Might have missed the thread, but please have a thought for one of our local guys here in Idaho Falls. Some might know him from the airshow circuit.
Danny Summers crashed with his fiancee flying his Skyraider back from Wendover to Idaho Falls last week.althrough he was an experienced pilot, weather might have won that day. The fiancee sister said that she received a txt 6 minutes before they droped from radar stating 'bad weather ahead'. I myself flew 5h that day in that area between Salt Lake, Ida and Twin Falls in a 402, and saw the weather degrade in less than 30 min. Snow was moving in the twin falls area from the west, and just flew about 100 miles solid vfr from Idaho Falls from the east. As snow was falling and the vis seriously degraded, I still elected to skud run my way back east till I outrun that cold front back to vfr. That never happened, after 20 miles back eastbound I was still following roads with poor vis, had to open an ifr for my flight back east. Flew ifr with moderate icing and severe turbulences all the way back to Idaho Falls. It's like the whole area of 100x100 miles instantly became ifr rather than a front coming thru.
So we dont know what happened, did Danny lost it in the weather? Did he lost it trying to stay vfr? Did the plane gave up on him at the worst time? All we know is that it wasnt his first tango in a warbird ... and that we lost someone locally referred to as a hell of a guy.
http://www.airshowbuzz.com/cms/mishaps/165459/popular_warbird_pilot_and_passenger_killed_in_skyraider_crash
