Deeply tragic news. The Royal Navy's own Historic Flight Fairey Firefly has just crashed at Flying Legends, killing both crew.

Mercifully, the aircraft fell in a field away from the Duxford flightline, but - two high-profile warbird tragedies in almost as many days.... [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...096784,00.html

[ 12. July 2003, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

I heard about this when listening to the radio at work. Such a shame, my thoughts are with their families.Do they know what went wrong ?

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And when he gets to heaven
To Saint Peter he will tell
One more soldier reporting sir
I have served my time in hell

I've just seen the news coverage. Nothing will be known for sure until the accident is investigated. The aircraft seemed to go into a fairly gentle roll, and for some reason the pilot could not recover it....

A very sad thing to happen on such a perfect summers' day.

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

One report I saw showed the crash. To me, it seemed the culprit of the manoeuvre was pulling out of a dive. While not a ‘Stuka’ type dive, it seemed the plane was to end its manoeuvres by levelling out close to the ground then climbing away. The plane’s belly hit as if landing with no undercarriage.

I’ve seen very similar in an old training/crash investigation film. This was an American jet fighter some years ago, again with a very experienced pilot who had performed this many times. The problem is one of ‘momentum drift’ which even the best pilot can miscalculate as its hard to see unless you are looking for it.

e.g. You drive a car hard round a bend. You feel the force (centrifugal) pulling you in the opposite direct to which you’re turning. The momentum of your car travelling in a certain direction does not want to change. Tyres are good and the road is dry so the grip overcomes this. If the road was wet and oily, grip would be less and so the car would drift an amount which would be visibly seen. The faster you travel, the tighter the turn, the less the grip – the greater the momentum drift – the ultimate is a spin-out.

With a plane in the air there is always momentum drift. The plane is say 20’000 feet up – no problem. When turning (banking), even a basic plane’s instrumentation should have a simple ‘Turn and Slip’ indicator, to indicate to the pilot how much slip or momentum drift is occurring. It’s a quirk of the human brain that this principal tends to be either underestimated or forgotten when applying it to pulling out of a dive. The principal remains in force and is actually increased through gravity which wants nothing to fly.

With the American jet fighter crash, the pilot came in at a steep angle, pulled the nose up and opened the throttle, all close to the tarmac. The jet was well nose-up and the engines were burning, but, the tail caught the run-way, dragged along it for a short time then caused the plane to slam onto its’ belly. The equivalent of being tripped up when you’re ruining along. The pilot survived with a broken back.

From what I saw in this one showing, the prop plane swooped in and then levelled out and was normal flat attitude, but lowered onto the ground as if landing. The plane was in a flat attitude and the pilot probably had in mind to coast over the field then climb away, but, though in a flat and level attitude, momentum drift meant the plane was physically getting lower and lower.

I wait to hear the findings?

No.9

[ 12. July 2003, 08:02 PM: Message edited by: No.9 ]

You may well be right, No.9. From the footage, the control surfaces appear OK, the engine seems to running well, and the ground where the 'plane hit rises gently - so maybe a miscalculation.Whatever, a sad tragedy.

Someone on another Forum said that there was an odd, 'edgy' feel to Legends today - very hot temperatures, several 'planes not running well ; glad I didn't go to this one

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

I'd heard this sad news on the radio on my way to use the computers. They had not specified much but--im more than glad that no bystanders were killed.

May they rest in peace. [img]graemlins/vc.gif[/img]

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

That 'not running well' bit Martin, if referring to engines may be just due to the plane's engines (piston engines that is), being tuned for our normal conditions - and today we had a 'heat-wave', by British standards.

Remember a while back we were talking bout how a normally aspirated engine runs better when some moisture is present - higher density = improved cylinder filling.

Just a thought.

No.9

First time I heard of it. Really sad. Not only the vets are falling away from us. So is the technology in a sense.

Thoughts go out to the families of the guys who flew it.

If possible, keep us posted on the investigation...

[img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]

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