Inspirational - back to flying after accident

[Janekom]

I will never forget the day when I was waiting for the ambulance at one of our local hospitals. This was after a friend phoned me to let me know that Ron had a bad accident and is on his way to this hospital. The ambulance arrived with Ron Stirk and my hart nearly stopped when one of the medics got out with a bucket marked "RIGHT ARM". To make a long story short - he fell out during a car accident and hit a fence on the roadside and the only thing we could figure was that it was this fence that amputated his right arm below the elbow.

Let us move back - myself and Ron have been team members of the South African Rally and Precision flying teams for many years. Ron has done what I believe no one else will repeat - to be crowned World Spot Landing Champion not once, but TWICE.

Ron's recovery was difficult but after about a year he got back to flying his C150 again. After being influenced by RV friends and maybe by me as well by taking him up and rolling a few times as well as demonstrating the ease of control, Ron purchased an RV6A (imported from the USA). Another friend Uli made him a clip-on fixture for the RH stick and myself installed brakes on the RH side. This past Friday did his conversion. See the pictures and the RV grin below.

[AlexPeterson]

Congratulations to all, especially Ron!

Don't quite understand the RH stick mod, does it clip to the prosthesis?

Very nice smile!

[flion]

Yes, I've seen those but never in an aviation application. But it makes sense that he will now be a right-seat pilot so he can reach the panel with his left hand and not have to reach across himself. Beautiful. He is lucky to have such great friends helping him back into the air.

[sonny junell]

Congratulations!

Years ago Jerry Jones's (Cowboys owner) full time pilot had one arm.
See you in TEB

Fly safe

[Janekom]

Alex, on the end of the prosthesis is male part of the fitting and the other part is on the stick. It is a quickfit "push in" type fitting the same as on your compressor air lines, but it can swivel too. Very simple but effective.

[rvmills]

That is a great story. Congrats to Ron on "persevering, adapting and overcoming"...a well-deserved RV Grin! (and great job on being a friend in need)!

Kinda puts things in perspective!

Have fun!!

Cheers,
Bob

[pierre smith]

I have a special interest in this story since I've been giving transition training to an amputee friend of mine.

He has a specially modified control system since his left ankle (the prosthesis is on) doesn't 'hinge' at all.

If there's any interest, I can upload pictures.

Thanks,

[Janekom]

Please do - makes us count our blessings if nothing else.

[pierre smith]

...with incredible attention to detail.

He lost his left leg above the knee and the carbon fiber prosthesis doesn't 'hinge' at the ankle, so he devised a set of hand-operated brakes between the seats that feed through the passenger cylinders and on to the left side. In this picture you can also see the stirrup on the right pilot pedal.

He welded two arms across the tops of the horizontal rudder pedal tubes that connect each other to a bellcrank he fabricated and allows him to get 'left pedal' by pulling his right/good foot backward, depressing the left pedal automatically...quite ingenious:


Here's a closer look at the bellcrank assembly:

He also moved the throttle control to the left side of the instrument panel so he can taxi by 'twisting' the handbrakes for equal braking or bias them either left or right by simply twisting his right wrist while throttling with the left.

The airplane has both left and right brake systems and the stirrup has been modified for easy removal if the plane's ever sold.

Best,

[SteinAir]

That's a slick bellcrank system, although I'm not entirely sure about the load transfers, etc.. A human being can push a lot more on a pedal than we might think. Not saying it's bad, just saying I haven't done the math on the bolt single shear, etc..

Anyway, the easy way to solve that problem (of interconnecting the pedals for many reasons) is to simply run a cable rom the outer left pedal, forward to a pulley on the fireall (or that main lower longeron) and over the other right outer pedal where you do the same thing. Only takes a little small cable and two small pulleys. Basically you're just tying the two outer pedals together.

Anyway, not criticizing the above install because it looks very nice, just wanted to point this out to others considering it or that maybe wanted to have their pedals interconnected. It's easy, light and not hard to do.

Cheers,
Stein