CAF Corsair goes WHOMP!

You’re right…Cavanaugh’s…sorry about that…still early morning here….Lone Star flies the dash 5 model, Cavanaugh has the former Paul Morgan machine that had the belly landing…my bad…changed my above post to make it more accurate. The bummer about that accident last summer was she was just getting ready to depart TX for some event here in Denver….we don’t get Corsairs through these parts that much…but anyway…

More coffee…

Mark

Mark,

Lone Star’s airplane didn’t have any kind of accident like this. She flew all last summer and was fall and was waiting to fly for the End of Season Fly Day in November but couldn’t because of weather. Since then she has been put up for winter and has already made her post maintenance first flights.

Only reason I know is because a buddy of mine lives on Galveston and gives me daily reports on whats going on over there.

Cavanaugh’s airplane had a gear up in a field and still hasn’t flown since then, but most of those problems apparently are associated with the engine rebuild taking awhile.

Ryan

The Corsair suffered the usual damage associated with a belly landing…bent prop, sudden stoppage of the engine, damage to the underside of the fuselage and the ‘bend’ in the wings and the flaps from what I read elsewhere….if the gear were not down I would imagine it has some aft fuselage damage also since the tailwheel would’nt have been down either…reading the WIX board apparently she is in decent shape for a bird her age and some folks there praised how tough Vought made them and how they could be repaired after a landing like this (Cavanaugh’s Corsair suffered a similar belly landing last summer and is still under repair).
Let’s hope she’s not out of the game too long…

Mark

I would personally prefer that incidents are reported on a factual basis. Later on, when the official report becomes available, personnal opinion might improve the knowledge. (See the Hanna’s fatal accident). I personnally consider that in the latter case, readers’opinion of local pilots quoted in a well-known aviation magazine help us to understand what really happened to an experienced pilot.

This is my opinion and I would not blame anybody to contradict me.

By the way, I am not a pilot but a Loss Adjuster.

Willy

Everyone is human,everyone makes mistakes and pilots are not an exception,hope the pilot is ok and the aircraft is back up in the sky before too long.
What is the condition of both the pilot and plane,any news ?

Re the METAR, don’t like the wind at the time. Frankly some people take it too seriously and speaking from experience I have had a couple of bad judgement days but this has not had me land “gear up” by mistake…

More recent markings (Midland TX, Oct. 2002)

…and another (my avatar shown to better advantage) of what it looked like during the 90’s….it now wears checkerboards both fore and aft in honor of VMF 312 and Merritt ‘Mo’ Chance, whose plane it now emulates, wearing #530.

Mark

And here is the plane in better days. This is a photo I’ve had for 20 years, and is shot probarbly sometime in the early or mid-70s!

T J

ID of Corsair

The CAF Corsair went WHOMP in Las Cruces NM this last weekend when SOMETHING WENT WRONG somehow and the gear were not available for use in the landing attempt…..there, the politically correct version which should offend no one and has no details to it…everyone happy?

Mark

From another website:

IDENTIFICATION
Regis#: 9964Z Make/Model: FG01 Description: FG-01 ORIGAN
Date: 03/19/2005 Time: 2200

Event Type: Incident Highest Injury: None Mid Air: N Missing:
N
Damage: Minor

LOCATION
City: LAS CRUCES State: NM Country: US

DESCRIPTION
ACFT LANDED WITH GEAR UP. LAS CRUCES, NM

INJURY DATA Total Fatal: 0
# Crew: 1 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0
Unk:
# Pass: 0 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0
Unk:
# Grnd: Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0
Unk:

WEATHER: METAR KLRU 192149Z AUTO 17014G32KT 10SM CLR 19/00 A2999 RMK

OTHER DATA

Departed: DALLAS, TX Dep Date: Dep. Time:
Destination: UNKN Flt Plan: UNK Wx
Briefing: N

You can teach monkeys to fly better than that

Anybody who’s seen The Battle of Britain knows where i’m coming from with above title
It happens it happened a lot during the war pilots were simply preoccupied and made a simple mistake to ERR is human and no one’s perfect i hope that the FAA does find that it was a mechanical problem unfortunately for the pilot though he was a flying a CAF aircraft and they don’t have the best safety record when it comes to their aircraft please correct me if i’m wrong but i seem to remember something happening to their P-82 Twin Mustang and other various aircraft one would tend to thin ktho that if it is mechanical it would more than likely be hydraulic failure of some kind

I thought it was very informative – it shows how the even the most experienced crews can screw up occasionally.

Here’s another story in the same vein – an extremely experienced pilot very nearly landing a 747 wheels up!

http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/188536-1.html

I’m trying to imagine how many sparkles a belly landing fully loaded 747 might make :D:D:D:D:D
good story and “not to do” example fellas

Alex

most of the 40s planes had a warning horn that started screaming if u were with throttle to idle, flaps down (pre-flare attitude) and gears up.. The T-6 has the following landing gear warnings:
1) mechanical levers in the cockpit that show the moving of the gear leg
2) green/red ligths on top of the upsaid levers
3) warning horn
4) wing mechanical witnesses into small windows

redundant systems u say? still some pilots managed (and probably still manage) to accidentally belly land them..
The trick most ppl dont think about is “two pair of eyes is better than one”. That’s why these kinda mishaps are less frequent on two seaters, as long as two persons (possibly pilots) are monitoring what’s going on there should be no trouble 🙂

Alex

Pilot error

Propstrike – I salute you! A very well written opinion indeed.

To err is human.

When I eventually acquire my warbird (watch this space!), I will of course take every precaution to avoid the £100k+ ( ouch!) mistake by forgetting the gear.

If Cliff Spink can do it then so can anybody. In my case, I haven’t flown anything with retractable gear before (apart from a funny Ogar motorglider!) so I will need to be even more vigilant.

I will endeavour wherever possible to ensure that I don’t fly it anywhere there isn’t somebody in a tower to ask me over the radio, ‘check gear down’.

Failing that, maybe a simple but effective electronic device between throttle back-stop and dangly bits might do the trick!

We all make mistakes on the road – very few people get to hear about them. Maybe the non pilots guffawing at our mistakes should reflect on this.

Unlike road accidents, our mistakes as pilots are actively published for others to learn from. They are also much more newsworthy – a simple landing accident resulting in a bent aircraft is more likely to hit the headlines than a serious road traffic accident in the same area.

Us pilots of course recognise that we are in the firing line. As a display pilot too, nothing focuses my mind more than a few thousand pairs of eyes watching me come over the hedge!

HP

Here’s another story in the same vein – an extremely experienced pilot very nearly landing a 747 wheels up!

http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/188536-1.html

Cliff Spink, a pilot of great experience and repute, recently delivered a fascinating talk at White Waltham. His introduction described an incident in which a Mustang was flaring for touchdown at that very airfield when the pilot was suddenly alerted by a warning ‘check gear!’ over the radio. He clawed his way back to altitude, and completed an uneventful circuit and landing.

The pilot was Mr Spink himself, and his candour was much appreciated by the assembled pilots, most of whom will not fly such demanding aeroplanes. He made no excuses, but mentioned in passing the circumstances and distractions ( last-minute overshoot due to alteration of runway in use) which led to his oversight.

It seems inappropriate for those of us who never have, and never will fly a high performance aircraft, to pass any sort of judgement on those who do. Quite a lot of well-known names have been caught out, and I am sure they do not view their incidents with casual indifference. Any jeering from the sidelines is just ill-mannered and unhelpful.

i dunno chaps, but seems like u r too worried about the “politically correct”..
Since the beginning of flying there were accidents, and ppl joking or talking about them.. Honestly, I never met a pilot who wouldnt joke about a friend’s mishap like a wheels up landing (“he just changed the tires and didnt want to make them dirt!”).. I’ve heard even black humour about more serious accidents, and found myself smiling at it.. It’s something normal I think, everybody do something stupid at least once in a lifetime, this doesnt make him a moron or a subnormal, it’s just that we’re human beings. Of course we can learn something from other’s accidents, but a pilot who flew the same plane for 30 years without reading the checklist everytime won’t start doing it after he hears about an accident.. it’s just a matter of “pilot education”…

Alex

Aircraft accidents

As an owner/ operator/ display pilot with a small collection of vintage flying machines, please let me explain to the non-pilots on this forum how I feel about accident reports on various forums, a view shared it would appear by many of my fellow aviators –

1. Yes, I do want to know about them. As a pilot I learn from them. Not for nothing do our CAA spend a lot of time and money in the production of GASIL ( General Aviation Safety Information leaflet ), listing accidents, incidents, violations, maintenance-related incidents; CHIRP(Confidential Human Factors Incident Report Programme); SDD reports (Safety Investigation and Data Department) etc. etc.. This is a valuable contribution to flight safety. It saves lives and prevents accidents. I have contributed in the past, read it thoroughly and carefully archive them afterwards. Every owner gets it for free. To otherwise subscribe, call 01293 573225 and cough up £16. Well worth it. Accidents involving non- British Registered aircraft are of course of interest for the same flight-safety reasons.
2. No I don’t want to read any speculation as to the cause, even if it appears obvious. All accidents are investigated and a conclusion reached. These are available for all to read on the Net. The FAA and presumably most other countries do the same.

HP

Sorry, but this thread has been poorly titled and written. The title is unnecessarily dramatic and shows little regard for the obvious sensitivities of those outside and inside the business regarding accidents, whether they cause injury or not.

I’m not a ‘whinger’ and appreciate threads, good or bad, light-hearted or serious, from our worldwide contributers. But this forum is unlikely to attract and maintain a high quality cross section of inputs if insensitive and poorly reported posts become the norm.

Sorry Corsair166b, I’ve enjoyed your other posts, but this one seems a bit out of character…