Circumnavigation attempt fails on first day

[SteamWake]

Sad really :oops:


He set off yesterday morning from Gloucestershire Airport at Staverton in a microlight for the 11,000-mile round-the-world trip and did not even make it to France before he crashed into the English Channel five hours later.


http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/58585,news-comment,news-politics,round-the-world-microlight-pilot-martin-bromage-dies-after-just-five-hours

[AVGWarhawk]

That is to bad.

[Buddahaid]

Must have watched Avatar last week.

[Schroeder]

Going around the world in an microlight is pretty brave or pretty stupid. Those things don't do well in bad weather.:dead:

[Jimbuna]

Very sad....I hope the money will still be raised and given to the charity in his memory.

[Freiwillige]

I hope somebody gets inspired by his vision and fills his shoes to complete the mission!:salute:

[bookworm_020]

I hope somebody gets inspired by his vision and fills his shoes to complete the mission!:salute:

Possible future Darwin Award winners may apply!

[UnderseaLcpl]

Going around the world in an microlight is pretty brave or pretty stupid. Those things don't do well in bad weather.:dead:

Do microlights/ultralights not have artificial horizons or altimeters?

Where the hell is GoldenRivet when you need him?:DL

[GoldenRivet]

Where the hell is GoldenRivet when you need him?:DL


Observing from afar inquisitively.

however... not being familiar with the rules on the other side of the pond...

According to American regulations the aircraft wouldn't be required to have an artificial horizon.

I have been a passenger onboard some microlights which had only a few basic engine instruments. an airspeed indicator, compass and an altimeter.

i can imagine that given the special nature of his flight, he probably had quite a bit of extra equipment.

Instrument weather... she is a treacherous thing.

classic case of continued visual flight into instrument flight conditions it looks like.

unfortunate and sad.

[Schroeder]

Do microlights/ultralights not have artificial horizons or altimeters?

Some have but they are still nasty to fly when being in windy weather. Microlight means that those things have a maximum take off mass of 450 kg (at least over here) which makes them a flag in the wind so to speak. My flight instructor once said that he abandoned his microlight license as "A measure to prolong my life.". And that guy is doing aerobatics in gliders.

[SteamWake]

I'm assuming from reading the article that the guy had a fully tricked out stack including an artifical horizon, altimiter, rate of climb indicator, and last but not least a VOR.

But if you lose electrical power you lose all of those.

He was last heard from disorented in heavy fog over the channel. Now usually its not windy when it is foggy... usually.

We will probably never know the answer but thats my best guess.

[GoldenRivet]

disorented in heavy fog

man... even if i were flying a multi-million dollar state of the art machine with all the bells and whistles...

that is the last condition i would ever want to find myself in.

one would likely have less than 3 minutes to live with such a diagnosis.