I was unfortunate to be a witness to this incident during a trial over the Larkhill range. Other than the lesson learnt so there couldn’t be a repeat, my only momento is a piece of the fabric that remained attached to the airframe when she landed back at Boscombe and the memory of the loudest BANG I’ve ever heard that didn’t involve smoke and flames.

Holy faeces! A) How did he get into that spot and B) how the flip did he get out?

Adrian

Looking at those photographs, I’m led to wonder whether he has been practising with a view to a rôle in a remake of ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’. The only problem is that I can’t see a sewage farm in any of the shots!

On a completely random tangent, I remember about 1980 the Saffron Walden Weekly News running an interview with a man who really had fished an unfortunate aviator out of the Brooklands sewage farm.

Adrian

I’d love to know how the engines got filled with corn when it landed in what is surely a field of sugar beet!

Adrian

What on earth is number 10?

Adrian

A friend had told me how shallow the water was even 50 metres off the beach (little more than knee height). It seemed to me that the pilot could have suffered real traumas buckled and unbuckled and could risked drowning being trapped upside down even in such shallow water so was mightily relieved to hear he was relatively OK. The cliffs aren’t big on that coast but he’d lost so much power that putting it down in a field behind the cliffs was probably not an option (no time to make up mind anyway). In any case there are buildings behind the cliffs as well as fields. .

It’s a long while now since I mudlarked along that bit of coast (used to walk to Reculver and back before breakfast!), but I think that’s a pretty fair assessment of the risks. Probably have been just fine if teh tide was out… In some places it goes out hundreds of yards, not just 50.

Adrian

Looks as though she came in at the city airport rather than Keflavik. Given that there’s a Dakota there, probably a better bet for avgas. Ah well, won’t see her on the way by then.

Adrian

Rejkyavik city airport (the local one, not Keflavik) has a Dakota on the tarmac by the end of one runway, I’m guessing TF-NPK.

Funny, those dust spots on your sensor only show in the photos of the Scout…:dev2:

Nice to see they still take the salute from the Swordfish, that’s always made me grin.

I wonder if it’s the combination of cropped wingtipss and a bubble canopy, but TE311 looks distinctly odd to me.

Lovely shots, thank you for sharing them.

Adrian