Try to imagine this....

[David]

Try to imagine this....First a bit of the history ...Chivas soccer team of Guadalajara, Mexico, is very popular Mexican team because, and I think this is brilliant, they only allow Mexican nationals to play for them. There is now in the U.S. Major League Soccer (MLS), another Chivas team, Chivas USA, very popular with the Latino community.With that in mind....Sunday afternoon at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, home of the 1984 Olympic Games, (see pic below) Chivas USA are playing Barcelona in a 'friendly match'. Try to imagine then that for this friendly match the Coliseum has sold out 92,000 tickets [8D][8D]
Chelsea are on live television later today v the MLS All Stars

Result:- MLS 1 v 0 Chelsea
A good fast game, Chelsea had a host of their star players on display, Terry, Lampard, Robben, Essien, Ballack, Drogba, Wright-Phillips, etc. all played.

[David]

Correction I gave you some misinformation....The game mentioned above, Chivas v Barcelona was actually a 'double header', quite common in the USA.
There were two games, (double header). Both the Chivas teams were in action. Chivas USA 1 v 1 New England, and Chivas Mexico 1 v 1 Barcelona
Sorry about that [8D]

Re: The above photo of the LA Coliseum. At the top left of the photo you can see the..(blue).. swimming stadium used in the '84 Olympics.
This whole area, across fron downtown Los Angeles, is the site of the University of Southern California (USC). http://www.usc.edu/about/visit/

[David]

Flames and smoke are seen coming out of windows where a small plane crashed into a 50-story residential apartment building near 71st Street and York Avenue in New York on Wednesday. In the crash, pilot Cory Lidle, a pitcher for the New York Yankees who lives in Glendora, and flight trainer Tyler Stanger, who works out of Brackett Field in La Verne, were killed

[William R]

David, I think we have to wait for the official account coming out here, So much can be surmised.

One question comes to mind, why was he training within close limits to high buildings, or was this something else?

[David]

The reason I posted this article is that both men killed were local Inland Valley men, it just happens that Cory Lidle had been playing baseball for the New York Yankees who BTW had just previously been eliminated from the World Series.
Lidle was a fully licensed pilot, the guy who was with his had been his instructer at Bracket Field, just down the road from here.
It seems there was a malfunction in the steering mechanism. No one is allowed to fly over Manhattan Island after 9/11.
The FAA alerted the USAF who scrambled F14 planes into the air over cities as far away as Los Angeles and Seattle, just in case...

There's more here... http://www.dailybulletin.com/

[anacortesdamp]

Actually, David, the flight was quite legal. Small planes can fly there as long as the keep below a certain altitude (1000 ft above ground I think), stay directly over the river and don't stray into the La Guardia airport control zone. They don't even need to be talking to any of the Air Traffic centers in the area. I have a feeling that's all going to change real soon!

The "expert" consensus shown on TV so far is that a strong cross wind at the point where the pilot had to make a 180 degree turn to head away from La Guardia and back along the river may have blown the airplane's turning flight path into the condo block. Things may have been complicated by some form of malfunction that was occupying the attention of both pilots.

That particular airplane type is supposed to be a very good performer and should have been able to bank steeply enough to make that turn without a major problem. It is a bit unusual in having "side-stick" controllers instead of a more typical control wheel, and Cory Lidle might not have been fully at home with it if he'd trained on a control-wheel airplane. His airplane was a fairly recent purchase.

FYI, William, Lidle was a qualified pilot (single-engine landplanes in visual flight conditions only). He had been flying for about a year. Story is that he'd invited his flight instructor to the Yankee play-off game and they were going to fly the plane together, back to California, as Lidle was a bit leery of doing a trans-contiental flight on his own.

Frank

[William R]

Thank you Frank for that information. It is good to have the voice of reason put things into the correct pattern for understanding. I often wonder about the flights of light aircraft with little or no radio skills, around major airports, and the increasing use of "eye in the sky" helicopters. I always felt that such movements should be controlled.

[anacortesdamp]

I think, William, that the much-vaunted "you can fly anywhere you like as long as you keep out of restricted areas" style in the US is going to change. The FAA may do it by increasing the number and size of the restricted zones.

They've already limited airplanes with no radios or very rudimentary ones from getting too close to major urban centers. The Cirrus that features in this accident is actually a pretty sophisticated modern airplane. As basic it comes with at least two each navigation and communication radios, a transponder and various other safety gadgets.

It's one of a few models that has a last-ditch escape using a parachute big enough to lower the whole airplane and its occupants safely to the ground. Of course you need to be high enough for the thing to deploy and flying at a speed that permits it to do so without tangling. Maybe neither of these parameters were met in this case.


Frank

[William R]

Thanks for that Frank - I`m not in a position to say who or what was to blame - just that lives were lost and families bereaved needlessly.

For your information on the plane itself, I`m always ready to accept information about everyday things around us which we take for granted. The old maxim of "if it ain`t broke don`t fix it" is alright but I always like to know how things work, what makes them tick etc. (my failing).

Was it Albert Einstein who said "the more we learn, the more ignorant we realise we are!"

My son always says "Switch it on, if it works, leave it alone" a very true statement - so I shout for him if things go awry.

[David]

From todays Inland Valley Daily Bulletin...
Plane in NYC crash was equipped with parachute
By Richard Pyle, Associated Press

The plane that crashed into the side of a high-rise apartment building Wednesday comes equipped with a parachute designed to be triggered by the pilot in case of an aerial mishap, but there was no evidence the feature was used.

The Cirrus SR20 is the first production aircraft to have as standard equipment a Ballistic Recovery System parachute, which a pilot can activate if the engine fails or if the plane is involved in a collision. It also has energy-absorbing features meant to reduce impact in a crash.

The parachute is designed to open above the plane, allowing it to drift to safety rather than crash.

"These airplanes are just absolutely cutting edge in terms of how modern they are, and they ought to be extremely safe," said Mike Radomsky, president of the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association, which conducts safety classes for Cirrus pilots.

The single-engine private aircraft can carry up to four people. It is steered by a joystick on the side of the cockpit rather than with a steering wheel in the front.

About 2,900 SR20s or its successor, the SR22, are in service around the world, and the 3,000th one is in production, said Kate Dougherty, spokeswoman for the Cirrus Design Corp. of Duluth, Minn., which makes the plane. She said she could not discuss the planes' safety record or provide any information about the one that crashed Wednesday.

New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was apparently killed in the crash, along with a second person.

It was the second fatal accident involving an SR20 within a month, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. On Sept. 15, a private pilot was killed after reporting icing conditions. The NTSB is still investigating.

There have been a total of 12 accidents involving the Cirrus SR20, though one happened while the plane was still in an experimental stage. NTSB records indicate that six accidents were fatal, killing 13 people.

In two accidents this year, pilots reported engines losing power.

There are about 600 Cirrus SR20s registered to the Federal Aviation Administration. The plane was first flown as a prototype in March 1995, according to the Web site Airliners.net.

Safety problems related to the SR20 have figured in about a dozen lawsuits, some involving design and mechanical issues, some pilot error and some a combination of both, said Brian Alexander, an aviation lawyer for the New York-based firm Kreindler & Kreindler.

Several cases involved the parachute, which has deployed successfully sometimes and unsuccessfully other times, Alexander said. Problems generally had to do with the explosive mechanism, triggered by the pilot, that pushes out the parachute, he said.

The low-wing aircraft sells for about $280,000. Its 200-horsepower Teledyne Continental six-cylinder piston engine produces a maximum cruising speed of 160 mph. It has a roomier cabin and larger windows than many of its competitors.

And here is how the parachute is supposed to deploy.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airc...ute_System