P-51D "Big Beautiful Doll" lost its canopy…!

What, like this? 😀

I can live with that

Anybody want to bet the passenger was deaf as a bat after that flight?

Erm…. Bats are blind, not deaf, thats doorposts you’re thinking of maybe? :rolleyes:

There have been many rumours to the cause of the crash of I-BILL, the most likely one is the canopy one. After reading an eyewitness report & seeing photo’s of wreckage & crash site it seems highly likely that OHB was taken out quite suddenly, the passenger tried bailing out but was found impaled in a tree with his parachute not fully open. OHB was found in the cockpit. Upon being told of the accident, all ATC were interested in was who was going to pay the parking bill for the Sea Fury.

…dude, u could have avoided the pulp details…
IIRC I-BILL was a yellow mustang that was registered here in italy and then sold to a UK owner, right?

Alex

Glad nobody was hurt in this Incident and that BBD landed safely, After all thats whats inportant.
I hope not too much is made out of this story as fear bad press for BBD and Wardbird community in general, I tend to think if it had not been a Warbird involved the story would have been a little less news worthy.

Im looking forward to seeing BBD flying again soon.

Anybody want to bet the passenger was deaf as a bat after that flight? Even taxiing behind those exhaust stacks with no headgear has got to be extremely painful, much less a flight at cruise power with the howl of the slipstream to boot! Well, there’s at least two guys in the world now who can tell us from fresh experience what it was like to let the canopy loose before a bail out. I’m just glad the vertical tail wasn’t compromised.

A bit puzzled by the reports of the pilot calling the owner and then booking the next flight home, as the owner and normal pilot of BBD, Rob Davies appears to be in that last picture! :confused:

That’s what I thought too. Proves you can never trust a journalist, whatever the language!

Mind you I did like the German word for emergency frequency: “SOS-funk kanal” maybe the CAA should adopt that one! 😀

2 more canopy stories….

1. When I was a Sergeant at Gravesend in the Kent Police back in the 80’s I had been flying at Rochester during the morning of the Kent Messenger Air Race.

A pity I was working in the afternoon, it was a gorgeous day and I was going to miss the race and airshow.

As soon as I got to work we were called out to a mid-air between a Bolkow Monsun and Piper Arrow at Shorne. They had collided in a turn, both crashed with fatal consequences. Quite horrible…..

I was the OIC and spent 3 days working with the AAIB.

One elusive part was the Monsun canopy – first point of contact between it and the underneath of the Arrow.

We eventually found it on day 2, c/w tell-tale contact marks on the top of the bubble. ( I also found the rudder pedals of the Arrow in the same field – they, and all the control cables had been severed by the Monsun prop).

2. A student at Enstone in a Grob 109 a few years back accidentally pulled the canopy jettison instead of the prop feather. The instructor was just too late to prevent it. They flew back in their cabrio to receive a phone call from a farmer who had already recovered the canopy from one of his fields.

It was completely undamaged and quickly refiitted.

Hairy

There have been many rumours to the cause of the crash of I-BILL, the most likely one is the canopy one. After reading an eyewitness report & seeing photo’s of wreckage & crash site it seems highly likely that OHB was taken out quite suddenly, the passenger tried bailing out but was found impaled in a tree with his parachute not fully open. OHB was found in the cockpit. Upon being told of the accident, all ATC were interested in was who was going to pay the parking bill for the Sea Fury.

A post on a certain ‘Rumour Network ‘ intimates that I-BILL, owned by Ormond Haydon Ballie was lost in Germany in 1977 when it too lost its canopy.

I have not heard this before, but other contributions on this forum have suggested a torque-roll was the cause. Anyone remember?

Whilst never hearing an official cause of the accident, I did read somewhere that it might have been due to a Clog worn by the female passenger in the back coming off during the display & nothing about the canopy causing it though!

How true the fromer was I don’t know, and if someone has the correct reason/cause of the I-BILL crash, then please let us know

Cheers

Paul

A post on a certain ‘Rumour Network ‘ intimates that I-BILL, owned by Ormond Haydon Ballie was lost in Germany in 1977 when it too lost its canopy.

I have not heard this before, but other contributions on this forum have suggested a torque-roll was the cause. Anyone remember?

If i remember correctly TFC ‘s P38 lost a canopy as well,en route from Mildenhall i think.

Thanks for the info & updates everyone.

A bit puzzled by the reports of the pilot calling the owner and then booking the next flight home, as the owner and normal pilot of BBD, Rob Davies appears to be in that last picture! :confused:

At least it seems nobody was hurt or killed and BBD made it to Berlin, so I guess it all ended rather happily.

I assume BBD sustained no damage from the incident either?

Cheers

Paul

I bet he ran to the loo.

More of a shuffle rearly 😀

We once had a premature release of one of our 1200 lb weights used for under-slung load training that killed a cow 😮 , both Pilot and Crewman deny hitting the emergency hook release…..but a very angry farmer nonetheless

😮 I study in Muenster!!!

A metal part of the nearly hit a woman (about 1m away), who was collecting her daughter at a tennis court.
Fortunally, nobody was injured in the and on the tennis court. 🙂

Source in German:
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,jkm2/panorama/artikel/183/76107/

I wonder if a new ‘kill’ marking appear under the cockpit 😀

Moggy

Similar to a certain Chino P51 with a cow or two painted on the side?

German media is now reporting that the pilot repeatedly stated to ATC that he was “continuing to Berlin” without explaining the necessity of such a report, and that upon arrival he called the owner to explain what had happened, and thereafter disappeared on the next scheduled flight back to the UK.

What, like this? 😀

It works for me 😀

Moggy

I wonder if a new ‘kill’ marking appear under the cockpit 😀

What, like this? 😀

It would have to be a pretty elaborate takeaway stand / gazebo before it was worth abandoning most of an airworthy P51 to avoid the compensation bill

You should see the one I built in my garden… 🙂