In cockpit camera of P51 Miss Velmas emergency landing at LAST years Legends

Just got around to watching this – heart in mouth stuff! Amazing to watch the rapidity of his reactions to the unfolding scenario…

Quote Originally Posted by Trolly Aux
Will he be at Legends?

K5054NZ
According to the interview/discussion video, yes! And in the same aircraft. Good stuff!

Thank you, fantastic I think he should get a standing ovation when he steps out for his display

“The cynical side of me wonders why the pilot didn’t change fuel tanks during this malady? I didn’t see him reach for the tank selector, which isn’t to say he didn’t, but regardless of that, he did very well in getting it and himself down in dreadful circumstances. I’m sure his wise words will be noted by many pilots. “
The safety guy says near the end of the video “you changed tanks so it wasn’t a fuel problem” or words to that effect.

The cynical side of me wonders why the pilot didn’t change fuel tanks during this malady? I didn’t see him reach for the tank selector, which isn’t to say he didn’t, but regardless of that, he did very well in getting it and himself down in dreadful circumstances. I’m sure his wise words will be noted by many pilots.

Interesting comments, including jockeying of the throttle. Something The Horsemen must regularly employ.

Will he be at Legends?

According to the interview/discussion video, yes! And in the same aircraft. Good stuff!

Yes agreed CD not suggesting this to be the cause; I do think that things go south real quick as a display pilot, as you are already close to the ground for display purposes; I would think a fairly natural reaction to loss of power, would be to push the throttle forward quickly, which often has a negative reaction in terms of stabilising power delivery.

Not a lot of thinking time, with an engine failure, and as said in the video clip a lot of information to process.

Absolutely no criticism, implied or intended, towards any of the pilots mentioned in this thread…

…merely an observation on the redundancy inherent in the ignition system design.

I had an intermittent Mag drop on once that showed its self only in the air, it caused a lack of power not loosing the engine its started on a flight from Biggin up to Norfolk just north of Norwich, after landing we did mag drop tests and nothing all good so it was put down to the air temp about 88′ that day, we did a local flight no problem but after leaving from the airfield for return to Biggin after 15 to 20 minutes it started to play up again diverted into DX turned out some wiring in the mag was shorting somehow both mags had to be rebuilt faultless after that.
I have no idea what the problem with Miss Velma was and I would not speculate, comment or assume all I know is a text book cool calm decision making at its best by the pilot.

I’m interested to hear if this crash was due to a ‘mag’ problem; surely the Merlin in the P-51, and the engines of every other aircraft of the era, has two complete ignition systems: two spark plugs in each cylinder, two magnetos and two completely independent ignition wiring harnesses.

This complete system redundancy, although it has performance benefits too, is designed to ensure that even if one magneto fails completely, every cylinder still has a good spark from one spark-plug. In fact part of the pre-flight checks is to switch-off each magneto in turn and note the drop in engine RPM; the ‘mag-drop’ test.

So was there a problem with both magnetos?

Surely, at the reduced power levels required to maintain altitude at reduced speed, a single correctly functioning magneto and a single spark-plug firing in each cylinder are enough to ensure that the engine is capable of producing, consistently, that level of power output?

Similarly, and my knowledge is much more limited on this score, aren’t the carburettors on most (all?) Merlin engines ‘twin-choke’ carburettors; effectively two identical carburettors side-by-side (with their throttle-valves on a common shaft)? Although the ‘carburettors’ share a common float-chamber, assuming fuel reaches this, there is system redundancy built into the carburettor too (although I appreciate that there are ‘performance’ reasons too for having two smaller carburettors than one large one – especially at lower power (or idle) settings)?

The problem with a ‘defective’ choke in a twin-choke carburettor is that you can’t just turn the defective choke off; it still admits an equal volume of air whether there is fuel mixed with that air or not.

any report on the P51 involved in the prop versus tailplane mid air? Any lesson to be learned other than formation flying being challenging?

In my experience certain fuel issues show exactly the same symptoms as ignition (in this case mag) issues; apparently Merlins suffer from over greasing on the mags.

It looks a one point as if he has enough height to make it back ,but at the end the plane is sinking fast, and probably the best decision, to belly in the field; I wonder what effect a similar landing at DX itself would have on the events precedings and whether advice is to put them down off (air) field?

I think Miss Helen’s prob was mags wasn’t it? Does seem very similar but in this case they seem to suspect carbs. Good outcome considering, well done and hope we will enjoy watching the two of them in Duxford’s skies in July…

Do we know why the engine quit? It seems like fuel starvation given the intermittent running. Can anyone confirm?

It seems similar to the engine malfunction on “Miss Helen” at Flying Legends in 2008 on landing approach as well (which I recall was also following the Balbo formation). I recall reports, back to original military operation, where the Bendix-Stromberg carburetor on the Mustang can get out of whack with too much movements/”jockeying” of the throttle.

Do we know why the engine quit? It seems like fuel starvation given the intermittent running. Can anyone confirm?

Yes, if he’d come down on the M11 motorway, just think of the consequences…

…the organisers of the M11 would surely be held to account for any deaths or injuries, use of the M11 would be banned indefinitely, there’d have been questions asked in the house-of-commons as to why a new motorway was built near a busy airfield, maybe even a public enquiry would be held and those responsible for building the M11 in such a dangerous location could even be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter!

He clearly didn’t want to cross the motorway enroute to Duxford.
An outcome of the Shoram crash?

He clearly did the right thing…no sense in pushing one’s luck.

Great video and a lot of useful stuff for others to learn from

WOW ! airmanship at its best, decisions decisions decision, bang bang bang one after another he nailed each of them.

my heart stopped even knowing the outcome just watching that, now I can breath.

Will he be at Legends?

Strange, a notable lack of any ‘stunt flying’…

…”three down and safe”, well done, that man!