Shuttleworth Gladiator engine failure- successful forced landing off airfield.

I wonder if Theresa May was flying the Gladiator, having heard her revelation that she loved cavorting through farmer’s fields when she was a young ‘un!
Although as illustrated other crops are also available… :highly_amused:

The morning ‘moment’ was the Seafire arrival, a sort of grassy deck landing..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTIjKxfgT8w

Forgive me if this is a little left-field but I always thought accidents were a `combine-ation` of different factors?

Raf Odiham hot dry summer of 1976,
Puma doing a practice radio failure exercise approaching the airfield fires a very pistol flare out of the door to signal radio failure to ATC and promptly torches a field of wheat…. Practice radio failures promptly put on hold until the weather deteriorates.

This incident and the concern for the crop reminds me of an similar incident at RAF Henlow many years ago. A Henlow based homebuilt (IIRC it was a FRED) suffers an engine problem on take-off and puts down in a field of standing crop just outside the airfield. Not so fortunate as the Gladiator it flips over onto its back. Pilot climbs (drops?) out unharmed and gets the aircraft back the right way up and looks for a gap in the hedge to get back on the airfield. What the pilot didn’t know was that his landing had been seen by a passing motorist who phoned the emergency services. The Police, Ambulance and Fire Services apparently thought the report of an aircraft crash referred to an airliner and responded with an appropriate number of vehicles for such an event. Just before our gallant aviator managed to get his aircraft back onto the airfield, proud of the fact that there was little evidence in the field that he’d ever been there, the emergency services turned up, from several directions and drove across the field. The cost of repairs to the aircraft were miniscule compared to the bill from the farmer for the crop destroyed by the emergency services.

Hmmm, that goes against the grain.

manure?

No Duggy, it’s Humour… 😀

A maize ing landing 🙂 —sorry 🙂

Wheat a minute, is this English humor.

That is so corn’y, it a maizes me you could come out with chaff like that.. :p I a wheat further comments.

Barley a scratch on her 😀

Looks like she is back in her hangar https://www.facebook.com/ShuttleworthCollection/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

The landing run was quite short, so not too much crop damage, with luck.

Ahh yes… but it is the recovery that’s the problem:rolleyes:

In all my years only had one such incident, Pilot reported loss of power and landed in a low crop field ( I.E recently planted but sprouting ) before dismantling it to remove it, I cleared the stones out in front and did full engine runs, all was fine.. the reason I did them was in case of future problems, insurance, CAA etc, I could state that the aircraft was ran before we disturbed anything, I.e tearing the wings and fings off to ship it home, everything was fine. Mine was suspected Carb Ice.

I learnt one thing, there should be warning signs, not beware of the bull…but of the red faced irate farmer who’s crops you are sitting in and trampling over….

..

Propstrike, with 3 engine failures in 3 displays that you’ve been to this year, do you think you should stay home from now on???? 🙂

The landing run was quite short, so not too much crop damage, with luck. He DID end up just 30 yards from the hedge, so probably a few sweaty moments as it touched down.

Disappointing, but at least it has been one incident which hasn’t left aeroplane or pilot with serious damage.

Total nit-pick, it’s barley in the field, but really that’s irrelevant.

Not a nit-pick at all – it is a very important difference; you possibly wouldn’t want beer brewed from wheat! (or bread made from barley for that matter) 🙂

I think most of the suurounding land is owned by the College

The surrounding land to the east, south and west of the airfield does belong to the Shuttleworth Trust, so I don’t think there will be too much distress over the landing. I am not sure whether that land is farmed by the College, rented out or what these days; they have gone through several changes in recent years, the Trust having farmed it in-hand themselves for most of the 1990’s. All the land eastwards as far as the Shefford road, and southwards to the Southill road belongs to the Trust (the college itself is now owned/a part of Bedford College, and rents the buildings they use at Old Warden from the Shuttleworth Trust – the mansion is no longer part of the college).

Interesting to watch first hand. At the end of the day it’s in a field and the pilot, and of less importance the aeroplane, is ok. Lucky it didn’t turn over in the field with that much crop in it.

However I was really surprised to see him turn away from the field when it was clearly running very rough. Off the smoky pass he was is a perfect position high key to turn downwind for the main runway. Having displayed at Old Warden in the past I know that the collections SOPs / displays have an immediate re-land in mind at all times.

I would think there would be some sort of insurance.I was talking to a land owner a while ago about a local glider group they are quite often landing in the fields they owned and that was covered by insurance.
Well done on the pilot on the controlled landing .Looking at the UKAR link above seems the TFC Glad is stuck in france with engine problems,i guess it does make you wonder what the outcome could have been flying over the channel but i suppose that goes for all single engined aircraft.

I think most of the suurounding land is owned by the College. Not that that would stop the person who planted the crop having kittens