coordinated or not. You don't want to turn. Use the anti-turn control, the rudder only, to yaw correctly rather than incorrectly (wing wagging.) Sorry for the rant Juan. Juan is correct. Airline pilots, like military pilots, should transition quickly to the kind of aircraft they will be flying.
My ex girl friends dad would tow banners behind his j3 cub. We also took his hot air balloon to Nevada city/grass valley to a group home. It was called North Star. A halfway house/home for kids. Great people worked there to support the kids.
Building hours was i believe the reason the young woman who hit the tower on approach in the mid west carrying cargo was killed, flying in bad weather just to build hours... this is an issue that needs looked at.
Was towing a billboard with a Scout over Chicago on a warm day with strong thermals. Hit a wide stretch of descending air and could not climb out of it. Headed for the shore hoping for smooth air there. Backup plan was to drop the billboard on Grant Park but it was crowded. Finally flew out of it and regained altitude. Close call but I kept flying speed the whole time. Stayed on the shoreline for the rest of the day.
I saw a banner tow do a forced landing at an event at Road Atlanta racetrack . Late 70s early 80s. I was watching the plane and I heard the engine sputter and lose power. Fortunately there was room on the infield for him to land. He nicked up a wingtip but nothing more. I went over and talked to the pilot. He didn’t switch tanks when he should have and ran the carb out of gas. If there would have been a larger crowd there would have been no where to land.
There was a audio clip out where the pilot and controller were talking prior to and the pilot was unable to maintain altitude and was trying to locate an area to release the banner. I don’t believe the pilot ever mentioned he was in an emergency to the controller even though the controller was prompting him to say so. Then shortly after, Comms were lost. RIP.
As Juan said comercial flying likely does not require 1500 hours to start. The extremely dangerous low and slow jobs such as banner towing and crop dusting probably do.
I agree, 1500 is crazy. And how many young talented pilots do we lose after 900-1000 hours, because they give up for whatever reason trying to get to 1500.
The US 1500 hour rule simply means that pilots have to do some flying to get to 1500 hours BUT none of them get airliner experience. the rest of the world seems to work well with pilots needing 250 hours and CPL to move into P2 roles. Too many people cannot afford to pay for 1500 hours so their real logbook experience at 1500 hours could well be instructing basic PPL skills for the money. I suspect that most CPLs have lost all their instrument flying skills simply because they can't practice them as a PPL instructor in the right seat.
You make sense Juan. Imagine any other training program where the newly minted graduate has to spend 1500 hrs practicing ALONE before they can continue. That is crazy.
Towing a banner requires that the pilot realizes that not only the drag is higher due to the significantly larger parasite drag of the fluttering banner but that the minimum drag speed is shifted to lower speeds, where the induced drag is also higher. that requires a special briefing to understand the danger involved.
My first flying job was a 152 with a lighted sign hung beneath the wings from wingtip to wingtip. The words of the ad scrolled across the sign in a continuous loop. At night, of course, and not much above stall speed with some flaps down. Can't remember how much flaps. Probably first notch. And always over congested areas. You are right. Probably not the best job for a newly minted Commercial pilot with a few hundred hours.
To your points, Juan, the young man reportedly had 325 hours and about 13 in the Pawnee. Why we subject the least experienced to the most difficult flying is beyond me. Not only are the requirements short sighted, what we also know from neuroscience and professionalization studies proves your point: when we professionalize the work, such as via ab initio training, standards and competencies increase. A safer and better outcome for all. On that same point, I never understood as a CFI with 250 hours why I was actually qualified to teach anyone how to fly, even though by law and employment status I could, and did.
I witnessed something similar over Cape Cod several years ago. I looked up to see a biplane towing a banner. It almost looked like the biplane was standing still. It wasn't making any forward progress. There must have been a very strong headwind for him to be able to maintain altitude. Within moments, he released the banner. He had plenty of altitude in order to recover. It looked pretty damn scary. I hope they get paid well for taking that risk!
We’ve got a hangar right there by the banner pickup spot. I got to 370 hours last week - not doing banner work but renting a 172 and just flying around - and really, without have some awesome friends who are helping my learn and advance, the time building thing would just be a burning cash activity.
Great take. The 1500 hour rule does little to make pilots any better or safer in the long run. It really decentivises pilots and airlines as airlines can’t effectively fill seats and potential pilots get burned out chasing the 1500 hours needed to even be looked at. Also the rising cost of getting into flying puts a lot of would be pilots off or prevents them from finishing flight training.
absolute rubbish. 1500 hours is just a blip in a pilots career. Flying and flying training has always been prohibitively expensive - who do you suggest picks up the costs if it isn't the person wanting to make a move into that field? Deal with it
WSVN-TV Video Link: ruclips.net/video/044C8DVuxbM/видео.html
This is gonna get a bit emotional... I was good friends with the young man who was flying that aircraft and his Mother who I worked with. Mitchell was the kind of kid every parent wished their child would be. He was smart, kind and generous and very hard working. He did a stint in the army and used his GI Bill to start flying. He earned all his "tickets", (even multiengine seaplane), and was so excited to start his first flying job. It sounded to me like he was trying to drop the banner. But as was said, upon the release, the banner was acting like the tail of a kite to keep the plane straight and it seems, that was the end. Learn from this but please don't criticize him. I don't know what kind of instruction he got at the company but he was such a fine young man and would even teach me a thing or two. His mother and father are absolutely crushed. I took him to dinner when he called me and asked if I was at Torrance airport. He flew up from French Valley to get the last hours necessary for the job. I was so proud he was going to get to do what I never did. Fly with the angels Mitchell.
My sincere condolences to you and his family 🙏
I was about to forward this video to you, Peter, when I spotted your comment.
My deepest sympathies on the loss of this young man.
Thank you for sharing this. Truly.
I mean no disrespect to the young man but I want you to know that crash critique is the BEST tool we have to stop it happening in the future. The pilot made several mistakes in this flight that resulted in his death and learning from those mistakes is the best thing that make his death not be in vain. My apologies to you and his family, he sounds like a great kid!
I towed banners for years in a Pawnee. Usually banner accidents are in the pick up phase or are related to engine stoppage during the flight at low altitude. If you are at the stall and release the banner, there is usually a big yaw movement because the banner has been counter acting the various prop forces and is suddenly released. Banners are towed at very slow speeds and low altitudes. As soon as you start loosing altitude and power isn’t solving it, you gotta dump the banner. Looks like he waited until he was actually stalling to release causing the spin.
Thanks for sharing
We need a zoom with you, Juan and Dan on this one.
That banner was way too big.
How many years have you flown banners?
Very good point about the sudden yaw forces on loosing the drag of the banner (high power, low speed). The aeroplane departs in an incipient spin to the right immediately after releasing the banner indicating he may have been pushing a lot of right rudder to keep it flying straight at high power and low speed with the banner on.
I towed banners in Florida for 4years and 2300 hours. I never planned on going to the airlines. I was doing it for fun. I had 3 acquaintances crash on banner pickup. I flew all of our big banners At between 55-60 mph. At 62 miles per hour the banner would fly sideways, and people couldn’t read it. If you fly slower the banner would droop, and you we’re getting close to stall speed.
It is like anything else in aviation, if you do it right, you get to live, if not, it’s unforgiving.
Man you have ballssss..
@@emergencylowmaneuvering7350 My instructor was an airshow pilot and back country pilot. I didn’t know any different. My instructor drilled into me to keep the wing flying at all cost. From watching all of the crashes I see, I may have just been young, dumb and Lucky.
@@Av8or7 What did you do after banning ?
@@emergencylowmaneuvering7350 I spent the last 32 years as chief engineer for a TV station in Fl.
Maybe we need new rnd in banner construction?
That was a huge banner that I reckon was producing a huge amount of drag. In the video you can see it flopping around just before the pilot jettisons it. But too late. That poor pilot was a human being and my heart goes out to him and his family. I hope he soars in heaven now. Mahalo Juan.
Agreed. Very tragic. Rest in peace for the pilot and prayers for his family.
Our family lost a new addition in the 60s from a banner towing accident. Mac McDermott had been married to my cousin just a few months when he was flying banners over a Vikings game. One of the banners fouled as it was being picked up, and in spite of releasing it, he was unable to recover, and crashed his Super Cub in a stall/spin. So sad. This accident brought those memories back. Prayers for the family of this young man.
Towed banners last year as a low time pilot. I’m not sure increased flight time would necessarily mean more safety. The type of flying most of the population does would never prepare to handle that type of flying. Only through training and experience towing banners would you get proficient. The risk involved is unfortunately part of the job. I will say I loved every minute, good and bad.
I gave up my flying ambitions shortly after receiving my commercial certificate.
My friend was flying cargo part time to build hours and he died when his twin engine aircraft lost an engine at low altitude. The MX department wrote up that the engine needed to be replaced before the accident and the company kept it flying. Ironically the news reported that they managed to extract the checks he was flying from the wreckage and deliver them safely.
I flew skydivers for a short time (for free) and it was a constant tension between doing what the skydivers wanted (FAA rules meant nothing to them) and following the rules to preserve my certificate. My fellow pilot/friend working for the same outfit had a skydiver jump out of his plane and died when the chute malfunctioned. I left that $0/hour job when I had a parachute deploy prematurely and almost rip the tail off the plane I was flying.
I remember during my commercial pilot training still only having my private pilot certificate that more senior pilots would mention that being new to the commercial aviation means you would likely not know anyone who has been involved in an accident or fatality. Soon enough they said that will change. I was shocked at how quickly that became a reality. Once on the "inside" you would find out that people or people related to people you know died in aircraft accidents at an alarming rate.
This was back in the early 2000's and flying jobs were very scarce and the pay was terrible. Granted that was 20 years ago so maybe things are better but I just couldn't accept the risk and took a different career path.
FWIW, I worked in a call center providing internal support for a Point-of-Sales provider for about a decade. We had about 500 people who worked the floor over three shifts each day. I personally knew about a half dozen people who died, especially call managers. At least three, maybe four call managers had heart attacks, some of them right there on the call center floor. I suppose that any time you work with a group of a thousand people for several years, you are going to know several who die. However, I recently read the words of a former astronaut, who commented that flying is inherently risky; you either accept those risks, or you get out.
"The harsh reality is you’re seven times more likely to die in a GA aircraft than in a car, per mile; 3.5 times more if measured per hour, according to NTSB 2011 statistics. “The idea of flying being safe came from the airlines because they have a phenomenal safety record,” says [John} King. “But telling students that GA flying is safe is doing them a disservice."
www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/risky-business/
I had no idea how those banners were picked up until now. Living near the lakefront in Chicago we see those banner planes all summer long. On windy days it seems that they have barely enough engine power to make any ground speed when flying upwind. It always struck me as dangerous and now I know why. Thanks, Juan, for helping us non-pilots better understand the risks and for advocating for better ways to do things.
Same here. I thought they were unfurled.
We fly as slow as possible. A lot of the banner planes you see are intentionally flying as slow as possible. Both so people on the ground have time to read and also they cost many thousands of dollars to print and make so ripping them up doing 100mph is not such a good idea. There is definitely more power, but it is not used other than to pick it up and climb.
I watch a banner tower frequently here at a local airport. It's basically a dive bombing mission to put the hook on the ground at exactly the right point and then go nose up big time to pull it off the ground. It is a real thing to watch and I can imagine takes a lot more than a couple of hours of training to pull off repeatedly. Sometimes he misses - but usually by the third attempt he gets it and goes flying around Atlanta. (non-pilot also).
Sad event, hats off to those banner tow pilots.
My son has flown w arial banner for about two years or more now. He started there in Hollywood then transferred to Tampa location. Reading all of the above comments is exactly what he says about flying close to stall speed ect. As a mom of an only child (28 yo as well) it’s scary. This is the third fatality since he began working with arial banner tow. God be with that poor family.
I was at this airport at the time of this accident. The winds were coming from the west and we were using runways 28L and 28R. ATC advised the pawny of low altitude at 600 feet. Pilot told ATC everything was fine...
Wow!
Do you have any idea what the wind velocity was?
He sure did! He was trying to release the banner near a lake? Then at 400 ft Comms was lost. RIP
@@blancolirio When we have a banner behind us we have to use much more nose up trim to maintain a certain AofA since the banner is behind us and essentially pulling the tail of the plane back. To maintain slow flight it takes much more back pressure/trim. When the banner is released you have to be actively or be ready to be pushing forward on the stick to prevent the nose from shooting up. We also have a LOT of right rudder in. Same thing applies. When the banner is released the rudder becomes much more effective since the banner is not pulling back on the plane, which I believe explains the initial right wing drop. Winds were out of the west so his ground speed is with a tailwind.... No way his ground speed should have been that low. Behind the power curve/high Aoa/low alititude is a dangerous place to be. Interested to see what the NTSB says.
@@joncronk9642 I’ve towed glider’s but never banner’s. I’m curious why you need up trim and not down trim. In my mind the banner is pulling the tail down and the nose up. But obviously that’s not correct.
Very sad. 28 yr old pilot with 325 hrs. flying. “A spokesman for the NTSB said Thursday that Knaus had around 325 hours of commercial flight experience but less than 20 hours of flight experience with the type of banner plane that crashed.” -NBC6 Nice young man according to friends.
no old arrogant pilots
@@lolbots Plenty of accident reports going against that statement. You are only as good as you last flight, nothing to do with age.
Does the FAA require hours to gain experience or do they keep the hours low so as to overwhelm the inexperienced? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
@@brentbeacham9691 whatever their reason it’s certainly not gaining the industry better skilled pilots or making younger pilots necessarily better or safer. They probably feel a huge time pressure to make those hours to get that better job. Sad this kid died, he was very young and had a lot of ahead of him.
My first job after my Commercial license was banner towing in Cessna 180 tail dragger. I had no tail dragger experience prior. On one of my flights I had a rocky approach to the banner and actually caught the banner on my main gear. Nothing worse for a young pilot to hear from ATC “what are your intentions”. Fortunately for me this was Toronto Island airport and was able to climb out over Lake Ontario. Ended up landing on a nonactive runway with the banner stuck to the gear. I was ill-prepared for this level of flying. Just a lucky day for me.
We carried a broomstick with a hacksaw blade tape to the end for that very reason 😂, but one time I had the lead rope catch on the left main spindle nut 😂 I had to stay in right turns to bring it back over the drop area
I must admit, I didn't know banner towing was such a dangerous feat. Now I do, and the year is 2023, when we can send information right around the planet in milliseconds, I can't think of a good reason why this practice should continue at all. The record of the company that owned the incident aircraft, on their own, tell me that it just is not worth the trouble, and potential dangers.
At our aero club here in New Zealand the only person who did banner tows was the boss. And he got banned from actually making the banner up when he spelled New Zealand wrong on a banner once 😂
Juan, I agree with you on all points you raised. Not only that, but the fact of the matter is that with the Colgan Air crash, both pilots had well over 1500 hours of flight time. The FO was fatigued, and the captain should never have been allowed to fly at all; he had failed multiple checkrides. Had the captain simply flown the aircraft as intended, the crash would never have happened.
I agree with Juan and everything you're saying except the blanket statement that the Captain should not having been able to fly solely due to having failed checkrides. While working as a CFI I've seen people fail that were top tier talent for reasons that every CFI I've talked to has responded, "Really, he failed them for that?", and I've seen exceptions made for sub-par students by DPEs for X,Y, or Z reason. It's not a great system and holding people accountable for YEARS afterward is a bit of a flaw in the system.
Also, let's say he failed his PPL for... VFR visibility requirements. Now, however many hours, ratings, and years later, does that failure really matter? It shouldn't. He has proven through passing a recheck, INS, COMM, maybe CFI, etc, that he knows that material.
He failed two check rides while with Calgon Air as well. Those are the ones I'd be cautious about and want to know more about.
The pilot was 28-year-old Mitchell Knaus a US Army veteran and a commercial pilot. He had 325 hours of commercial flight experience but less than 20 hours of flight experience in the plane that crashed.
I think it was 325 hours total time. He was very new.
Damn, 20 hours and he was already banner towing solo? I’m 160 hours total and I’m still nervous just skipping around in a slower model Cessna
RiP Mitch.
"less than 20 hours of flight experience in the plane that crashed."
For such a tricky operation? That's insane. It shouldn't be allowed.
Excellent post, Juan. A level-headed discussion is indeed necessary in regard to the 1500/ATP requirement for air carriers. Quality training is the key.
I have a bunch of banner tow experience myself, and it looks like the banner is too big and the ambient temperature maybe too high for the size of banner. We only hired high time bush pilots for our banner tow operation.
Good evaluation of the training situation, Juan. As a crop duster, I always hated the reference to us as "low and slow." We gained max airspeed zoom reserve in the field in low ground effect before the pull up just over the obstructions so as not to bleed that important airspeed too much. (Low and fast). Airspeed is life down low. Altitude, which is airspeed according to Wolfgang, has to be traded quickly and trying to save altitude is fatal. Banner tow, because of the banner on a string way back there, starts out low and slow. Very dangerous. I'm not sure about stall from too slow before release of the banner or the startle pitch up upon release. Some tow guys will have to report on that. When a Pawnee pilots emergency dumps 150 gallons of spray too quickly (the gate can be manually moved slowly letting the spray out more slowly) the nose pitches up significantly. The trim is just a spring in the tail attached to a cable going forward to the stick, so that is part of the problem. When the load is gone quickly, wham the nose goes up. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We have to get the nose down regardless. Fear of being near the terrain, which is quickly overcome in Ag, may have contributed to this stall/spin, at least the secondary stall. We need to fly all the way to the crash.
So, for a non flyer like me, what I'm getting is that dumping the banner caused the plane to assume a nose-up attitude, and the pilot may have been too shy of the ground to push the stick over and gain airspeed necessary to avoid/recover from the stall? Looking at this from your perspective, was the stall recoverable from that altitude of he/she had more aggressively pitched down sooner?
@@brendanh8978 I think his issue was that he was on the edge of the flight envelope, and the sudden nose-up put him on the wrong side of the power curve. If he had the experience to anticipate it, he might have pulled it off. Of course, if he had that experience, he might have recognized the situation and dumped the banner sooner.
@@bp-ob8ic "for a non-flyer", buddy. "Flight envelope" means nothing to this gentleman, and so does "power curve". The pilot just dropped the banner too late, and by the time he finally decided to do it, the torque on the plane caused by the propeller pushed it into a spin. He couldn't recover because the stall actually started before the banner was dropped, and wind on the banner had been keeping the plane from spinning. Any more detail than that is more than 99.99999% of people will be able to comprehend without being given a classroom lecture on the physics of flight.
Sad situation...life lost. Juan, what is your opinion of AQP?
@@brendanh8978 I thing he did recover from the initial stall/spin when the right wing started down. He got the nose down and wings level, but then pulled on the stick and stall/spun again when the left wing dropped out. The airplane cannot stall itself. The critical angle of attack is when the wing stalls, not why. Pilot pulling back on the stick is why it stalls. The pitch up from release and the heavy trim spring may have contributed here.
The ground or buildings rush probably is what caused him to stall/spin down low just before we lose sight of him. Even in a bad place, we have to keep flying and put the nose (with rudder) between two things to absorb energy by shearing wings.
I towed banners way back in the day in a Cessna 172. Every flight was an exercise in slow flight, watching as the oil temperature approached the red line. I usually flew at full throttle with my hand near the release knob, and used it instantly when a banner got twisted and airspeed decayed.
Banner towing vendors normally include a maximum banner size chart for different airplane types, and that banner looked pretty hefty for a 235hp Pawnee.
IMO the ATP certificate could be obtained in fewer hours by employing a certified airline style program as is being used at several carriers and colleges. If the military can train a jet pilot in under 1000 hours, it seems the ATP certificate is a viable target in the 750 hour range in a focused airline training program.
I agree, I think the banner size is a big issue here. Not just weight, but also drag. I looked at it again, and the difference in banner altitude vs the aircraft altitude, it is clear that it wasn't the pilot causing the high angle of attack, it was the banner dragging the the tail down.
750 is the sweet spot for ATP-R
@@JohnSmith-zi9or Flying a fighter is FAR more difficult than an airliner. In an airliner you manage the GPS and autopilot and are dual piloted. Fighter’s are single piloted and you’re managing offensive and defensive weapons systems along with navigation while in a high threat environment.
@@JohnSmith-zi9or Flying tactical aircraft has to be second nature, like walking or picking something up. Outside of training, there's no time to think about what you're doing and that also applies to emergencies. As an example, you have at most 10 minutes of EPU fuel in a Viper which means you can't enter a hold and run a checklist for an hour. Yes, I think it's fair to say that flying tactical aircraft (this particularly applies to the single seat community) is at least on par with and sometimes harder than commercial aviation.
@@JohnSmith-zi9or I have 35 years flying and instructing in airliners and am confident that a focused training program would turn out safe airline pilots at 750 hours
I graduated from Broward College AMT school at North Perry and we used to watch them train banner pilots, really incredible. One hit the BK on pines Blvd years prior. They hammer it straight up in heavily modified aircraft.
Pilots name is Mitchell Allen Knaus. US Army veteran. All American kid. Age 28. I am his Father Mike and I came upon your post on RUclips. Mitch knew the job was dangerous, but he wanted those hours. It’s still devastating to us, but he was such a professional while flying. Don’t have final NTSB report yet, but reports had the plane going slow and not climbing. Mitch communicated to the tower that it’s starting to climb and everything was fine. I do believe the altimeter was faulty. He was new to Fl and he just wanted to build his hours to move on to another job.
I see these guys all the time during the summer, and I'm always amazed how slow they're moving.
Always did wonder how they picked up those banners... 😁
Graduated from the BCC South campus, loved watching them on lunch with old PW radials screaming.
Witnessed this same type accident in Virginia Beach many years ago. Fortunately the plane fell into a tree in a home back yard with the prop hub stopping about 4 feet from the ground. The pilot only received a few scratches. Very lucky!
EAL, Steve?
@@davef.2329 Sorry. Spent many hours on EAL, but as a passenger.
wow.
I was hired in 2007 at Piedmont Airlines on the Dash 8 with 201 hours with a wet Commercial SEMEL after graduating University of North Dakota with a BBA in Aviation Management. I was the lowest time pilot out of the 25 in my new hire class. I earned all my certificates at UND and I felt the training was excellent. Piedmont at the time was the only regional airline to have an AQP program. It was quite a bit grueling for a new pilot like myself, and with a very high failure rate for Piedmont new hires, it was very intimidating. I felt having gone through all the training at UND and Piedmont initial training, I was adequately prepared to fly in a safe and controlled standardized environment. Looking back, I'm not sure how the heck I did it - I still have training anxiety for every CQ here in 2023 flying the Boeing 757/767 for UPS. I guess this is good anxiety - we want to perform our absolute best and be the safest pilots we can be. The 1500 hour rule didn't solve anything and wouldn't have prevented the Colgan accident as both pilots had well over that requirement. Maybe reduce the minimum requirement to 500 hours and focus on airline style training and standardization at the early flight school level. We already focus more heavily on upset and recovery maneuvers in airline training, which I think is adequate and beneficial. This is not taught at Part 61/141 flight schools enough. Looking back, I wasn't fully confident and comfortable until about 1,000 hours (800 of those flying the Dash 8 all over the Northeast region in bad weather). At 10,000+ hours flying and being at UPS, I'm still learning and forever improving and refining my flying skills. I still make mistakes but am always eager to evaluate them and improve.
incredible career sir! are u truly happy working your job? how bored are u during your career flying? do u feel an inside sense of pride and satisfaction doing what you're doing? or do u ever just feel like 'glorified bus driver' (I know youre not). amidst trying to get my PPL myself to pursue this career myself
I love this comment Sir.❤ I just got my Private and I'm looking to moving up the ladder. I have 150 hrs and this is great advice and motivation. I believe in safety and always want to be at my best in the seat.
This comment needs to be pinned
Awesome. I, too, believe the 1500 hour rule unnecessary. The airlines will see who has what it takes once they start training new hires. I instructed in college and little bit after, flew 1000 hrs in my first year, and got majorly burned out. I did not choose aviation as my career, but some of my friends, who are phenomenal pilots/instructors and want to make aviation their career, are struggling to find work outside of instructing because of hour requirements. Insurance is insane. But, hey, time is the nature of game in aviation. It's just annoying when you see fantastic guys getting burned out doing 1500 hours of steep turns in a 172 when they could be furthering their career.
Awesome path . As a new pilot myself, I thought all of the stress and anxiousness would go away . But it seems to get worse as experience grows- so much to be aware of at all times- plus staying ahead of aircraft and procedures. Performative stress, it makes sense why pilots go grey faster than most in other professions … even going thru training, I could tell the industry is not really ideal for training airline pilots considering they want 1500 hours in a prop plane- doesn’t really make any sense . Screw the FAA- it’s the airlines who haven’t done enough to figure out a proper solution to their pilot training/funnel system- this is what happens when the Gov tries to regulate and mandate every detail ‘to a T’ - those companies now have to obey a standardized law that doesn’t even make a whole lot of sense…
I had no idea the banner could affect the plane like that. I also didn't know they had to pick them up, I just assumed they took off with it or it is released from the plane once airborne.
When he released the banner the aoa rapidly changed. Hence why he instantly tip stalls at release. Seen it happen before, lost a pilot that way in 2015.
It’s hard to like these videos when a life is lost. Keep up the great work guys, what a fantastic channel 👍🏻
De-monetising content which will educate up and coming pilots is a disgrace considering the amount of trash my son watches on RUclips that is definitely not educative. Excellent video Juan.
Do you need the fireball to be educated? Or is it just your morbid curiosity? You saw what was needed to be educated.
@Liberal Putz - how bout this, putz: just stfu. smh.
@@liberalconservative7122 ?????
@@liberalconservative7122 you don't decide any of that, nobody owes you an explanation and nobody asked you. Take off the "Conservative".
@@ToddDunning Decide what? Whether you need to see the Fireball? I was in pilot training in the USAF when a fellow student burned in. YOU DON’T NEED TO SEE THE FIREBALL TO BE EDUCATED 🐓🍭
DeSantis 2024 🗽🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸
I dont understand the point of the 1500 hr rule. I looked at the Colgan air accident. The Captain had 3379 hrs, the F.O. had 2244 hrs.
I completed my instrument rating, and had started commercial with 166 hrs when this rule went into effect. I had to quit to support my family.
Now at 52 im looking to come back to aviation when I retire from my current career. I hope they lower the hour requirement, but institute pipelines for fo's to fly with experienced captains. The right training is key.
RIP the pilot JB and I pray for those friends and family.
Sad state of events JB.
You always have the most thoughtful and forward thinking questions for us to mull over.
Thanks for your time and resources for bringing us this update.
Take care and fly safe. 🤟🏼🖖🏼
Juan is a rare example of an established ATP working at a major who supports lowering the ridiculous 1500 hour requirements. There are so many union pilots trying to protect their huge pay checks by gatekeeping even though they didn't have the 1500 hour requirements themselves. Both pilots in Colgan exceeded 1500 hours considerably.
They might not have had 1500 hr mandate for 121, but they certainly needed thousands more hours by the time they got to a legacy, unlike today's gravy train to the big paychecks.
@@dingodango1 exactly correct
I don't think it's union pilots, but union leadership.
@@dingodango1 What gravy train? I'm not following.
Perhaps you could explain how "gatekeeping" protects huge paychecks. Supply and demand drive any market. A shortage of pilots drives up wages. Just look at the current wages at the regional carriers that are hemorrhaging pilots. As to not having the 1500 hour rule themselves I can assure you that in the not too distant past all major US airline minimum hiring standards were more than 1500 hours with a turbine requirement. The Colgan FO had a commercial license, 1470 hours of piston time, and 6 hours of actual instrument. She had an additional 774 hours at Colgan. Congress acted because feeders like Colgan wouldn't do it themselves.
I once witnessed a stall/spin accident when a banner towing airplane was picking up the banner. He picked the banner pulling up as usual, but then dropped a wing and crashed after a 180-degree spin entry. The pilot was very experienced at banner towing, he was on the job for many years. I was on final right after him, relatively close (this was standard practice at that airport, as banner-towing aircraft did their pick-up operation on a grass strip next to the paved runway). The tower immediately instructed me to go around and divert to another airport. After I landed, the scene kept replaying in my head, enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. I phoned the other airport ad learned that the pilot survived but was a pretty bad trauma case and had been rushed to the hospital. Fortunately he survived.
"knee jerk reaction" - that sums it up quite well. "We're legislation and we're gonna do something about it, no matter if it makes sense, but the next press conference we'll just say we did everything we could!"
My heart goes out to the family. Yes, traditionally goes to young pilots, inexperienced & eager enough to take the work. My first aviation flying job at 19 years old in 1979 towing banners at Texas Tech football games with a Super Cub. Cub is/was the same frame & engine as the Pawnee. Also flew Pawnees from Lockhaven PA to Lubbock. High & hot, sweaty work. Field elevation was 3200 feet with a density altitude far above that. We didn’t use the flyby pickup. We laid the banner on the taxiway, hooked it up & took off. Luckily we had about 600 miles of flat cotton fields in all directions with which to gain altitude before heading into the city.
The Super cub is nothing like the Pawnee. High wing vs low, Lycoming O320 vs the O540
@@tanarosegreen6175 completely wrong about that. I used to deliver both from the factory. The frame, landing gear, engine, controls were Al the exact same part numbers. The only difference was high wing vs low wing. Have a significant number of hours in both. They are the same airplane. Note: this was in the early 80’s. I understand the Pawnee now has a different engine. I understand that pilots that don’t have time in both aircraft or aren’t engineers and don’t have any experience in manufacturing won’t be able to wrap their heads around this. I can only say, go fly both.
Google is your friend in this situation. The PA-18 and PA-18A for agricultural version were from the same platform. Search "Piper Pawnee Development". From the Wikipedia page "During 1953, Fred Weick was approached by Piper to become a consultant on the agricultural version of the PA-18, the PA-18A, in particular to design and test a distributor for dust and seeds.[1] A few weeks later, Piper sponsored Texas A&M University to design a dedicated agricultural aircraft based on the AG-1 but to use as many PA-18A and PA-22 components as possible. The resulting design, the AG-3, was smaller than the AG-1 and had a steel tube fuselage which was fabric covered.[1] The AG-3 was a single-seat, low-wing monoplane with the wings braced to the fuselage with struts. It had a conventional landing gear with a tailwheel and was powered by a 135 hp engine.[1] The single seat was placed high in the fuselage to give the best visibility and an 800 lb-capacity hopper was fitted in front of the cockpit.[1]
@@tedspradley Your claim that a high-wing tandem seating plane and a low-wing single seat plane have the same frame and landing gear is not plausible. Perhaps your memory is a little off?
I believe super cubs only had 150hp engine stock some had 180hp conversions however the Pawnee is a 235hp engine
Pilot was 28 years old with only 15 Hours in type aircraft. Source WLPS Report.
Very sound advice Juan regarding younger pilots building time and the type of flying they are doing. By the way, the stall speed on my 1947 Cessna 120 is 49mph! DMMS! Back in the day for me (and probably you) 1,500 hours was the norm. Take care. Great analysis. Condolences to the pilot’s family.
Yes, the 1500 hours is crazy! My brother had to live in another country for several years to complete this.
We can go to an airline at 250 here in Europe. Seemingly no issues.
@@louissanderson719 yes let’s start with AF447 and look at how a 250 hour “cruise” pilot has no issues.
"Never let a good tragedy go to waste" - People pushing for the 1500 hour rule after Colgan.
Shame for not empathizing with those who lost family members who entrusted their lives to two ill-equipped and incompetent pilots on that Colgan flight.
@@DrJohn493 Incompetent pilots who had well over 1500 hours.
@@Cruz474 Yep!
I was in instrument training when the Colgan air rule dropped. I finished the rating and then started an IT career.
And they wonder why there's a shortage of young pilots.
Sounds like you weren't really committed to a career in aviation. Enjoy IT
@MrRem7600 yeah because you're in a position to judge his commitment and financial circumstances when trying to start a career.
Good grief.
@@twolfjaeger9626 if you're that far into training and then give it away over an arbitrary change in legislation, you were not really committed - simple facts. I'm a career pilot, i've made countless sacrifices in life to make it happen. So have most of my colleagues. No one cares . Aviation is not an easy game to play, and usually washes out those who don't really want it.
@@MrRem7600 did you walk uphill both ways to flight school, grandpa?
I have a buddy that used to banner tow. He ended up stopping after he had an incident that could have ended like this, however managed it properly.
His engine started running rough/cowl started shaking and he started losing altitude/could not maintain. Pitched plane to maintain speed. He was over a beach and called out to another banner plane to spot if below him was clear (the banner could injure/kill). He got the all clear and dropped the banner.
He was then barely holding altitude but was able to limp it to closest airport. It could have ended much worse. Owner was still pissed at him for dropping the banner. The cylinder either started to separate or threw a rod and was shaking violently when he reached the airport.
In this video the pilot may have hesitated to drop the banner over people…and waited too long/lost too much altitude as a result. They are also under pressure to not drop the banner both internally and in the case of my friend the owner.
My buddy was a newish pilot flying traffic watch and banner tow to make extra money and get hours to get into an airline (exactly this scenario).
He eventually made it into some regional and then finally quit and joined the FAA. I know he also earned his CFI…
I know he wouldn’t have been taking these types of odd jobs had he been able to get into an airline sooner.
Thanks Juan for raising this issue again with the 1500 hour rule. It's the pilot unions that really lobbied congress for the 1500 hour rule and are the ones who are the biggest barrier to removing it or changing it to something much more reasonable. Even the construction unions have a pipeline of new recruits with apprenticeship programs. No industry can sustain itself over the long term by not having a solid and sustainable pipeline of new recruits.
@@JohnSmith-zi9or where can one enter a 121 airline job with as low as 750 hours in the usa...............................?
@@JohnSmith-zi9or 1500 hours flying the pattern won't leave you one bit more prepared for any professional role. Mere flight hours was always a Washington-grade joke of a standard. Or, as someone else put it, it's not 1500 hours, it's 1 hour 1500 times. It does NOTHING to make them better pilots, and arguably makes them worse. It certainly keeps them from building REAL experience in that phase of their career where they can learn best.
@@JohnSmith-zi9or We were talking about "There is absolutely nothing wrong with the 1,500 rule." It doesn't do the job as advertised. That IS a something wrong. It raises the price for new pilots without a corresponding increase in safety. That IS a something wrong. ARGUABLY, by reducing the number of pilots, it increases the workload on the ones we have, thereby reducing safety. That seems like a BIG something wrong. Now, hearing that the 1500-hour rule isn't absolute is quite interesting. It still fails to serve the role it was created for. That's not changing the argument. That's answering it.
It’s an awful rule that’s likely responsible for killing some GA pilots trying to rack up meaningless hours with zero corresponding increase in safety in 121 operations. It also wouldn’t have prevented the accident that inspired it.
"...knee-jerk reaction from Congress..."
Mom would be proud.
Watch your back, Juan. :(
Thanks for the videos! :)
In the Hang Gliding community, this would be called a "lockout". It occurs when the glider (or in this case the banner) attains a position or attitude that causes the tow line to affect control of the towing aircraft (or vice versa). In this case, it appears that the banner is low enough to be pulling the aircraft into a severe nose-up AOA. i.e. the aircraft is "hanging on the prop". Likewise, the banner is acting like a "kite tail" and is limiting aircraft yaw, somewhat delaying a spin. It is highly unlikely that the aircraft had sufficient control authority to overcome the effects of the tow line. As soon as the pilot pickled the tow-line, the "kite tail" effect was lost. Unfortunately, the aircraft appears to be so deep into the mushing stall that it lacks the elevator authority to pitch the nose down or rudder authority to maintain yaw control despite pilot input. Too low & too slow. It only takes a few seconds. A low-time pilot may not have had sufficient experience to instinctively know (s)he was locked out until it was too late.
Exactly this. I mentioned this in an earlier comment. Thanks for the validation... Lack of control authority at slow speed!
Definitely lockout. Look how low that banner is.
I don’t think this is related to “Lock out”. I’m a former banner tow pilot, glider tow pilot, hang 3 both mountain launch and ground tow. I used to stall my banner tow plane all the time. It doesn’t produce any lockout or overpowering of the tail at all. What would be possible is that with the banner, you could actually fly well below stall speed because between the banner holding you back, and the prop pulling you. Once you release the banner, you are well below stall speed and need altitude to recover flying speed.
@@thomasaltruda I'm confused, excuse my ignorance, but if u were flying BELOW stall speed, wouldn't you.......stall.......and fall out of the sky...at low altitude? what am I missing here? isn't hte banner just a huge source of DRAG, which makes flying below stall speed even worse? from your response, it sounds as if the link I'm missing is that the banner is acting like a kite creating lift......but is that really the case.....? never would have imagined that.
@@KuostA Not a pilot, especially not a banner pilot, but here's how I read it: The stall is as much a control phenomenon as it is a lift phenomenon. By having the 'kite tail' banner, the control element is obviated, and the plane can remain (semi-)stable in the air by depending on the engine's direct thrust and the induced airflow over the wings. (By induced airflow, I mean that directly off the prop, rather than the 'airspeed' airflow from the airplane's motion through the air.) Once the banner was released, the airplane was no longer so aerodynamically stable, and the spin put him right into the ground.
We had a Pawnee go down here in St Petersburg Fl
The north perry accident sequence looks simular to the accident at Albert whitted. We found out later on that day the towing cable got caught up in the elevator. The pilot released the banner but couldn’t break the stall from that low and that’s all she wrote.
That incident was very different and from what I know, due to not following procedures. That happened due to how he threw the hook out of the window before he ever picked up a banner. Unfortunate nonetheless.
In my opinion the Pawnee isn’t a great plane for banner towing. Sure it has all the power needed, but the stall characteristics were very dramatic. When I towed it was in a 180hp cub with plenty of mods. In a deep stall sure we’ll get a wing drop but it wasn’t as dramatic as what I’ve seen with the Pawnees. There were times that our climb performance was sketchy and in that scenario I usually would ask to climb in the box and leave the airport at altitude. The banner acts as an anchor and it is very impossible to spin with the banner attached. It’s terrible that this happened. Hopefully the NTSB gets to the bottom of this and explains why he couldn’t climb.
My son-in-law is caught up in the maelstrom of building time for the majors. Not only is it a grueling process, it is hideously expensive if you can't find some means of mitigating the costs with a flying job that pays. His route took him to becoming an instructor pilot, which can be as dangerous as banner towing. He's within 300 hours now of his required 1500, but even after getting the time, you need some of it in turbines, multi-engine time and the all important ATP rating. all of which is on his dime.
If he hasn't done his written's for ATP yet then he needs to do them asap! My son's flight instructor went thru this same sh$t a few years ago. It was hell. He flew beech twins for a while as SIC. Came back and instructed a little longer then Finally ended up at Southwest. This was right before covid.
If he doesn't have his commercial yet (many cfi's don't), then he must do that as well.
@Dryan
I want to correct some misinformation. To get a CFI certificate, you first have to complete your commercial pilot certificate.
To the original commenter, tell your son-in-law not to worry about getting turbine time or his ATP certificate. He can get hired at a regional airline as soon as he gets 1500 hours -- I would advise him to apply even sooner -- and he will get his ATP certificate along with plenty of turbine time.
@@davidhill6048 Thanks.
Flight instruction is generally very safe, much safer than banner towing.
To build time for the airlines many years ago, I instructed, towed banners, flew sightseeing tours, and hauled cancelled checks for the banks. Instructing is nowhere near as risky as towing. All of it was fun.
Sad situation to see unfold 😔. Thank you to those pilots who gave an explanation and insight to the banner towing ops.
If he was a time-builder, he was also likely reluctant to dump the banner, even if his chief pilot continuously stressed that as the first thing to do. He waited too long, and ran out of options.
Pawnees with a fuselage tank had a distressing tendency to burst into flames in a crash. I didn't know that at the time I flew them. I agree, towing banners is a fraught activity for anyone, but especially for a low time pilot. That banner looked huge. RIP, young fellow.
You are very correct because the PA25 - A-B-C Models had the fuselage Fuel Tank located between the hopper and the Engine.[Just AFT of the hot engine] The PA25-D Model had the fuel tanks moved to the wings and also the Lycoming IO 540 260 HP Engine.
A young PA25 Pawnee AG Pilot once told me that his biggest fear was not crashing and dying but crashing and getting burned alive in the Pawnee. This pilot went on to fly AG for many decades in AG CATS - Radial and Turbine Powered.
I use to watch them pick up banners @ the NW corner of the airport.
Condolences to family and friends.
Surely the difference between small hour builders are more difficult to fly than right seat in a newer Airbus. Affordable training is the key to resolving the shortage and it’s nice to see the airlines stepping up, regardless of their motivation. It will all work out in a perfect world. 😟
Way before 2010 pilots were towing banners, spotting fish, patrolling power and pipelines, instructing, towing gliders, flying jumpers, flying VFR/IFR 135, etc etc to build time at starvation wages. I was one of them. This didn't start with Colgan. The only difference is there were few jobs for 1500 hour pilots, much less 250 hour pilots back in the day, and airlines were not hiring like they do today. Career stagnation was rampant. We heard a lot of BS in the 80s and 90s and 00s about a "coming pilot shortage", but there wasn't one until recently. That is not to say that your points about the legislation are incorrect, only that this isn't a new phenomenon. The thing about Colgan was fatigue and lack of stick and rudder skills---the latter honed very well with all the aforementioned jobs....these skills are only diminishing in the community as automation takes a larger and larger piece of the workload.
Juan’s take is an interesting opinion but “darrellhay” view is closer to reality. Banner towing is definitely a speciality but the pilots who get through it learn a lot more than they would by flying a flight director! Pilots have been getting experience this way for generations, sadly it doesn’t work out for everyone. MUCH RESPECT for the Banner towers!
I can tell you all about “airlines not hiring”. Returning from two years in Vietnam and Thailand with over 200 combat missions, 2000+ hrs and multi-jet time, there were no jobs for me. Many applications later I decided I had to move on and go into civilian business. It worked out successfully and I have my own company, but the inability to utilize a year of USAF training and four more years of daily flight operations was such a waste when you think about the quality of the experience.
@@maxcorder2211 well you’re a hero in my book.
@@I_SuperHiro_I Thank you. I don’t know you, but all the best to you and yours.
I appreciate this explanation about the state of aviation some decades ago. I was lied to by a Navy recruiter, and as a result, did not enter into Naval Aviation, even though it was my absolute DREAM career upon college graduation. As I hear stories like this, I'm somewhat relieved it didn't work out for me, as it must be painful to build military flight hours like this and not be able to transition into civilian aviation. I graduated in '82, so I feel pretty sure I would have suffered the same fate in that timeframe and would have stories not unlike @darrellhay now that I'm old and gray. THANKS
"We are from the government, we are here to help" summed up by the 1500 hour requirement
I guess the 2000 hour threshold in all aviation safety studies means nothing around these parts. 🤔
Nope! "Government" didn't pass the 1,500 hour rule, politicians in Congress did. That's a big diff! Besides, I like seeing a little bit of a gray hairline on the air carrier pilots I ride behind.
@@DrJohn493 that’s still the government bro
I thought it was pretty well established that it was a reaction post 2008 to an oversupply of pilots, pushed largely by unions to protect their members
I thought it was the pilots that pushed for it 🤷♀️
Colgan was due to fatigue, not pilot inexperience. But it was used to justify the increase in required hours. Last time a push was made to reduce it, I know Sully came out against it, I think the pilot unions did too.
why does sully have some magical power or something?
@@privateer0561 Neither of them should have been sitting in the cockpit...regardless of their stick time.
Incompetence was a key factor if not THE root cause in the Colgan accident. The captain had a history of failed checkrides prior to Colgan. He had four FAA certificate disapprovals. Three occurred BEFORE he was hired at Colgan and included disapproval for his private pilot instrument, his commercial pilot initial and his commercial multi-engine land. If I'm not mistaken he also failed his ATP captain upgrade. And according to publicly released documents, he consistently failed the stall recovery task.
Even if he was fully rested going into Buffalo, he was likely (still) not proficient in stall recovery.
@@privateer0561 Experience != Competence. Those pilots had well over 1500 hours...Didn't help them one bit...No amount of fatigue would cause me to pitch up in a stall AND/OR retract the flaps.
You wouldn't have to convince Congress, just the entities they take orders from.
Retired AA 777 here also(DFW) I teach the CTP course for ATP along with many retired AA and other active airline pilots. The CTP course is good introduction to airline style concepts and general CRM we use everyday. Restricted ATP will allow prospective pilots to acquire their ATP certificate with less than 1500 hours. (with restrictions) I say everyday that I wish this introduction was around when I started because of the good information the course provides to very low time students. The restricted ATP is an alternative to the hard 1500 hour pitfall a lot of students encounter as you indicated. I do agree with you assessment of the danger we put ourselves in at a very vulnerable stage of our careers. Unless you are military, this is a very hard senero to avoid. Just my 2c. And don't forget --------------- positive rate ------- gear up!
Wishing kith and kin strength and fortitude.
I think the most ridiculous requirement set forth after Colgan was that you have to have to have 10-12 hours in a flight simulator of an aircraft of over 50,000 pounds prior to taking the ATP written!!! That has zip to do with taking a written. I agree with you on your assessment on this one 100 percent.
Juan, if this does come before congress again, please testify. This industry needs all the voices of reason it can get.
The 1500 hour mandate to apply seems stupid, but also keep in mind that the practical limitations have been higher when the market was tighter for flying jobs. I didn’t get my first regional interview until I had almost 3,500 hours back in the 90s when airlines had 700-1000 applicants for every pilot position (according to one chief pilot I spoke to). Now that the market has changed so drastically, I agree that the pipeline programs are a better way to go, but I’m saying this time-building approach isn’t new. I built time as a flight instructor, banner pilot, and flying traffic reporters. It’s largely useless time, but it’s not new.
They could reduce this time requirement to 1000 hours and get the exact same results, but with 30+% more applicants!
@Dryan I would agree. 1000 hours minimum, none of this R-ATP, 1000 hours, 750 hours military, 141 school, nonsense. It should be a straight-up 1000 hours total time and not a hour less.
Thank you for explaining these incidents. I’m studying and taking webinars and these videos are a great addition 😄👍🏻
Even at my age, I always learn something from your vids.............
I saw this plane go over looking like it was struggling! I work right by the airport that launches these planes all day long.😢
I believe with colgan all the pilots involved had more than 1500 hours so this was just another case of congress wanting to “do something” vs trying to fix the real problem
If banner flying is considered by you to be dangerous and as you stated, has a relatively long record of accidents, should we not allow this type of flying to take place just to advertise an event or the name of a politician. The lives of pilots and people on the ground are certainly more important than a banner.
I could not agree more. I am considering a transition out of my current career in health care back to aviation. I have 1800 hours, only 250 fixed wing. While not high time pilot by any means, I have good solid experience in a complex aircraft (MH-65, USCG). I also have a son looking to aviation as a career. I would want to see a shift away from raw hours towards quality & type of training.
SkyWest Airlines would be interested in you. They value military helicopter time. Knock-out the commercial multiengine rating comfortably within 60 to 90 days, fly all glass cockpit from the start, get instrument current again and you would be back up to speed and airline ready in no time!
I would not be surprised if the release of the banner caused the spin entry. The banner is stabilizing the plane on yaw. He probably was in a deep stall, and the banner prevented a spin. Nose down before the release might have prevented the spin.
I wonder if banner release was standard procedure in the event of loss of control?
@Austin O2 I would expect so. But the spin was right after the release and not before. If you consider a deep stall (high pitch, high decend rate but stable) out of control the I would agree with you
You're assuming that he could have pushed the nose down. That banner is heavy and it's attached with a long lever arm relative to the CG of the aircraft, if your airspeed has already decayed then the weight of the banner will drag your tail down and no amount of control input will help.
@TissuePaper I am actually not assuming that he has enoght control authority. It is very well possible that you are right. In that case there was no way out for the poor guy.
Amen to what you said about transitioning these young low time pilots into the right seat immediately after getting their Commercial Instrument ratings. I was an advocate for that since I had to drop out after accomplishing those ratings because I needed to make a living and ran out of money, to keep training or attempt to take on these kinds of dangerous jobs to build time. I was in debt, newlywed and a child on the way back in 2005. My dreams of becoming a full-time airline pilot went down the drain because of the 1,500 hr. requirement. I hope all the best to the new pilots who will be able to live that dream as congress and legislation need to step aside and use common sense why we have a huge pilot shortage problem. The rest of the world is on the right track to continue getting that young pilot with low hours immediately in the right seat while they still have interest and up to date on the regs and bring safety conscious just after their check ride. Pilots trying to build that time to 1,500 become laxed and dangerous because they want to speed up the process to get to the airlines, and they finally get in and bring their laxed laziness to the right seat. I know! Friends who went on to the airlines don't do their checklist like they are supposed to. Good Luck to all of those trying to follow their dream and live to the age of retirement to enjoy telling their kids and Grandkids about their career as an airline pilot.😊
You quit 8 years before the 1500 hour rule and had a commercial, instrument rating? You weren't committed to the career.
Great post, Juan. I lived in the Florida panhandle when I was an active duty C130 pilot flying out of Hurlburt Field. The beaches there were perfect for these banner tows and they were everywhere up and down the beaches. The point I'd like to make here is that the size of these banners got bigger and bigger and bigger as the years passed. Along with larger banners comes more drag and a lower margin of safety. Perhaps the FAA/NTSB should make some recommended/mandatory changes regarding the size of these banners?
I'm a current flight student potentially considering an airline career and the 1500hr rule is one of the huge obstacles. I understand the need, neccesity, and want for experianced pilots in the flightdeck but I don't see how a generic and seemingly picked out of thin air number accomplishes the intended objectives. I would think a structured training program that takes you all the way up until you're ready to fly the big jets like the rest of the world is plenty adequite but alas we aren't the ones to make the rules.
you think they just arbitrarily chose a number without researching first????
The military flight hours are FAR lower. However, there are a multitude of aptitude test’s proving capabilities. These numbers aren’t pulled out of thin air. The data shows that anyone under 2000 hours has a much greater chance of mishaps.
Both the Colgan air pilots had over 2,000 hours TT at the time of the accident.
Focusing on being the best and safest pilot you can be every minute you’re up there, next to training is the next biggest factor to conducting a safe flight.
@@watchgoose Yes, i've at no point found any explanation from anybody on why 1500 was chosen or the methodology behind it.
Juan is the person to evaluate the incorrectness of the present training and hours after training situation for airline pilot preparation. I went very young training to Commercial in airplanes, Army helicopters RVN and National Guard, crop dusting in airplanes, and pipeline patrol when old. My concern is that you survive, Connor, both training in a 172 as if it were a powerful jet and the total lack of "Stick and Rudder" training out of that very good flying text we used before PTS and then ACS. They are hanging you out to dry at Vx or Vy as appropriate in the 172 or Cherokee or Cirrus. On long runways in light piston airplanes, leaving thousands of feet of unused low ground effect energy get students killed when crap you need it (150 hp is not a lot) or the engine quits. Vx pitch attitude, especially, but also Vy pitch attitude at three seconds after startle engine failure is not a safe pitch attitude and nowhere near Vx or Vy airspeed. They will teach you to pull back on the stick to maintain altitude in the pattern (which you will not use in the jet) no matter what and limit your bank to prevent stall rather than use the design safety feature of the nose going down (dynamic neutral stability.) That is dangerous in an environment where you can neither recover from inadvertent stall nor do you have unlimited horizontal space available. Yes you might have to really turn some time some place. Have they taught you to lead rudder? If not, that is why the nose goes the wrong way just a bit in every turn. This is problematic on short final where you should never move the yoke like a steering wheel coordinated or not. You don't want to turn. Use the anti-turn control, the rudder only, to yaw correctly rather than incorrectly (wing wagging.) Sorry for the rant Juan.
Juan is correct. Airline pilots, like military pilots, should transition quickly to the kind of aircraft they will be flying.
My ex girl friends dad would tow banners behind his j3 cub. We also took his hot air balloon to Nevada city/grass valley to a group home. It was called North Star. A halfway house/home for kids. Great people worked there to support the kids.
Building hours was i believe the reason the young woman who hit the tower on approach in the mid west carrying cargo was killed, flying in bad weather just to build hours... this is an issue that needs looked at.
Watching this, I screamed power, power, pickle pickle.. gosh dang it. Made me cry.
Was towing a billboard with a Scout over Chicago on a warm day with strong thermals. Hit a wide stretch of descending air and could not climb out of it. Headed for the shore hoping for smooth air there. Backup plan was to drop the billboard on Grant Park but it was crowded. Finally flew out of it and regained altitude. Close call but I kept flying speed the whole time. Stayed on the shoreline for the rest of the day.
I imagine the banner towing thing has always been a time builder.
I saw a banner tow do a forced landing at an event at Road Atlanta racetrack . Late 70s early 80s. I was watching the plane and I heard the engine sputter and lose power. Fortunately there was room on the infield for him to land. He nicked up a wingtip but nothing more. I went over and talked to the pilot. He didn’t switch tanks when he should have and ran the carb out of gas. If there would have been a larger crowd there would have been no where to land.
There was a audio clip out where the pilot and controller were talking prior to and the pilot was unable to maintain altitude and was trying to locate an area to release the banner. I don’t believe the pilot ever mentioned he was in an emergency to the controller even though the controller was prompting him to say so. Then shortly after, Comms were lost. RIP.
As Juan said comercial flying likely does not require 1500 hours to start.
The extremely dangerous low and slow jobs such as banner towing and crop dusting probably do.
Thanks for a good report. Important to learn from. Good suggestions.
I have a friend who flew these in Florida. This job is nuts.
Listening to your commentary on accidents always reminds me of how lucky I am to not have been killed before I knew my butt from a hole in the ground.
As his coworker, he was a good man. such a shame. appreciate your analysis.
I agree, 1500 is crazy. And how many young talented pilots do we lose after 900-1000 hours, because they give up for whatever reason trying to get to 1500.
1500h of manoeuvres with students and little real world experience
You can get a 1000hr atp if you go to a 141 school and train there with a degree.
I've fueled that plane many times when it came to Stuart to do banner flights. Not sure if I knew the pilot. RIP
The US 1500 hour rule simply means that pilots have to do some flying to get to 1500 hours BUT none of them get airliner experience. the rest of the world seems to work well with pilots needing 250 hours and CPL to move into P2 roles. Too many people cannot afford to pay for 1500 hours so their real logbook experience at 1500 hours could well be instructing basic PPL skills for the money. I suspect that most CPLs have lost all their instrument flying skills simply because they can't practice them as a PPL instructor in the right seat.
Bravo for pointing out the unintended negative consequences of the legislative action taken by congress in response to the Colgan accident.
You make sense Juan. Imagine any other training program where the newly minted graduate has to spend 1500 hrs practicing ALONE before they can continue. That is crazy.
Towing a banner requires that the pilot realizes that not only the drag is higher due to the significantly larger parasite drag of the fluttering banner but that the minimum drag speed is shifted to lower speeds, where the induced drag is also higher.
that requires a special briefing to understand the danger involved.
The 1500 hour rule should definitely be looked into. We must find ways to ensure new pilots are with experienced pilots first
Totally agree with changing the 1500 Hours that was one of the reason i quit my career in Avation
My first flying job was a 152 with a lighted sign hung beneath the wings from wingtip to wingtip. The words of the ad scrolled across the sign in a continuous loop. At night, of course, and not much above stall speed with some flaps down. Can't remember how much flaps. Probably first notch. And always over congested areas. You are right. Probably not the best job for a newly minted Commercial pilot with a few hundred hours.
Thought the took off with banner did realize they hook it.
To your points, Juan, the young man reportedly had 325 hours and about 13 in the Pawnee. Why we subject the least experienced to the most difficult flying is beyond me. Not only are the requirements short sighted, what we also know from neuroscience and professionalization studies proves your point: when we professionalize the work, such as via ab initio training, standards and competencies increase. A safer and better outcome for all. On that same point, I never understood as a CFI with 250 hours why I was actually qualified to teach anyone how to fly, even though by law and employment status I could, and did.
I towed banners in a 450 Stearman when I was in high school. There’s nothing wrong with young pilots towing banners if they’re taught well.
I witnessed something similar over Cape Cod several years ago. I looked up to see a biplane towing a banner. It almost looked like the biplane was standing still. It wasn't making any forward progress. There must have been a very strong headwind for him to be able to maintain altitude. Within moments, he released the banner. He had plenty of altitude in order to recover. It looked pretty damn scary. I hope they get paid well for taking that risk!
I learned to fly at that airport and lived a couple of blocks from where it crashed on back in the 70s.
We’ve got a hangar right there by the banner pickup spot. I got to 370 hours last week - not doing banner work but renting a 172 and just flying around - and really, without have some awesome friends who are helping my learn and advance, the time building thing would just be a burning cash activity.
Great take. The 1500 hour rule does little to make pilots any better or safer in the long run. It really decentivises pilots and airlines as airlines can’t effectively fill seats and potential pilots get burned out chasing the 1500 hours needed to even be looked at. Also the rising cost of getting into flying puts a lot of would be pilots off or prevents them from finishing flight training.
Not a pilot
absolute rubbish. 1500 hours is just a blip in a pilots career. Flying and flying training has always been prohibitively expensive - who do you suggest picks up the costs if it isn't the person wanting to make a move into that field? Deal with it
Mitchell will be greaty missed. Great young man!