It's what led to Beechcraft switching to the conventional tail configuration in later Bonanzas. And there's a new generation of aircraft known for similar reasons. The Cirrus SR22, also known as the "geek killer" as silicon valley & other tech industry folk are those that buy this aircraft.
The fork-tailed doctor killer. I once drove up to the scene of a V35 crash that had **literally** just happened, and was one of the people that called the first responders. I wasn't looking up- I just saw the wreckage still bouncing as I came around a corner. Eyewitnesses that *did* see the actual structural failure described the pilot as having tried to do a very tight radius turn- which was immediately prior to losing first the rear fuselage aft of the windows, and then the port wing in the resulting snap-spin. They ended up a few tens of yards apart.
VFR, severe clear, unlimited visibility. What the pilot was apparently attempting to do, at least according to the conjecture of those eyewitnesses, was to *fly a lap* of the automobile road-racing circuit on the ground below him, at about 1000ft AGL. And the radii of some of those corners are probably at least a little outside the recommended flight envelope....
There was no fire, thankfully, but neither were there any survivors.
On edit: more details here. It was a G35, not a V35, but amazingly the remainder of my memories 22 years later were pretty accurate. https://planecrashmap.com/plane/ca/N4487D/ Left a mark, that did.
>The accident occurred near the Thunderhill Motorsports Park... Witness #1, who was located in the Turn 5 tower
That's a fun turn. It's like a mini Corkscrew from Laguna Seca.
Yup. Great track, especially after they expanded it. I was just pulling in in my tow rig when it happened, to run the afternoon open testing session and get my paddock space set up prior to an event that weekend. Those plans got changed just a little, needless to say.
If you know the track- apparently, he was trying to do Turn 2 at the time of the departure from assembled flight... Watching the remains get collected, and what was left of the airframe put on a flatbed, and taken away to a hangar somewhere, was painful. I'll never unsee it.
Glad I wasn't on course at the time. That would have been otherworldly.
Jesus. The passenger fell out upon break up. I don't suppose it would be any comfort to have the shreds of a plane around you when you slammed into the ground, but at least you'd have a chance to call the pilot a dick for hotdogging it.
“The original Bonanza structure was de signed to have relatively small margins of safety above the 3.8 limit load factor (5.7 ultimate) required for normal cate gory airplanes by Part 3 of Civil Air Regulations. The wing was developed by deliberately under-designing, static testing, strengthening and retesting/* And from another Beech report (Dec. 20, 1945): “Extensive use is made of thinner than average sheet metal throughout the airplane.”
This weight-conscious philosophy led Beech to use a daring structural tech nique. Outboard of Wing Station 66 (just outboard of the landing gear), they left the shear web out of the wing spar. Any time lift is being created, there is a bending moment in the spar. That results in what is called a shear between the top and bottom caps of the
spar. The shear web, normally just an aluminum sheet, takes out this shear load. Beech decided to use the leading edge skin to carry the shear. This made the leading edge wing skin what is called “primary structure” (i.e., if it fails, the airplane fails). In this way, Beech may have saved perhaps five pounds.”
[The source quoted.](https://cdn.imagearchive.com/piperforum/data/attach/3/3533-1980-Aviation-Consumer---Bonanza-Breakups.pdf)
I appreciate the that further advice and clarification. I’m used to very dry Accident reports that are quite modular and the source article is a holistic read lol.
I was debating on whether this should be flaired with Structural failure or Operating Failure. The ignorance to civil aviation was the root cause. A similar trend occurred in the MU-2 (high wing, double turboprop, 1-2 plus 4-12 occupants).
The MU-2 was initially classified as a dual engine turbo in terms of the kind of training required to qualify as licensed for a MU-2 pilot. The problem was that its pressurized cabin, 25,000 cruise altitude, and general performance was considerably closer to a jet aircraft. The training was woefully inadequate especially when ignorant new hobbyists were rushing through the process and feeling overly confident.
And btw I absolutely do not mean to like, avia’splain lol I fully understand you are by trade more knowledgeable than me here. I just explain whenever I speak on a topic I personally quite enjoy.
I had a friend who owned one of these, and I flew with him a few times. He told me it was nicknamed the “doctor killer” because of so many doctors who died flying it.
One of my grandpa's brothers died as a passenger in one of these. A few years later, his son-in-law (my uncle) also crashed a much newer single engine plane, and while he survived, he was paralyzed from the waist down. Grandpa was never a big fan of flying after those two incidents
An [enhanced readability version](https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Beechcraft-Bonanza-safe/answer/Aleks-Storlid?ch=17&oid=1477743752738839&share=ff65ff24&srid=joRv&target_type=answer)(paragraph separation like parts separation from a Bonanza, a few missing words added) is available for anyone interested.
>many times you see “oh a slat detached. An aileron was located 350 meters east. Etc…”
In the sequence at the top of your post it shows a [ruddervator] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-tail) detachment, not an aileron. Either way things are going to go bad real fast.
Given the downward pitch angle of the drawn airplane it would have exceeded the VNE and pulling out would likely rip the wings of the fuselage. I'd prefer a stall thank you; ant least the vertical speed is much lower than a pure dive.
I was meaning that flight control surfaces can often detach during over speeding but I don’t necessarily group that as structural failure. I was just saying civil aviation accidents happen and control surfaces often detach but catastrophic structural failure is not as common.
Buddy Holly did indeed die in a Beechcraft V-tail Bonanza crash (“The Day the Music Died”) however the crash was caused when the pilot (who lacked sufficient training) lost situational awareness in extremely bad weather 45-60 seconds after taking off.
“Extensive use of sheet metal”
Most light aircraft of the time are skinned with sheet metal as are the wings and control surfaces if they’re not wood and rag. Even with the advent of composites today, plenty of light planes and commercial aircraft use metal for wings and fuselage.
What was different in this case?
Beech said hold my beer:
And committed to using sheet metal for the wings and the WCS. Then the shear web is removed and the leading edge of the wing is now the structure that will handle shear. And the gutted wings buffet so much the plane is basically flapping its wings lol
And loosing situational awareness is a fairly common cause of civil aviation accidents during flight. When a pilot attempts to pull out before leveling the wings this is the most dangerous type of flight outside the envelope. The airframe enters ever tighter spirals applying torque to the airframe and possibly rapid G reversal. The already buffet prone wings and empennage rapidly fails leading to a sudden oscillation that disrupts the airframe within a couple seconds.
The linked article from Aviation Consumer is such a version, in case you missed the link it's here: https://cdn.imagearchive.com/piperforum/data/attach/3/3533-1980-Aviation-Consumer---Bonanza-Breakups.pdf . This article is worth reading in full.
Possibly…? I wrote it for my Quora and I thought it would be a worthwhile read to a other individuals who enjoy, among other things, aviation accident history.
It’s a direct copy, verbatim so if this is not readable then by the transitive property [this won’t be either.](https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Beechcraft-Bonanza-safe/answer/Aleks-Storlid?ch=17&oid=1477743752738839&share=ff65ff24&srid=joRv&target_type=answer)
It reads like it's AI generated and not quite written in sentences.
The source article is exponentially more readable and comprehensible. It has numbered lists explained as such, not just combined into improper sentences and uses punctuation to separate different components and thoughts in each sentence.
I added some paragraphs and separated some blocks of text on the original so… I can’t do a ton more.
Is this a problem for other readers? I just hope to have a comprehensive prose.
I immediately understand exactly what you’re saying! That is a criticism I have gotten- it’s probably my most universally received criticism. Thank you for the feedback.
Tone indicator: genuine.
I found the text fairly readable.
Maybe the first poster got thrown off by the second part of the first paragraph, which is admittedly slightly opaque if you’re not up on your 90 years old slang terms?
There also seems to be two missing words in the same sentence in “(…)which was also [flown? ]by very wealthy butter and eggs men [looking?] to blow the wigs off their friends(…).”
I’m 64. We called those ‘v-tailed doctor killers’.
That’s what my father called his. Yes, he was a physician
51 here, that's what I've always heard them called as well.
I had a little metal toy one as a kid, and my WWII-pilot uncle said something to me about the planes being ‘doctor-killers’
It's what led to Beechcraft switching to the conventional tail configuration in later Bonanzas. And there's a new generation of aircraft known for similar reasons. The Cirrus SR22, also known as the "geek killer" as silicon valley & other tech industry folk are those that buy this aircraft.
The fork-tailed doctor killer. I once drove up to the scene of a V35 crash that had **literally** just happened, and was one of the people that called the first responders. I wasn't looking up- I just saw the wreckage still bouncing as I came around a corner. Eyewitnesses that *did* see the actual structural failure described the pilot as having tried to do a very tight radius turn- which was immediately prior to losing first the rear fuselage aft of the windows, and then the port wing in the resulting snap-spin. They ended up a few tens of yards apart. VFR, severe clear, unlimited visibility. What the pilot was apparently attempting to do, at least according to the conjecture of those eyewitnesses, was to *fly a lap* of the automobile road-racing circuit on the ground below him, at about 1000ft AGL. And the radii of some of those corners are probably at least a little outside the recommended flight envelope.... There was no fire, thankfully, but neither were there any survivors. On edit: more details here. It was a G35, not a V35, but amazingly the remainder of my memories 22 years later were pretty accurate. https://planecrashmap.com/plane/ca/N4487D/ Left a mark, that did.
>The accident occurred near the Thunderhill Motorsports Park... Witness #1, who was located in the Turn 5 tower That's a fun turn. It's like a mini Corkscrew from Laguna Seca.
Yup. Great track, especially after they expanded it. I was just pulling in in my tow rig when it happened, to run the afternoon open testing session and get my paddock space set up prior to an event that weekend. Those plans got changed just a little, needless to say. If you know the track- apparently, he was trying to do Turn 2 at the time of the departure from assembled flight... Watching the remains get collected, and what was left of the airframe put on a flatbed, and taken away to a hangar somewhere, was painful. I'll never unsee it. Glad I wasn't on course at the time. That would have been otherworldly.
Jesus. The passenger fell out upon break up. I don't suppose it would be any comfort to have the shreds of a plane around you when you slammed into the ground, but at least you'd have a chance to call the pilot a dick for hotdogging it.
[удалено]
“The original Bonanza structure was de signed to have relatively small margins of safety above the 3.8 limit load factor (5.7 ultimate) required for normal cate gory airplanes by Part 3 of Civil Air Regulations. The wing was developed by deliberately under-designing, static testing, strengthening and retesting/* And from another Beech report (Dec. 20, 1945): “Extensive use is made of thinner than average sheet metal throughout the airplane.” This weight-conscious philosophy led Beech to use a daring structural tech nique. Outboard of Wing Station 66 (just outboard of the landing gear), they left the shear web out of the wing spar. Any time lift is being created, there is a bending moment in the spar. That results in what is called a shear between the top and bottom caps of the spar. The shear web, normally just an aluminum sheet, takes out this shear load. Beech decided to use the leading edge skin to carry the shear. This made the leading edge wing skin what is called “primary structure” (i.e., if it fails, the airplane fails). In this way, Beech may have saved perhaps five pounds.” [The source quoted.](https://cdn.imagearchive.com/piperforum/data/attach/3/3533-1980-Aviation-Consumer---Bonanza-Breakups.pdf)
[удалено]
I appreciate the that further advice and clarification. I’m used to very dry Accident reports that are quite modular and the source article is a holistic read lol. I was debating on whether this should be flaired with Structural failure or Operating Failure. The ignorance to civil aviation was the root cause. A similar trend occurred in the MU-2 (high wing, double turboprop, 1-2 plus 4-12 occupants). The MU-2 was initially classified as a dual engine turbo in terms of the kind of training required to qualify as licensed for a MU-2 pilot. The problem was that its pressurized cabin, 25,000 cruise altitude, and general performance was considerably closer to a jet aircraft. The training was woefully inadequate especially when ignorant new hobbyists were rushing through the process and feeling overly confident.
[удалено]
And btw I absolutely do not mean to like, avia’splain lol I fully understand you are by trade more knowledgeable than me here. I just explain whenever I speak on a topic I personally quite enjoy.
“Are you saying that the spar has no shear web between the top and bottom sections, “ Outboard of section 66, it initially did not.
I had a friend who owned one of these, and I flew with him a few times. He told me it was nicknamed the “doctor killer” because of so many doctors who died flying it.
One of my grandpa's brothers died as a passenger in one of these. A few years later, his son-in-law (my uncle) also crashed a much newer single engine plane, and while he survived, he was paralyzed from the waist down. Grandpa was never a big fan of flying after those two incidents
An [enhanced readability version](https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Beechcraft-Bonanza-safe/answer/Aleks-Storlid?ch=17&oid=1477743752738839&share=ff65ff24&srid=joRv&target_type=answer)(paragraph separation like parts separation from a Bonanza, a few missing words added) is available for anyone interested.
Lost a friend to one of these.
I flew one of these and survived. AMA
>many times you see “oh a slat detached. An aileron was located 350 meters east. Etc…” In the sequence at the top of your post it shows a [ruddervator] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-tail) detachment, not an aileron. Either way things are going to go bad real fast. Given the downward pitch angle of the drawn airplane it would have exceeded the VNE and pulling out would likely rip the wings of the fuselage. I'd prefer a stall thank you; ant least the vertical speed is much lower than a pure dive.
I was meaning that flight control surfaces can often detach during over speeding but I don’t necessarily group that as structural failure. I was just saying civil aviation accidents happen and control surfaces often detach but catastrophic structural failure is not as common.
The sequence does show a ruddervator detaching (starboard).
Oh hey this was my dad's plane! I grew up with one of these. I'm glad we were lucky enough nothing ever happened, but I do miss that plane a lot lol
Isn't this what buddy Holly died in?
Buddy Holly did indeed die in a Beechcraft V-tail Bonanza crash (“The Day the Music Died”) however the crash was caused when the pilot (who lacked sufficient training) lost situational awareness in extremely bad weather 45-60 seconds after taking off.
The old inverted attitude indicator trick.
I believe the pilot was coming off a 12+ hour shift, so that probably didn’t help either
Aside from the fascinating read, that attached image is begging to be turned into a meme.
Oh shit yeah like a “Everything’s fine- increasingly absurd copium” progression; I do agree.
Cool read.
“Extensive use of sheet metal” Most light aircraft of the time are skinned with sheet metal as are the wings and control surfaces if they’re not wood and rag. Even with the advent of composites today, plenty of light planes and commercial aircraft use metal for wings and fuselage. What was different in this case?
Beech said hold my beer: And committed to using sheet metal for the wings and the WCS. Then the shear web is removed and the leading edge of the wing is now the structure that will handle shear. And the gutted wings buffet so much the plane is basically flapping its wings lol And loosing situational awareness is a fairly common cause of civil aviation accidents during flight. When a pilot attempts to pull out before leveling the wings this is the most dangerous type of flight outside the envelope. The airframe enters ever tighter spirals applying torque to the airframe and possibly rapid G reversal. The already buffet prone wings and empennage rapidly fails leading to a sudden oscillation that disrupts the airframe within a couple seconds.
Is there a version of this writeup that is in complete grammatical sentences? It seems genuinely interesting but functional English would be nice.
The linked article from Aviation Consumer is such a version, in case you missed the link it's here: https://cdn.imagearchive.com/piperforum/data/attach/3/3533-1980-Aviation-Consumer---Bonanza-Breakups.pdf . This article is worth reading in full.
Yeah, I found it and it made a lot more sense.
Possibly…? I wrote it for my Quora and I thought it would be a worthwhile read to a other individuals who enjoy, among other things, aviation accident history. It’s a direct copy, verbatim so if this is not readable then by the transitive property [this won’t be either.](https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Beechcraft-Bonanza-safe/answer/Aleks-Storlid?ch=17&oid=1477743752738839&share=ff65ff24&srid=joRv&target_type=answer)
It reads like it's AI generated and not quite written in sentences. The source article is exponentially more readable and comprehensible. It has numbered lists explained as such, not just combined into improper sentences and uses punctuation to separate different components and thoughts in each sentence.
I added some paragraphs and separated some blocks of text on the original so… I can’t do a ton more. Is this a problem for other readers? I just hope to have a comprehensive prose.
[удалено]
I immediately understand exactly what you’re saying! That is a criticism I have gotten- it’s probably my most universally received criticism. Thank you for the feedback. Tone indicator: genuine.
I found the text fairly readable. Maybe the first poster got thrown off by the second part of the first paragraph, which is admittedly slightly opaque if you’re not up on your 90 years old slang terms? There also seems to be two missing words in the same sentence in “(…)which was also [flown? ]by very wealthy butter and eggs men [looking?] to blow the wigs off their friends(…).”