I've just heard that Ed Johanscik has crashed in his 60% scale replica Spit yesterday afternoon. Ed amazingly came away with only a scratch on his forehead but the aircraft is in rough shape.
It seems that his engine cut-out at about 100 feet; he turned back but couldn't make the field and came down in a corn field. The aircraft somersaulted, the canopy was ripped off, the engine bay is damaged, one wing came off and the other is now a strange shape.
The other guys at the hanger saw him taxi out and were watching him closely so when he came down they were on him very quickly. He was found hanging upside down - thank God no fire had started.
Methinks poor old Ed will be sinking a few bevvies tonight...
If you want to see some photos of Ed and his baby in happier times visit http://photobucket.com/albums/v731/spitfirebuilder91/Ed%20Johancsik%20Spitfire/

Quote:


Sounds like a one way ticket to suicide performing a turnback at that height. I think 500ft is probably a (barely) sensible minimum for all but very light aircraft, particularly a 60% scale replica of a WWII fighter...

Ancaster pilot is slightly injured as beloved replica hits field

By John Burman
The Hamilton Spectator
BRANTFORD (Sep 10, 2005)

A 79-year-old Ancaster pilot walked away from the wreck of his small replica plane after it
slammed into a cornfield upside down at the Brantford airport yesterday.
Edward Johancsik's beloved little Spitfire is a wreck but the dedicated pilot suffered only minor
injuries.
Johancsik's plane -- painted in Battle of Britain camouflage -- crashed on takeoff just after noon.
The plane that Johancsik built himself, first flew eight years ago and he loved to take to airshows
and fly-ins, chopped a 20-metre swath through the corn and came to rest upside down, with
Johancsik trapped in the cockpit.
Johancsik, who'd been having trouble with a new, 100-horsepower engine he'd put into the craft
recently, was rescued by witnesses who saw the little plane disappear into the field.
Witnesses say Ray Cameron, of Gilbert Custom Aircraft, may have saved Johancsik's life
because he got to the plane first and lifted one wing to get the pilot's face out of the dirt.
"(Ray) saved his life, without a doubt," said Darryl Gilbert, vice-president of Gilbert Custom,
where Johancsik keeps his plane.
"Ed's face and mouth were right down into the dirt and there's no way you can breath long like
that."
Cameron saw Johancsik crash. "I was standing in the hangar door watching him taxi out," he
said. "He'd been having some trouble lately running up the engine so I walked down to the door
to watch him go.
"The plane went screamin' off the runway and he got her up to maybe 200 feet and then the
engine cut out.
"It dropped from full power to nothing."
Cameron watched Johancsik turn hard left, desperately trying to get back to the runway he'd just
left but the plane rolled over onto its back and disappeared below the corn in a cloud of dust.
"We started running for the corn. There must have been 20 guys behind me, all running like
mad," he said.
The rescuers fanned out to search the tall corn and Cameron got to the plane first.
"I caught a glimpse of the red and blue RAF insignia he had painted on the plane and there he
was, upside down.
"The left wing was broken off so I crawled in under and could only see four inches of the
cockpit."
Realizing Johancsik's head had smashed through the plastic bubble canopy with only a baseball
cap to protect him, Cameron lifted the remaining wing to get the cockpit out of the dirt.
"He was yelling and coughing and couldn't get out. I lifted and yelled for everyone else," he said.
"We flipped the plane upright and slid the canopy back."
Cameron said there was no smoke or fire around the wreckage.
"He stood up and stepped out of the cockpit," said Cameron.
"He'd banged his head on the instrument panel and there was blood running down his face where
he cut his head when she smashed through the bubble."
Johancsik's rescuers praised Brant County volunteer firefighters and paramedics who were on the
scene minutes after the pilot got out.
Johancsik, who retired as a machinist at Westinghouse Canada in Hamilton in 1987, loved the
airplane that he built himself.
"It is too bad it's been busted up like that, it was a beautiful plane," Cameron said, explaining that
it is a custom-built, 60 per cent version of Britain's legendary Second World War fighter plane
with a wingspan of about 6.7 metres -- 22 feet.
Transport Canada is not investigating the crash. OPP Constable Dennis Harwood said the
investigation will be handled by provincial police.
Harwood said Johancsik was taken to Brantford General hospital with minor injuries and a sore
neck.
He was expected to be treated and released from hospital last night.
Harwood said it was too soon yesterday afternoon to know why the plane had crashed.
"Our understanding is he'd just put in a new engine but we do not know the cause at this point,"
he said.
"It's a shame. It's a nice little plane," Hardwood said as he surveyed the crumpled wood frame
and fabric-covered aircraft resting with one wing torn off, the landing gear gone and the three-
bladed prop smashed in a cornfield.
Darryl Gilbert said Johancsik's Spitfire, which was featured among the thousands of aircraft at
the annual fly-in convention of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) at Oshkosh, Wis.,
in 1999, is a Taylorcraft Aviation kit modified as a Spitfire Mark XIV, the most powerful of the
famous fighter line.
It looks like the real thing, apart from an oversized plastic bubble canopy enclosing the cockpit, a
fixed undercarriage and a few other details.
Johancsik also keeps another small plane, a Whitman Tailwind, at the Brantford airport, having
moved his planes there, to Chapter 15 of the EAA, from Hamilton Airport some time ago.
Gilbert figured the plane, the third one Johancsik has built, was worth about $35,000. "We'll have
to see if it can be fixed or what. Won't know until they get it out of the corn."
But it was George Gilbert, Gilbert Custom's president, who summed up the crash.
"Any landing you can walk away from is a good one."

Your absolutely right Doug

No excuse, we have been preaching it for years, engine failure, land straight ahead while you may have power and still be able to maneuver.

It is back to basics for this guy...despite his reputation and hours.

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug

It would be interesting to find out the truth instead of relying on newpaper reports but don't push him. He's proabably feeling sick to the stomach right now. If he did make an elementary mistake he might not want to admit it, even to himself. This incident is unusual as the whole thing happened within sight of the airfield with experienced people watching. Presumably the reporter spoke to them while it was fresh in their minds. Mr Cameron seems quite positive that he was trying to turn back but might later change his evidence & deny ever saying that through loyalty to a friend.

Another thing. When I worked at the flying club back in the early 1960s the students had to practice forced landings for just such an event. The instructor would pull the throttle back without warning just after take-off & the student had to quickly pick a spot to land in & make a dummy approach. This was a common event every single day at Shoreham & the students knew exactly where those emergency landing spots were in case it happened for real. I haven't noticed this happening recently & wonder if they still do it. This was much more effective in the Tiger Moth as the instructor could do it without the pupil seeing his hand move to the throttle.

We did a similar thing in elementary glider training when the instructor would release the cable without warning. The dreaded dummy cable break which those crafty RAF instructors usually did at the most inconvenient moment. You had to think & act very quickly to avoid a hammerhead stall at below 500 feet. There were various procedures for landing depending on the altitude. (It's not possible to restore power in a glider so we had to actually land within the airfield.) Bear in mind that the average altitude from a winch launch in this type of glider was 750 feet which was just enough for a normal circuit of the airfield.

I feel that a glider pilot would generally handle this sort of thing much better. I've found this true with both full-sized & model flying. I don't think it would hurt all pilots to start off on gliders as I did. That always seemed a natural progression to me.

PS. Something to think about. An aircraft without power is a glider. Every landing in a glider is a forced landing.