Another Warbird bites the dust in England

[Bob Womack]

Attachment 24700
(Click to upsize.)

Story HERE

I'm just glad the pilot got out!!!

Bob

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Badger]

Not too many of these old girls left to waste ....

[xa-coupe]

A tragedy. At least the pilot got out okay and hopefully the wreck might help get another airworthy.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Many of these incidents are caused by we call the 'Air Show Disease'

Too often good pilots lose their attention to the myriad of details necessary for safe flight or they just perform dangerous maneuvers in these old warbirds attempting to impress the crouds, when in reality the crouds would be just as impressed to see the old plane fly by safely.

Here's photos of one such indident of air show disease -
This was Friday afternoon when all the aircraft show up for the weekend show. I flew right over him when in the pattern to land and he had his helicopter on a trailer washing it off under the powerline supplying all power to the airport. When I was signing in after landing to get our room passes all the power went out. The guy flying the helicopter was an accomplished pilot and did a famous act where he flew 'Otto' through all find of maneuvers, but in his excitement to takeoff and play with the other aircraft he forgot he parked right under a power line and lifted off right into it.

It didn't hurt him. In fact as it turned out he and his wife got the room next to mine and I could hear her yelling at him half the night.

[Bob Womack]

Harlan, I was surprised the guy had a parachute. I see pics of planes with seat cushions. Do they still fly airshows here with 'chutes?

Bob

[ArizonaBeagle]

Did you notice in the story that the Skyraider landed with part of the wing missing from the collision?

Those things are built like trucks and can survive a lot of damage.

Sad to see another piece of history lost.

AZB

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Harlan, I was surprised the guy had a parachute. I see pics of planes with seat cushions. Do they still fly airshows here with 'chutes?

Bob

Hi Bob,

Most of the guys flying high performance aircraft like WWII fighters do wear parachutes and helmets. Also, you're supposed to wear a parachute when doing aerobatics. The knew emergency chutes are actually pretty light and small. We never wore parachutes when flying the C-47 because it's thought of more like a big bus but I always had in the back of my mind the fire possibility.

[Bob Womack]

Did you notice in the story that the Skyraider landed with part of the wing missing from the collision?

Those things are built like trucks and can survive a lot of damage.

Sad to see another piece of history lost.

AZB

Yeah, looking at the match-up, I would have expected the Skyraider to get the better half of it.

Bob

[Harlan (Deceased)]

One of my CAF firends sent this along with some still photos. As I assumed there wasn't anything left of the Mustang to salvage.

It clearly shows "Big Beautiful Doll" was flight lead but, during the pull up and break the geometry got all wrong and the Skyraider hit the Mustang with its right wing just aft of the radiator door and buckled the whole bottom of the tailcone. The Mustang pilot (Rob Davies) then had no elevator control and had to bail out.
I'm also attaching some pictures.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

I resized a couple of the photos to display here larger.
(At that altitude he did an amazing job of getting out in time)


You can see the damage aft of the radiator here which most likely damaged or broke control cables