Plane Crash Kills Two at Brandywine Airport

I’ve recently started taking flying lessons at Brandywine airport in Chester County, PA. Since both my father and brother have more flying hours than I do, I thought it was time that I started to play catchup. I’ve been very pleased with the Brandywine Airport and the level of instruction that I’ve received so far.

I first started flying a Cessna 172, which looks like this:

I wasn’t sure how much I liked the high wings. The school also provides a low winged piper warrior which looks like this:

I guess it’s all about personal preference when it comes to selecting airplanes to learn in. Either way, I’m happy to be flying and have picked some good days to fly. The weather has been amazingly clear and it’s fun to fly around and see Philly in the distance.

I was doing a search for some more information on the brandywine airport and I came across this article.

Plane Crash kills 2; U.S. probes Aug. 23, 2005
“The small craft went down in woods near Brandywine Airport on a 2d landing attempt…”

Apparently a very experienced pilot crashed at the local airport the very week I started taking lessons. I was slightly confused as it took me so long to hear about it, but I guess it wouldn’t make much sense for the flight school to tell one of their new students about a horrible accident. I did, however, bring it up today after my instructor pilot and I were safely on the ground. I asked him if he knew the person who crashed. He said that he did and that he was rather upset about the loss. I apologized for the loss and dropped the subject.

Now, I’m not afraid to fly… or skydive, or jump off cliffs in the back bowls of Vail. I am still debating on if it’s right for me to expect the flight school to inform me of the crash. I suppose not.

Today I learned the best airspeed and angle to ascend. (Two separate values) I enjoyed today’s lesson and am looking forward to stalls next week… bring on the barf bags! 🙂

This brings me to my next post: hz.com I’ve found some really cool technology that is useful to everyone, especially pilots!