Brodhead Pietenpol Association

Original Posted By: "Richard L. Dery"
yesterday and today have not been very easy for me to handle.A friend of mine, Joe Carter, and his 16 yr old. were killed yesterdaymorning in his Fisher Celebrity. The Celebrity is a wood wing, steel tubeor wood fuselage 2 place biplane.Early reports say witnesses saw pieces coming from the aircraft secondsbefore one of the wings folded. The plane entered a diving spin andimpacted the desert floor at about 7:55am yesterday. The wreckage wasdevastating. The fuse from the rear seat forward was a ball of completemess. He apparantly radioed Chandler tower saying he was going to need tomake an emergency landing because his upper wing was beginning to comeloose. He never made it back.He had just purchased the Celebrity near the begining of the year. He spenta couple months making some minor repairs and alterations. The Celebrity wasthe Fisher factory demo plane built by the designer. My dad signed Joe offfor his tailwheel endorsement a few weeks ago and since then Joe had beenflying his plane as much as he could.Joe was such a nice guy.... willing to help whenever he could. He was veryenthusiastic about aviation. We all belonged with a group of guys who wouldgo fly rc helicopters and planes. It was when Joe got his plane that I anda few of the guys decided to build our own.I'm just mind boggled and really sick..... I just don't even want to flyright now. I can't get in a plane with out thinking about his lastmoments... fighting to gain control...I feel like shit. I'm very nervous because my dad is about 80% completewith his Fisher Celebrity. I really need to know what happened.things like this tend to make your ambition to finish your projectdwindle.....thanks for listening to me ramble... it's just not been a good weekend.DJ VeghMesa, AZGN-1/Piet hybridwww.raptoronline.com N74DV________________________________________________________________________________Date: Sun, 09 Jun 2002 16:23:17 -0700

Original Posted By: "DJ Vegh"
DJ,Words cannot do anything to make you feel better norbring your friend back, but I am sorry to hear about yourloss.Our prayers are with his family.Mike KingGN-177MKDallas, Texas----- Original Message -----

Original Posted By: Norm Decou

Original Posted By: "Gary McNeel, Jr."
Subject: Re: Pietenpol-List: linseed oil & T-88wax paper works great and your varnish will stick to your ribs later (no pun intended)________________________________________________________________________________Date: Sun, 09 Jun 2002 23:18:10 -0500

Original Posted By: "Gary McNeel, Jr."

Original Posted By: clif

Original Posted By: owner-pietenpol-list-server(at)matronics.com
DJ,Words cannot help. Just understand that many of us have gone through thesame thing. When I was a young lad flying airshows in Texas, a good friendof mine spun in and killed himself right in front of me at an airshow. Ihad propped him off to start his routine, and was holding a cold beer forhim to have when he landed and was through flying for the day. I wasscheduled to fly for the FAA that afternoon right after the show to qualifyfor my low-level aerobatics waiver. I couldn't do it. In fact, I didn'teven want to fly home, but there was no other way to get the airplane home.It was more than a year before I could do spins again.At his funeral, most of the congregation were pilots. The one thought thatpulled us all through it was that he died doing something he loved, and notmany people can say that. Shortly after my friend was killed, a family fromNew Jersey driving through Houston was killed when a tanker truck filledwith ammonia fell from one of those triple decker overpasses and flattenedtheir station wagon. Personally, I'd rather die in an airplane.As pilots, we become fatalistic and believe that "when your number's up,your number's up", whether you're in a plane or driving down the freeway.Certainly flying can be dangerous, but usually when one of us gets killed,it's our own fault. It sounds like if your friend did anything wrong itmight have been to overlook something on the preflight inspection, butchances are that it was something that didn't get assembled right at thelast inspection, and was never checked on a preflight inspection. It wasjust that his number was up.Answers will be found. The Fisher Celebrity is a good aircraft, with a goodrecord. Don't let this stop you from building your Aircamper. Your friendwouldn't want that. You're a pilot, and pilots have to fly.Jack -----Original Message-----

Original Posted By: Doc Mosher