Cessna 120-140 Association

It's a shame to follow the happiness of Dave's fresh overhaul with this tragic story. A C-140 crashed while on final at a STOL competition at KLCG Wayne, NE yesterday. Appears to have been a classic stall-spin. Fatal to a father of five. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K96RlzP ... nnel=Colbz

N76075, out of California

Very sad. Thank you for posting Dean. I heard about the accident this morning while eating breakfast at Beaumont KS but did not know the details. The video footage is graphic.

A good friend of mine reminded me today that just as the J-3 was once perceived as the safest airplane ever invented because it "can just barely kill you", so too is the low and slow of STOL competition. Having flown STOL operations for work as part of national infrastructures in Africa, not for play, I'm a bit jaded about these competitions having become the current entertainment rage and how they must certainly be perceived by many who enter them.

John

Photos now appearing of that beautiful young family surviving tugs at all of our hearts. Over a lot of years I've heard too many inquiries and conversations centering on attempts to re-make the 120/140/140A into something it was never intended to be. What Randy and a few others have accomplished with 0200 STCs helps extend the life of an excellent aircraft, very well designed for "low and slow"...but, not "lower, lower and slower and slower" & related competition, IMO. How painfully aware of that fact we are today. Your insight from genuine experience well taken, John. (Those of us too far from Beaumont to drop in for breakfast are envious, incidentally).
Mac

What a terrible tragedy. A 120/140 is not a STOL aircraft by any of the standards of the ridiculously low and slow aircraft in the contest. Seems like he was trying to maintain spacing behind one the of the 30 mph specialized aircraft and a 120 will not fly at that speed. Does beg the questions of why - a 120 has less hp and more wing loading than the various "super stop" birds seen in the video.

Hearing the news while on a short camping trip. So tragic prayers with the family. A member of the Assoc. will be missed.

Very tragic. My condolences to his family. I heard about this right before heading out to a very backcountry airstrip, inaccessible by vehicle this time of year. It certainly made me think about the risks I am taking.

As for the Cessna 120/140 as a STOL plane: They aren't the best but that should be obvious. On one hand you have a plane designed in the 1940s for commuting, on the other a fully modified STOL specific aircraft. Its like go-carts vs F1. Anyone saying C140 has no business in STOL is saying no-one should race go-carts. The point here is you don't see a Go-cart on the F1 Circuit. As STOL comps gain larger audiences and more competitors hopefully we will see a Classic class where the sub 100hp aircraft are represented.

I often find myself flying my 140 alongside a 170B with a 180hp lyc and a CS prop, or a piper cruiser with a O360. Both out perform me by a large margin in the backcountry. I am constantly reminding myself that I should challenge my abilities but not in comparison to my buddies.

8434 wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 10:27 am Very tragic. My condolences to his family. I heard about this right before heading out to a very backcountry airstrip, inaccessible by vehicle this time of year. It certainly made me think about the risks I am taking.

As for the Cessna 120/140 as a STOL plane: They aren't the best but that should be obvious. On one hand you have a plane designed in the 1940s for commuting, on the other a fully modified STOL specific aircraft. Its like go-carts vs F1. Anyone saying C140 has no business in STOL is saying no-one should race go-carts. The point here is you don't see a Go-cart on the F1 Circuit. As STOL comps gain larger audiences and more competitors hopefully we will see a Classic class where the sub 100hp aircraft are represented.

I often find myself flying my 140 alongside a 170B with a 180hp lyc and a CS prop, or a piper cruiser with a O360. Both out perform me by a large margin in the backcountry. I am constantly reminding myself that I should challenge my abilities but not in comparison to my buddies.

This is very well thought out and written; pretty much exactly sums up our little airplanes.

Si

I’ve heard people race lawnmowers.
Doesn’t mean it makes sense.

If you want to play STOL games, sell the 140 to someone who will take care of it and buy a kit fox or something.

These are old classic airplanes, they shouldn’t be torn up in such games. There are only just so many of them left.

I watched the video for what seemed 20 min and finally gave up, but the part I saw showed he plainly was in over his head, trying to the raise the tail, but bringing it down long before she was ready to fly and holding up elevator pushing the tailwheel into the ground, then trying the high deck angle on departure the other aircraft were doing, I expected to see a departure stall, he had to be right on the edge.

A 120/140 just simply is the wrong airplane. The reason you don’t see Mooney’s etc playing STOL games, I didn’t even see any 180’s, Maules etc, not even Supercubs, just the lightweight Rotax powered single seat no cargo types, in short something that likely as not arrived and left in a trailer and couldn’t do anything else but STOL

I'd rather see a 140 in a STOL comp then left to rot in a field. Aviation is changing from a past time to a sport. A lot of new pilots want a reason to fly, and STOL comps give them that.

I look through my Journey logs, there was a five year period in the 70s that my bird only left the ground twice. To me that is far worse then playing STOL games.