An Aircraft Loaded With Fail

By now, you may have seen news coverage of the Stinson that was crashed into trees after takeoff from the Bruce Meadows Airport in Stanley, Idaho.

If there was ever a crash that didn't need to happen, this one was it.

Bruce Meadows Airport (U63) has an elevation of 6,370' MSL. According to AccuWeather, the temps that day were in the low 80s.

That puts the density altitude somewhere between 9,000' and 11,000'. To put it succinctly, density altitude is the altitude that, aerodynamically, the airplane sees.

The pilot had the mixture control knob at the "full rich" position. This can be seen both as they taxi out and, in the slow-motion video, as the plane tumbles through the trees.
That is the appropriate setting for sea level to maybe 3,000'-5,000'. Above that, the technique for taking off is to set the brakes, run the engine up to full RPM, and then lean out the mixture until best power is achieved. That way, you'd get about 75% of the maximum rated horsepower, assuming that the engine was in tip-top working order.

A 108-3 Stinson (which is what that was) came from the factory with a 165hp engine. At that density altitude, it could be expected to put out 123hp. With a full-rich mixture setting, the engine was running over-rich and was probably not even close to making full power.

The takeoff roll went on damn near forever. It was pretty clear from the video that the wisest course of action would have been to pull back the throttle and abort the takeoff or, after staggering into the air, land. There was plenty of room to do so, it was obvious that the airplane wasn't climbing worth a fart. But the pilot pushed on. And the airplane did all that it could be expected to do under the circumstances: It flew all the way to the scene of the crash.

I'm not even going to get into the point that on launching from a high-altitude airstrip on a hot day, all of the seats in the airplane were full with adult males. But I will note that if that airplane had been equipped with shoulder harnesses, the pilot's injuries would have likely been a lot less severe. The FAA makes it easy to install newer seatbelts and shoulder harnesses into older airplanes. You don't even need a STC or a Form 337 to do it, it's just a logbook entry by a mechanic. A shoulder harness may not fit the look for some classics, but better that there be a little bit of farb in the airplane and you don't eat the instrument panel in a crash.