aerobatics in warbirds and vintage jets

I don’t mean to bug you Galdri,but I have to pick up on one or two points from your last post…

“Ok…..I do not have the complete report at hand at the moment. From what I remember the pilot landed long. My english is failing me at the moment as I can not remember the correct word for what exactly what it was that he hit. I thought it was a some kind of a drainage ditch by side of the runway. Anyway he hit soft ground on one side of the runway that turned the aircraft over. Maybe he stayed within the boundaries of the runway, but he was not where he should have been. There for I classicified it as loosing directional control.”

The aircraft remained on the runway and was where it should’ve been when it flipped over.I think the drainage thing you’re thinking of is to do with the technique the runway mainatanence guys used to try and keep that end of the runway drained.They used a tiller of sorts,which cut channels through the turf about 6-inches underground,and a few inches apart.If you took a slice through the earth you’d see something that looked like a sheet of paper from a notepad,with lots of perforations at the top.A similar thing is used on football pitches.So,to sum up,the aircraft WAS on the runway,and hadn’t overshot or veered off it.I’m sorry to be so pedantic,but I feel it’s important that blame is not laid on the pilot whose name and reputation was known and respected by many.

“It strikes me as very stupid to fly below minimum control speed (Vmca) on final. These guy’s are flying into airfields of more than ample length, so what is the use of slowing down to final approach speed (Vref) many miles out on finals and go below Vmca? The standard teaching in my neck of the woods is “never go below Vmca until landing is assured”. Why should it be any different in the UK? You never know when the phonies are going to quit on you, country is irrelevant in this argument.”

The characteristics of many vintage twins means that they CANNOT land the aircraft above Vmca,or take off for that matter.It is common practice on many of them to keep the nose down after take off so as to reach Vmca as quickly as possible.Going below Vmca before landing simply can’t be helped,it’s a limitation of the aircraft’s performance,and not a choice by the pilot/crew.

With regard to somebody’s suggestion of putting telemetry systems on warbirds for ‘pit crew’ to moniter,this is already being trialled.The recently restored Spit XIV RN201 has a telemetry system fitted so as various performance data can be analysed.I think this is as yet limited to plugging a laptop into the aircraft after landing,or during ground runs,but the long term intention is to make the information available in real time to an observer on the ground.

RobAnt -If your sick of the discussion don’t not reply to it ! It isn’t addictive like nicotine.
It’s human nature to discuss things that you deem ‘morbid’ -how millions of people tune in to watch ‘Casualty’
each week only to see a load of people die ! Unless you have missed the blantly obvious the fighter as a type is designed to take out enemy aircraft – often that involves death – similarily
the bomber does pretty much exactly what it’s description says.
The fact that people wish to discuss air display accidents
and suggest ways in which safety can be improved cannot be wrong ! You suggest that we should just accept that pilots make mistakes and structural failures happen – well I think we could ammend that a bit as follows :

A Tiger Moth crashed in Australia because of a structural failure of one wing. An investigation found that inspections were
necessary on Tiger Moth aircraft to ensure their structural integrity. Look at any Tiger Moth and you will see a number of patches on the wings were this has been carried out.

Result : have any Tigers crashed as a result of structural failure since ? No.

A large number of aircraft have a fatigue life i.e Chipmunk/Bulldog for example.This is an effective way of ensuring structural failures don’t happen. I cannot recall any instance of a Chipmunk crashing through structural failure – if it did actions would be taken to find and remove the cause .

So in essence we don’t have to accept that structural failures happen.

Should we as the travelling public accept that train crashes happen and live in the knowledge that one day we might die on a train ? Or should we influence through debate the rail companies
to improve safety? Any discussion which involves safety cannot be in vain.

That’s ok Willow, I was just being lazy.

I just dug out the pilots notes for the Mustang III (RAF notes) that I previously mention, A.P.2025G-P.N. They state on Page 26 under Aerobatics & page 30 under Flying limitations, that “rolls of any sort should only be practised above 10,000 ft”. Yikes

Now ammended my post also. Sorted.

Sorry, can’t help being pedantic.

Cheers

Willow

There we go Willow, I mod’ed the post to mention the cam failure.

Moggy,

You are quite right, of course, the Gladiator and Spit ARE looped and rolled at Shuttleworth, but NOT while in formation, if you see what I mean.
The BBMF fighters each perform a ‘Victory Roll’ at the end of there show, but it is a climbing roll, hence gaining height and therefore safety.

Actually, you’re damn right!! It’s far too long since I went to Old Warden 🙁

DIGBY

Only by discussing what has happened can it be prevented from happening again. The good old ‘head in the sand’ routine is not the answer here.

Willow

Moggy C,

How about a camera in the cockpit looking at the instruments ?

Digby,

Having seen a fatal airshow accident & a non fatal one I do not wish to see any others. I don’t know if our ramblings here will have any influence but maybe, just maybe someone who is more deeply involved would get wind of an idea expressed & prevent an accident. There are members of the warbird fraternity who do post here. The whole philosophy of aviation safety relys on frankness of opinion & not ignoring the smallest detail. The airlines use CHIRPS (Confidential Human Incident Reporting System) to allow crews to anonomously report their **** ups. One safety poster I saw in a hangar said “break the chain”, i.e. all accidents tend to be the sum of events, remove one event to break the chain & the accident won’t happen. Having found myself nearly doing something I saw an experienced display pilot do at the Paris airshow I believe there is a good reason to discuss these things as long as they are done sensitively.

I certainly think currency on type is a major problem. I have only ever flown a couple of types of aircraft (gliders) solo so I can’t comment on the difference from a fast jet & a performance warbird from experience. However, I do mess about with cars & one of mine in particular I treat with caution if I haven’t driven it for a while. It’s not that difficult, but it needs the correct handling near the limit & if you’ve lost the “touch” because you have been away from it for a while it could get messy. I certainly wouldn’t be throwing it around at the limit with only 5 hours in 12 months practice. Think about the bit in the BofB film where the CO looks appalled when he asks how much time the new pilots have on spits. They answer 10 & 12 hours respectively, double what is mentioned here, but thought of as way low at the time. Only a film, but representitive of a real situation where time on type counts. OK, so airshow pilots won’t be facing hordes of malicious cabbage crates coming over the horizon, but I hope it makes my point. I suppose more practice is what I’m angling for, though this will mean an increase in prices. However, currency isn’t always a guarantee, I assume the RAF Phantom display crew that were lost at Abingdon in the late eighties were very experienced on type.

What needs to be looked at is accidents per hours flown for warbirds. I remember at the end of the eighties being told that on average the RAF expected to lose seven pilots/aircrew a year. I know that display flying warbirds is not the same as hacking it down a Welsh valley at 500 knots in a downpour, but shouldn’t we understand that all aircraft are unforgiving of errors at low level.

Random thoughts,

Do warbird operators/airshow display teams have get togethers to discuss this sort of thing other than pre show briefings? If not, should they ?

Should there be a minimum level of hours on type set regardless of overall experience ?

How much practice do the BBMF (only one aircraft “broken”, as a result of a camshaft failure, in 30 years) get compared to other outfits ?

At least if the routines are made simpler/slower I might get some better pics.

I believe all the tail-chase sequences are practiced beforehand.

As to the Balbo, It’s part of the show and the pressure is on from the organisers. But some won’t join-in, most noticeably the BBMF

Moggy

2) Talk to any display pilot you like and the part of any Duxford they hate most is the Balbo. Forming up with a load of pilots you’ve never flown with before in dissimilar types? They fear it deeply.

Moggy

Moggy quick question please,regarding the above post,surely if they live in a “if it’s not safe ,don’t do it ” enviroment,why do they do something that they’re not happy about.
Also when they fly as a formation i e a theme of the “cats” the B o B where they are flying with planes that are scripted in and maybe not all the pilots have flown in these formations with these varying types of planes ,how do they get on then?
Cheers:D

P S is there any pressure from the sales dep to do this to get bums on seats and pilots are comprimised

Kin hell can’t you morbid sods find something else to talk about other than crashes. It’s bad enough for people who lose family and friends due to thease accidents without people who invariably don’t know diddly squat about it raking it up over and over again.can’t we please show some sensitivity and respect and cut out all the crap and put this to rest or if you can’t then please go get a life

Two points from Willow’s posting.

1) Been a while since you’ve been to Shuttleworth huh? The Spit and the Gladiator are certainly looped and rolled.

2) Talk to any display pilot you like and the part of any Duxford they hate most is the Balbo. Forming up with a load of pilots you’ve never flown with before in dissimilar types? They fear it deeply.

Moggy

Originally posted by Mark V

I was refering to the entire world, not just the UK. The museum fires include Le Bourget, CWH, South America (can’t remember which country). If you go back to 1978, San Diego. The point I was trying to make was that if it is being suggested that flying warbirds in the way we do at the moment (ie: not just flat manouevers) should be stopped, the alternative (keeping aircraft in static museums) does nothing to improve the long term chances of survival.

All very well, but surely the issue here is loss of life.

You don’t mention how many museum staff were lost per aircraft.

If a single seat fighter crashes and the pilot dies it is a personal tragedy. As we have seen though, sometimes the aeroplane is rebuilt to fly again (Rolls-royce Spit being an example).

If a museum catches fire and 15 single seat fighters are destroyed it is a collosal waste and very sad, but no-one has lost their life. Look at the recent fire at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham. Losing 600 bikes in a fire is a loss to the national heritage, but losing 1 bike and rider is a personal tragedy
for somebodys family and friends. It’s a big difference.

Stuffing aeroplanes into museums may not save them, but it may save lives.

That point made, however, I agree that aeroplanes should remain in the air. The BBMF and Shuttleworth aeroplanes are, in my opinion, displayed very well without the need for loops, rolls, and cuban eights.
I would be quite happy to see a Spitfire in the air without it needing to be either inverted or only 35ft AGL. Formations such as the ‘balbo’ finale to Legends are fine, but tight formation aerobatics (i.e. loops), although spectacular, add just too much risk. Even the Red Arrows and Thunderbirds have accidents occasionally, and they do a hell of a lot of practise.

In short…. keep ’em flying – safely

Willow

Originally posted by Shorty01
maybe we could have some form of ASI, Altitude, engine parameter telemetry relayed to a “pit team” who acted as back up. A radio a caution could be given should any of the parameters approved during the preshow display approval be transgressed. maybe this would help.

Novel thinking Shorty, but I would guess you’ve never had to deal with the CAA.

It can take a year and a small forest’s worth of paper if you want to change the colour of the ashtray knob on a spamcan.

Designing, building and fitting ‘sender’ instruments as you suggest would take a few years and a few million quid. Getting CAA approval will see you and I a long time dead. 🙁

Moggy

Originally posted by Shorty01
The Mossie crash was caused by incorrectly reassembled carbs which caused the engines to cut under negative G. The Venturi mod that was meant to correct this problem from earlier merlins was not positioned correctly, therefore pilot skill could not have saved it. To avoid this maybe there should be a test area near the show where display aircraft were put through a brief check out at altitude before descending for the display or at least perform some manoeuvres that covered the display flight regime in transit to the show.

Having read the accident report, apparently the aircraft was tested because there had been a similar problem in the past, and it could not be reproduced. Unfortunately, when it was reproduced it caused the well known result.

One aside – it’s perhaps not relevant, but a friend of mine was very close to the Mosquito team at BAe, and apparently the pilots were concerned that the dual controls had been removed from the aircraft in its previous rebuild, as it meant they got a lot less stick time in the aircraft. Personally, if aircraft have dual controls, it seems silly not to use them, because obviously the more experience a pilot has on type, the more likely it is that he’ll be able to work around any problems he has, however serious.

As in all things in life I think moderation is the answer here. People here are talking about sticking to flat displays & others are defending the more extreme end of the spectrum. Can”t we come up with something in between ?

One point though, a while ago I bought a copy of the reproduced pilots notes on the Mustang. Having seen Candyman Moose (it was a while ago) charge around at low level I was somewhat shocked to see the minimum recommended height in the notes for a roll was something like several thousand feet, maybe even as much as 12,000. I shall check tonight. It did raise the question in my mind if, warbirds are so twitchy as to require over 2 miles of height to recover, if they “throw a wobbly” how safe are low level aerobatics ?

The Mossie crash was caused by incorrectly reassembled carbs which caused the engines to cut under negative G. The Venturi mod that was meant to correct this problem from earlier merlins was not positioned correctly, therefore pilot skill could not have saved it. To avoid this maybe there should be a test area near the show where display aircraft were put through a brief check out at altitude before descending for the display or at least perform some manoeuvres that covered the display flight regime in transit to the show.

An afterthought: If I recall the Rolls Royce Spitfire crash at Woodford was caused by lack of airspeed/boost setting at the top of the loop. Therefore, FOR AIRSHOWS maybe we could have some form of ASI, Altitude, engine parameter telemetry relayed to a “pit team” who acted as back up. A radio a caution could be given should any of the parameters approved during the preshow display approval be transgressed. The Airshow pilot has a lot to monitor, height, airspeed, altitude & crowdline, all with tight tolerances, add to this Galdri’s point that they may not be fully current & the margin for error is small. 99.9999 % of the time they get it right, however with such tight tolerances & valuable lives + airframes maybe this would help.

🙂 Galdri and Cosmic wind,you have hit the nails right on the head.The pilots are the weak link,it is human nature and it can’t be stopped entirely but people have got realise that just because someone has spent a fortune in time and money on a restoration it does’nt make them into a super human.
I’m sorry but if it carries on as Cosmic wind said it will be stopped ,whether by the CAA saying no Aeros or by the insurance companies.The problem on forums like this is that we are all enthuiasts and don’t like to hear the criticisms from others,we live in a little enclosed bubble where we think things are rotating around the air display scene,it doesn’t.
Pilots hours on type need to be looked at,i believe Sally B is restricted to a few hours a year flying,that is probably shared between pilots so it is very few hours on type as well,she is probably a slight different kettle of fish as she does’nt do Aeros,just nice well controlled flying.
Now swop that over into a high energy plane with a pilot that straps himself in every few months and you can see the problems,add that to an inflight situation the pilot has’nt been in before and he is learning very quickly to remedy it,just hope he is high enough and has the time to manage it.

Some comments which have been given a bit of thought and common sense appear, galbri for one, and all of a sudden the debate is mindless!! I think some need to open up their eyes and stop dreaming. Display flying regulation has improved dramatically in recent years sadly principally due to crashes at shows. Those with heads in the sand might deplore a tightening of the regs now but how will you feel when the sort of press that accidents generate lead to an outright ban of diplay flying.

Not claiming to be an expert in this field, but

time on type. Surely it’s far too easy to say that’s the reason for an accident. What about recent incidents with the Reds, Thunderbirds, last years G-222 incident at RIAT? Surely they weren’t short of time.

Originally posted by galdri
most of the “warbirds” flying to day are only highly accurate replicas were, sometimes, the only original piece of metal in the aircraft is the data plate!

That should please those who have spent many many hours rebuilding these aircraft, not to mention those who have invested many thousands of pounds in them.

Originally posted by RobAnt
I’m sick to death of this whorey old chestnut of a topic.

🙂 Great word, but I think you meant ‘hoary’ 🙂 🙂

Moggy

In total agreement with the rest of your sentiments