Yak – a close one.

I was there

Ive was hopin to find something on the net about this…
My wife and I were there. It was Sat, May 15th at the JSOH at Andrews AFB. We were near the left side of the crowd line and the bottom of this loop was off to our rights at about our 2 o’clock positon near the right end of the crowd line. I was on the rope at the front of the crowd watching the YAK intently and was very impressed by it. He had performed about 10 or more loops ( and many other manuevers) prior to this, all coming out much higher than this one. In the video, you see his roll after he pulls out of the loop. Immediately after this roll, he turned directly towards the end of the runway to our left and immediately landed.
A few things: In the video, it appears he is parallel with the runway. Actually he was slightly crossing it at an oblique angle. There is a slight depression between the runways, but it only appeared to be a few feet deep. If he had hit, he would have be been screwed by hitting this uneven terrain at this oblique angle. This definately would not have been a skid landing. The crowd went crazy as this happened. People were like OH MY GOD!, HOLY CRAP!, WOW!, THAT WASNT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!, etc. You even here the announcer pause as I think he was expecting a crash also. I was expecting to see a fireball at the bottom of his loop. My knees were weak for a little bit after this. As he was coming down in this loop, I coud tell he was too low and much lower than the other loops. I felt sure in my heart I was seeing a dead man. That was a crash that didn’t happen.

Damn those competent VC10 drivers!!!!

If you read the article, you’ll find it is the aircraft that needs damning, if that is your view on this case 😉

http://www.vc10.net/Memories/funandgames.html

Hi Rob,
We are very busy right now with 2 Spitfires & a Mustang plus a rebuild! All this & suppiers dragging their heels! can we have some 48 hour days please??

I had COANDA over for a visit to our hangar last week…………
Cheers………..

Planned trajectory.

Take a look at this Yak. It doesn’t get much closer than this. 🙁 [

One little post and here we are five days later with 2000 plus views of over 140 replies.

What is this telling us I wonder?

If we are honest I suspect the majority of us enjoy seeing fighter type aircraft being flown energetically at low level by consummate professionals near the ‘edge of the envelope’ along planned trajectories.

Micro burst, wind shear or whatever I doubt that the Yak was on its planned trajectory.

Mark

Whats the point of aerobatting warbirds!???

I’ve been saying that for ages! Display the Aircraft, NOT the pilot. If you want to show off get an Extra, Pitts or something like that.
Warbirds were fighters, use speed, big open manoeuvres for dogfights & attacks Show the shape of the aircraft etc (with grace & poise!)
Cheers……………..

Well,
So I guess it was’nt Dan fault after-all. Yes Dan fly’s for a living he is a Senior Delta Capt. and yes I would put my life in his hands any day of the Year.

I do believe that this guy is a good pilot and that he knows what he is doing. Display flying just is dangerous and a accident somtimes sit in a dark corner. And as bradburger says, if the pilot had made a large error, he wouldnt be flying any more. So lets say tricky weather made it a difficult job for the pilot to make this manouver.

And of course, I am glad you stayed here crazymainer. Its a forum on which we all can say our opinion and sometimes, you can convince someone else with your views!

Greets,
J.V.

Kodak,

I think you’ll find he actually entered the wingover at round about the correct height.

Regards the pullout, as has been said before, I don’t think there was anyway the pilot intentionally tried to pullout ‘late’ as many are suggesting. :confused:

If he were, I’m sure he would have been pulled up for dangerous flying by the authorities in in the past and would no doubt no longer be a display pilot.

Anyway, good to see you’re still here crazymainer and thanks for telling us about your observations on the the new video.

Cheers

Paul

Well,

I saw another veiw of Dans flight taken by the Blue Angles Video Operator, Dan had a good 25 feet above the ditch between the Runways. I talk with the BA vid guy and the FAA safty guy went over to Dan right after he landed and they had a Talk. They review the BA video. One thing that was discussed and TN you can verfie this was their was alot micro-shears from the West end of the runway. Even the Blues and Snowbirds were having some minor problems with it.

So I guess it was’nt Dan fault after-all. Yes Dan fly’s for a living he is a Senior Delta Capt. and yes I would put my life in his hands any day of the Year.

I’ve know Dan for almost 20 years, he was one of the first person to pay attention to me and my little old L-4 that I used to own. Plus he gave me some pointers on how to handle it in certain cross-wind landings.

People make mistakes I myself have been quity of trying to push it alittle to far or doing something dumb we learn and over-come.

Micro bursts or not – he was still too low entering the manouvere and 25 feet is still way too low to leave it !

I have been reading the various responses on this thread with a great deal of interest and it is obvious that there are many differing opinions about the rights and wrongs of the original incident. As a non-flying member of this forum currently, I do think it is perhaps unwise and even unfair for me or anyone else in the same position to criticise the pilot, if for no other reason that I haven’t got the experience or know-how to make an informed judgement/comment. We know what we have apparently seen, but that doesn’t necessarily give the full story. Yes, maybe the pilot did make a mis-judgement and was lucky to get away with it and if he is as experienced as has been stated, no doubt he will hopefully learn from it (old pilots and bold pilots?).

Perhaps it is now time to put this one to bed, hope and pray that we don’t have to witness anything like it again and I look forward to an incident-free airshow season this year!

I One of the accounts under accident or incidents describs a landing in Wastington that could have easily resulted in the death of the Harold Wilson.

Damn those competent VC10 drivers!!!!

😀 Crazymainer,glad to see your still here and i liked the evidence in your last post.Are there any links to the BA video you mention.

I think it is Archer that has the link to a VC10 web site. One of the accounts under accident or incidents describs a landing in Wastington that could have easily resulted in the death of the Harold Wilson. Apparently the weather in this part of the US can be very tricky on occasions. So there we are. Good result alround. 😀 😀 😀

Well,

I saw another veiw of Dans flight taken by the Blue Angles Video Operator, Dan had a good 25 feet above the ditch between the Runways. I talk with the BA vid guy and the FAA safty guy went over to Dan right after he landed and they had a Talk. They review the BA video. One thing that was discussed and TN you can verfie this was their was alot micro-shears from the West end of the runway. Even the Blues and Snowbirds were having some minor problems with it.

So I guess it was’nt Dan fault after-all. Yes Dan fly’s for a living he is a Senior Delta Capt. and yes I would put my life in his hands any day of the Year.

I’ve know Dan for almost 20 years, he was one of the first person to pay attention to me and my little old L-4 that I used to own. Plus he gave me some pointers on how to handle it in certain cross-wind landings.

People make mistakes I myself have been quity of trying to push it alittle to far or doing something dumb we learn and over-come.

Are we still going on about this? The guy made a mistake, it’s pretty obvious. Thankfully he lived to learn from it. Some don’t.

Let’s move on, chaps.

Thanks Daz, that is also the way I think about it. Sorry crazymanier that you take it so personal. It was not my intention and I just wrote how I feel about this.

As trumper said, it was just a very dangerous move and hopfully the (probebly very good) pilot can learn from this.

Peace to all you guys.

J.V.

The Firefly was initiating a roll and lost control at the inverted – how much more aerobatic do you want to get!?

From what i saw with my own eyes i can not be certain the roll was not the effect of loss of control rather than the cause of it.

David, all display pilot take a risk ,they may be small risks but they are there. Yes well regulated they may be ,but the risk is there. I may drive to work but the risk is greater if i then take the car and race it. Any pilot can fly from A to B with hardly any risk but then when that same pilot goes out and flys a display that risk increases.

With 35,000 hours my guess is that he must be flying for a living, and for a number of years – thats quite a few hours. So maybe he made a mistake at work, a miscalculation. I’ve made mistakes at work, far less dramatic mistakes but mistakes all the same. Who would honestly say they have never made a mistake? My dear old Gran made a mistake driving and had an accident but then so has Mr Schumacher.

There are however some lines of work where mistakes are just not seen as acceptable. Doctors, Air Traffic Controllers, Pilots etc etc. Appears a little harsh to me, I mean they are just human beings and thats what we do sometimes, we make mistakes…

Now if he came down and said “Sh*t that was close, must be all the crack cocaine I’m taking…” then sure ground him, but what I suspect is that the shock of the near miss will have more of an impact on the man than any words from officialdom. With 35,000 hours he can’t be a complete idiot or I’m sure he would have managed to kill himself way before now…

Tempest Nut – the element of risk is the same in any kind of aircraft. Because it’s a warbird doesn’t make it any more likely to crash than say a C-152. Regards your point
Tuck – I don’t actually agree with the idea that all pilots are taking a risk flying warbirds- it’s far more dangerous driving to the airfield statistically than it is actually flying an aircraft. Flying and the standards to which people fly are a far more closely regulated than driving and other modes of transportation.

If these pilots are not out there, then these aircraft are sat in museums.
Is that what we want?

No. What we want is safety. As Rod Dean of the CAA (at least I think it was him) said on the BBC documentary made in the wake of that awful weekend at Biggin Hill in 2001, 100% safety is easily achieved – the aeroplanes sit in a line and don’t move. But airshows would swiftly lose their appeal, and for obvious reasons nobody in the aviation community wants that. So in order to fly the aeroplanes and do so safely, there are various checks and balances in place, covering aircraft, pilots, venues, organisers, instructors, examiners, etc, etc. As a part of that, every individual involved in aviation, be he an airt traffic controller, an engineer, a student pilot on his first flight, or an ex-military civilian display pilot with countless hours, has a duty of care to himself and the public. Part of that duty involves learning from mistakes, whether they are yours or not, you MUST learn from them.

Did the Yak pilot make a mistake? I don’t know him, and probably never will. But that doesn’t matter. I would suggest yes, he did. He’s a lucky man. He now has the opportunity to sit at home, read this forum, click on the link to the video clip, look at the stills, phone his peers, and gather opinions and evidence about that flight. He can find out whether the weather a factor, whether there were maintenance issues, he can think about whether or not there was anything he could have done differently during, or before, the flight to avoid the incident.

He can learn. And if he’s an intelligent man, as I’m sure he is, he WILL learn. It will all go towards his bank of knowledge. And into the knowledge banks of others, most of us included, because we are all able to sit here and debate about it for days afterwards.

Sadly, over the years, many people have been denied that luxury. There but for the grace of god….

Lets face it accidents do happen, no one wants them to but they happen.
These pilots are there to entertain us, they know their life is at risk everytime they strap in, but they still do it.
The Yak pilot was very lucky, he knows he got it wrong and his life was saved by chance/luck call it what you like. Will he fly for out entertainment again? Yes.
If these pilots are not out there, then these aircraft are sat in museums.
Is that what we want?