CF-100 Clunk – photos of crash at airshow 1957

in a couple of shots it looks as though the pictures have been touched up around the air intakes but again though the picture quality aint great. there are plenty of air crashes over the years where the pilots have pushed an aircraft to far and wing tips/ leading edges had failed.

in a couple of shots it looks as though the pictures have been touched up around the air intakes but again though the picture quality aint great. there are plenty of air crashes over the years where the pilots have pushed an aircraft to far and wing tips/ leading edges had failed.

CF-100

one wonders if it was actually the tail (twisting,bending) giving way a fraction before the severe pitch up as the tails destriction seems far more advanced and fragmental as if its exploded. such a long time ago now though i doubt if anything new would come to light

I also wondered if there was more to it than the obvious. as you say, we’ll probably never know. I can’t find an accident report online, anyway.

I’m not sure about the ‘tail wagging’ theory. If you look at the third frame the tail looks intact, still level and symmetrical. It’s only once the wingtips have disappeared – in frame four – that the tail ‘explodes’, and for me that’s consistent with it having been hit by the departing wingtips.

The thing that got me wondering is that the intakes look far too big in proportion to the rest of the aircraft – from frame three onwards, if not before. Easy to read far too much into poor-quality photographs, of course, but I have been wondering why that might be.
It could be a trick of the light or a reflection. The Canada-based Clunks were all bare metal finish, but they weren’t noted for being polished, so I don’t see why there’d be a strong reflection from the intake rings. If you look further on in the sequence there are still bright rings visible around the intakes even as the remains of the aircraft go past the photographer, when the angle between sun, aircraft and camera would be radically different.
Very likely the pilot, realising he’d got it wrong, not only pulled back too hard, but also slammed the throttles forward. If it was a humid day, might the Orendas gasping for air have created a ring of condensation around the intakes? To me it is far-fetched that such a ring, if it formed, would persist as the airframe comes apart and bucks around, but it does fit the photographic record.
Or is it indicative that the aircraft is coming apart in a more general way, even perhaps before the photographic sequence starts. One might expect that to have been more obvious at the time. There’s no evidence of a significant smoke or vapour trail behind the aircraft, for instance.

ps. I wish I’d proof-read my previous post more carefully. CF-110, indeed! :o)

CF-100

one wonders if it was actually the tail (twisting,bending) giving way a fraction before the severe pitch up as the tails destriction seems far more advanced and fragmental as if its exploded. such a long time ago now though i doubt if anything new would come to light

I also wondered if there was more to it than the obvious. as you say, we’ll probably never know. I can’t find an accident report online, anyway.

I’m not sure about the ‘tail wagging’ theory. If you look at the third frame the tail looks intact, still level and symmetrical. It’s only once the wingtips have disappeared – in frame four – that the tail ‘explodes’, and for me that’s consistent with it having been hit by the departing wingtips.

The thing that got me wondering is that the intakes look far too big in proportion to the rest of the aircraft – from frame three onwards, if not before. Easy to read far too much into poor-quality photographs, of course, but I have been wondering why that might be.
It could be a trick of the light or a reflection. The Canada-based Clunks were all bare metal finish, but they weren’t noted for being polished, so I don’t see why there’d be a strong reflection from the intake rings. If you look further on in the sequence there are still bright rings visible around the intakes even as the remains of the aircraft go past the photographer, when the angle between sun, aircraft and camera would be radically different.
Very likely the pilot, realising he’d got it wrong, not only pulled back too hard, but also slammed the throttles forward. If it was a humid day, might the Orendas gasping for air have created a ring of condensation around the intakes? To me it is far-fetched that such a ring, if it formed, would persist as the airframe comes apart and bucks around, but it does fit the photographic record.
Or is it indicative that the aircraft is coming apart in a more general way, even perhaps before the photographic sequence starts. One might expect that to have been more obvious at the time. There’s no evidence of a significant smoke or vapour trail behind the aircraft, for instance.

ps. I wish I’d proof-read my previous post more carefully. CF-110, indeed! :o)

one wonders if it was actually the tail (twisting,bending) giving way a fraction before the severe pitch up as the tails destriction seems far more advanced and fragmental as if its exploded. such a long time ago now though i doubt if anything new would come to light

one wonders if it was actually the tail (twisting,bending) giving way a fraction before the severe pitch up as the tails destriction seems far more advanced and fragmental as if its exploded. such a long time ago now though i doubt if anything new would come to light

Larry Milberry’s book on the CF-110 records this as 18562 of 433 Squadron. The unfortunate crew were Messrs Sparrow and Sheffield.

Whilst clearly the airframe was doomed, I wonder if the crew might have survived had the failing wings not cleaned the tail off? It’s interesting that, while the text with the pictures talks of the Mk.5’s “High Altitude … wingtip extensions” coming off, the photos show the actual breaks were well inboard of those, and at different points on the front and rear spars.

Edit: Just spotted that Milberry records this accident on June 8th, not 9th as it says with the pictures.

Wingtip extensions would affect the bending across the whole span and so a failure would occur at the most over-stressed point which could be different for different spars. I believe early Meteors had a similar problem, solved by the expedient of clipping the wingtips. Without the loss of the tail, the event might not only have been survivable, but perhaps landable (just about).

I might be reading too much into it, but I am interested now that the CF-100 at Cranfield was used for, among other things, wing bending tests.

Larry Milberry’s book on the CF-110 records this as 18562 of 433 Squadron. The unfortunate crew were Messrs Sparrow and Sheffield.

Whilst clearly the airframe was doomed, I wonder if the crew might have survived had the failing wings not cleaned the tail off? It’s interesting that, while the text with the pictures talks of the Mk.5’s “High Altitude … wingtip extensions” coming off, the photos show the actual breaks were well inboard of those, and at different points on the front and rear spars.

Edit: Just spotted that Milberry records this accident on June 8th, not 9th as it says with the pictures.

Wingtip extensions would affect the bending across the whole span and so a failure would occur at the most over-stressed point which could be different for different spars. I believe early Meteors had a similar problem, solved by the expedient of clipping the wingtips. Without the loss of the tail, the event might not only have been survivable, but perhaps landable (just about).

I might be reading too much into it, but I am interested now that the CF-100 at Cranfield was used for, among other things, wing bending tests.

Larry Milberry’s book on the CF-110 records this as 18562 of 433 Squadron. The unfortunate crew were Messrs Sparrow and Sheffield.

Whilst clearly the airframe was doomed, I wonder if the crew might have survived had the failing wings not cleaned the tail off? It’s interesting that, while the text with the pictures talks of the Mk.5’s “High Altitude … wingtip extensions” coming off, the photos show the actual breaks were well inboard of those, and at different points on the front and rear spars.

Edit: Just spotted that Milberry records this accident on June 8th, not 9th as it says with the pictures.

Larry Milberry’s book on the CF-110 records this as 18562 of 433 Squadron. The unfortunate crew were Messrs Sparrow and Sheffield.

Whilst clearly the airframe was doomed, I wonder if the crew might have survived had the failing wings not cleaned the tail off? It’s interesting that, while the text with the pictures talks of the Mk.5’s “High Altitude … wingtip extensions” coming off, the photos show the actual breaks were well inboard of those, and at different points on the front and rear spars.

Edit: Just spotted that Milberry records this accident on June 8th, not 9th as it says with the pictures.

Never heard of or seen that before. It reminds me very much of the DH110 at Farnborough some five years previously, although it seems that the disintegration of the CF-100 is not as violent as the 110.
Still a very tragic outcome though.

Rob

Never heard of or seen that before. It reminds me very much of the DH110 at Farnborough some five years previously, although it seems that the disintegration of the CF-100 is not as violent as the 110.
Still a very tragic outcome though.

Rob