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General control line discussion => Open Forum => Topic started by: Air Ministry . on August 23, 2015, 07:53:52 PM
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We dont need this kind of thing happening . The Telegraph leaves no stone unturned .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/11818912/Shoreham-air-show-plane-crash-LIVE.html
(http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03415/plane7_fire_airfie_3415938b.jpg)
pity he didnt get it a few feet further up , wouldve made it into the fields .
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At least he didn't take a whole show team with him as happened a few years ago to the Thunderbirds.
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At least he didn't take a whole show team with him as happened a few years ago to the Thunderbirds.
Could you explain this please? Thx.
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Could you explain this please? Thx.
I imagine this is the accident he was referring to (diamond crash):
http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/Thunderbirds-Diamond_Crash.htm
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Could you explain this please? Thx.
Back about 30 years ago, 4 Thunderbirds flying T-38s crashed at the same time. The lead misjudged the loop (if I recall correctly). The other 3 are not watching the ground. They are watching the lead. So they all went in together.
As to the Hawker crash, he did a couple things that typically are not allowed. One is starting an aerobatic maneuver below 1500 ft. Yes, the FAA will waiver the requirement sometimes for airshows but it's not a good idea. If he had started at 1500 instead of 300, he would have been fine.
The second was conducting airshow aerobatics off-field and over people. We've learned this lesson too many times over the last few years.
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Back about 30 years ago, 4 Thunderbirds flying T-38s crashed at the same time. The lead misjudged the loop (if I recall correctly). The other 3 are not watching the ground. They are watching the lead. So they all went in together.
As to the Hawker crash, he did a couple things that typically are not allowed. One is starting an aerobatic maneuver below 1500 ft. Yes, the FAA will waiver the requirement sometimes for airshows but it's not a good idea. If he had started at 1500 instead of 300, he would have been fine.
The second was conducting airshow aerobatics off-field and over people. We've learned this lesson too many times over the last few years.
Thunderbird lead had a mechanical malfunction and yes when you are flying formation like that your eyes (and trust) are on lead.
Glenn
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Larry?? Still waiting.......
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This was a terrible business - looks like perhaps a dozen people were killed on the ground when the Hunter came down on a busy main road. It's perhaps unwise to speculate, but such pictures as I've seen show the aircraft in a distinct nose-up attitude just before impact, so it was apparently in a stalled or semi-stalled condition when it went in. My impression is that it lost power during the loop.
Regards
John
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Watch this video. It's what I based my comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvHplYmh2f8
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So, I've been looking at videos trying to figure out what he was trying to do. Looks like he was flying low inverted, pushed over to almost vertical where he lost airspeed, and tried to pull into a 3/4 loop where he stalled at the bottom. Am I seeing that right?
Mark
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Having witnessed a Thunderbird team member crash during an airshow (about 1955, I was in 5th grade, I think), I'm not too interested in airshows.
In the video, it looks like the Hunter did a direction change during the first half-loop...leading me to think that maybe he lost directional orientation at minimum...maybe blacked out to some extent.
This was in England. What does the FAA have to do with it? Nothing! D>K Steve
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It didn't look like a real live honest-to-gosh stall (but it may have been) -- more like he just didn't have enough airspeed + altitude to complete the loop, or something went wrong between committing to the 3/4 loop and pulling out (or not).
It's not nice to speak ill of the severely wounded, but whatever it was it looks like there was a lack of judgment in choosing that particular maneuver, at that altitude, over that crowd.
The pilot's still alive, but it sounds like barely. He may have testimony to give if he gets out of his coma.
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It didn't look like a real live honest-to-gosh stall (but it may have been) -- more like he just didn't have enough airspeed + altitude to complete the loop, or something went wrong between committing to the 3/4 loop and pulling out (or not).
It's not nice to speak ill of the severely wounded, but whatever it was it looks like there was a lack of judgment in choosing that particular maneuver, at that altitude, over that crowd.
The pilot's still alive, but it sounds like barely. He may have testimony to give if he gets out of his coma.
Interesting observation, my former boss now works at Ricardo in Shoreham and was at the airshow and witnessed the crash first hand. He is a pilot as was his father (Lancasters). His teen son was with him and as the Hunter was descending Dave observed that that flaps were down and commented to his son that something wasn't right, seconds later the craft went in. What a horrible loss of life. I just read that the British governing agency has placed a ban on all antique aerobatics until further notice and that all Hunters are grounded as well.
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This was in England. What does the FAA have to do with it? Nothing! D>K Steve
A simple comparison of standards, nothing more. But, in fact, the Bilateral Agreement of 1997 is intended to harmonize the US, UK, Canada and EU flight and airworthiness standards. We are affected by their standards and they by ours to some extent. The point being the FAA has a standard. That standard is written in the blood of dead men. Adaptation of that standard by the UK and this would have been a non-event.
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Thunderbird lead had a mechanical malfunction and yes when you are flying formation like that your eyes (and trust) are on lead.
Glenn
Thanks Glenn, exactly. Larry, do you still blame a dead pilot for this??? It was a malfunction affected the lead a/c in the pitch axis. LARRY??????
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So, I've been looking at videos trying to figure out what he was trying to do. Looks like he was flying low inverted, pushed over to almost vertical where he lost airspeed, and tried to pull into a 3/4 loop where he stalled at the bottom. Am I seeing that right?
No - the initial approach was upright, not inverted.
The manoeuvre wasn't a loop, as reported. What you see is a loaded roll that commences as the aircraft approaches the vertical, and changes the manoeuvre axis by 90 degrees. (The RAF has something similar, called a 'quarter clover', but we flew that with a more rapid unloaded roll in the vertical.). The problem with a loaded roll like this - particularly in a fast jet - is that it's easy to commit excessively nose-down for the available recovery height. That may have been the case here, but there could just as easily have been other factors we don't know about.
The flaps were partially extended, but that's not unexpected, as the Hunter has a combat flap setting which was commonly used for manoeuvring at lower speeds. I haven't seen anything that suggests engine failure, and in fact there's a high-res photo that shows a pronounced heat plume from the exhaust just prior to impact, consistent with the engine operating normally. In any case, I doubt that an engine failure after the top of the manoeuvre would've made much difference to the recovery height.
The jet certainly seems to be in a stalled or pre-stalled condition just prior to impact, with wing-rock and a high nose attitude, but to me that just looks like the pilot making a desperate and understandable attempt to pull out with max AOA, and doesn't necessarily indicate any mechanical failure.