Is all this endless speculation either necessary or helpful? It happens after most aviation incidents and seems tpo me to serve no useful purpose.

When the official report is published we will have all the facts.

A fine pilot was killed, which is a tragedy, and the report will reveal how and why.

Thankyou Sky High, very well said.

Regards,

John.

I’m posting this opinion from another forum (flyafrica) for interest only. No speculation intended : Quote :

Good to see an interim report out so early (under 6 weeks). Also good to see that SACAA are consulting other experts like the AAIB.

However, three things puzzle me:

1. There is a lot of commentary about the failure of the ejection seat per se. It is common knowledge that the Lightning is quite unique in that the seat CANNOT fire if the canopy does not jettison, simply because the departing canopy must remove an interdictor for the process to continue. The investigators seem to focusing mainly on the second phase of the ejection process??? Was the canopy still attached on impact?

(The recommendation in the event of a canopy separation failure after both ejection handles have been pulled is to use the normal manual opening device – tough to do all three at low-level!)

2. We now know that one hydraulic system malfunctioned and that after the gear down was selected both Hyd1 and Hyd 2 failed, which might be expected. With both gone there would have been a rapid stiffening of the controls and, with no manual reversion, control would certainly have been lost. If it was air in the hyd system it could take up to 8 minutes to recover, even then assuming a stabilised aircraft with minimal control input. So I wonder why the pilot didn’t immediately gain altitude after the first Hyd warning to allow time to sort things out, if as reported, both engines were operating? Maybe the tapes reveal something else?

3. There seems to be little mention of the flash fire and smoke reported by eyewitnesses the evening before, when the pilot accidentally shut down the engine(s) and inexplicably tried a restart (after running the burner on the runway).

By the way Lightnings do drip fuel when the tanks are cool, that is why drip trays were standard fare at Lightning bases and hangars.

Has this guy actually read the report!!!, point three contradicts what the report says, as quoted ‘he was still on the runway when the engines of the aircraft suddenly FLAMED OUT’.

A flame out is completely different to ‘the pilot accidentally shut down the engine(s)’ as stated above, this sort of idle speculation and getting the facts WRONG does nothing for the pilots reputation.

It seem that even when a proffesional and credited outfit investigate a crash it still isn’t enough for the armchair enthusiasts:mad:.

Regards,

John.

Gents,

Finally got round to cleaning up some of my pics, not a very productive evening for me but very please with what I got……..

All comments very welcome,

Regards,

John.

Lighty,

John Ward was ‘pilot’ for the evening and he certainly did a top notch job of the runs, the power was immense and indescribable, the runs could not have been better.

I second the thanks to the LPG guys for a brilliant and un-forgettable evening!.

Regards,

John.

I’ve been taking one home piece by piece so SWMBO doesn’t notice!!!:D the pitot tube took some lateral thinking though (currently disguised as a curtain pole:diablo:).

Regards,

John.

FMK – if you talking saving the cockpit only the figures get even better! I.e a scrap skip delivered to the site -chop up the bits you don’t want there and a lorry with a Hi-AB to take away the rest . Whatever scrapmen say about aircraft scrap being of low value – aircraft still continue to be scrapped and if it wasn’t worthwhile to scrap we would be inundated with Lancasters,Halifax’s and Spitfires ! In conversation years ago with a metal dealer and historic aircraft owner he revealed that the purity of aircraft structure wasn’t a massive concern as after it had been fragged and put in the smelter the impurities would be taken away anyway .

I agree whole heartedly David, we are still not being mindfull of one thing though, you still have to purchase the airframe from the current owner which could be anywhere from a pint of beer and a few old buttons to tens of thousands of pounds, considering there has been many attempts by people on this forum to buy/retrieve it it without any success then I believe that for now she will stay exactly where she stands.

Regards,

John.

Airframes

XN728 – Balderton
XN730 – Gatow
XN766 – Museum of flight Scotland
XN782 – Hermeskeil Germany
XN784 – Baarlo Netherlands

Cockpits

XN726 – Boscombe Down
XN734 – Cranfield
XN774 – ???
XN795 – Rayleigh, Essex

The last three tubs are in private collections and have not been seen for a while, XN774 was a completely gutted piece of framework minus the skins and was almost completely re-built though I havn’t seen any recent pictures of her.

Regards,

John.