Air Display 'C*ck Ups'

[lightningmate]

Let's put this F4 discussion to bed. The aircraft actually left the runway due to a nose-wheel steering malfunction. Essentially. the NWS system delivered an uncommanded hard-left and the F4 did the same, this manoeuvre was dramatically presented by a video taken by a bystander. The aircraft did eventually land at Lyneham, slightly bent.

lm

[GasFitter]

Originally Posted by lightningmate

Let's put this F4 discussion to bed. The aircraft actually left the runway due to a nose-wheel steering malfunction .... The aircraft did eventually land at Lyneham, slightly bent.
lm

That's a long way to go before stopping!

[ShyTorque]

Originally Posted by XV277

That would have been me then - I was standing leaning on the crowd side of the barrier just runway side of your Puma when you took off.

Was it you wailing in a Scotttish accent? Small world, isn't it..

Just found the old logbook - 24th July, 1993, XW200. Didn't seem as long ago as 13 years!

[El Grifo]

I can confirm that I was on the leeward side and swear I heard something along the lines of " Jings crivens help ma boab, that muckle heelicopter has jist blawn ma kilt that high that ma huge cromak can be seen by all and sundry"

Or words to that effect

[sharmine]

Re Hurn F4 incident

I was there and from what I remember the tomb was rolling for take off when the left tire burst. The aircraft left the runway to the left and being in reheat set fire to the grass. The back seater ejected and the pilot elected to get airborne because he was heading at max ground speed for a fully laden Victor tanker parked on the disused cross runway. Had he not got airborne the outcome would have been very different. He did divert to Lynham and carried out a safe arrester gear landing. Hence he did not leave that runway as well.

This was not a c!?k up so much as a very well handled emergency situation and the pilot desrves

In the 91 Hurn Display a canberra also burst a tyre and went left off the runway but he was landing and made it safely to a full stop without further damage. This also came not long after a twin engined aircraft giving public rides had its landing gear collapse on roll out. Quite a day.

BJ

[wz662]

As a young lad I remember the Red Arrows landing at the Woodford display and one of the gnats blows a tyre and blocks the active.
Support Herc lands, ramp comes down and ground crew emerge. After a group huddle as many backs as possible are aplied to the underside of the wing and the aircraft was walked clear of the runway to be fixed.

[Blodwyn Pig]

in line with the recent posts on burst tyres at airshows, there are some interesting photos of a super hornet doing just that at a recent airshow, then executing a nice hanbrake turn, and parking it on the grass.

http://s102164210.onlinehome.us/foru...ic=103388&st=0

also video of the incident...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66K8WXQvb90

[ulflarsson]

Another one

The military air displays are commonly known for flying the envelope out so it´s not that strange that things goes wrong from time to time unfortunatly.
Here is another one anyway.

Check the link below for to see the C130 crash that got wrong while practising airdrops.

http://www.airviolence.com/download.php?view.79

[pulse1]

The military air displays are commonly known for flying the envelope out so it´s not that strange that things goes wrong from time to time unfortunatly.

This comment reminded me that I have probably been to about 20 airshows in my life and seen rather a lot of "cock-ups", including the Fairford Migs, the Hurn F4's and, a long time ago, a Havard spinning in at a BoB display at St Athans.

My last trip to Farnborough was in the late 60's when the French Atlantique crashed. A contributary factor to this crash was the robust crosswind on the day and there were two further incidents which helped to make me even more twitchy. One was the Herald which burst a tyre on landing, and an Aeromachi jet trainer which struck the ground with a tip tank. You could almost see the pilot whistling nonchalantly as he hoped that noone would notice the fuel streaming from the tank as he taxied off.

[GPMG]

Only seen one and it's put me off air displays for a while. I was in the crowd when the Firefly went in at Duxford. Terrible loss of 2 people and a wonderfull airframe.

Cock up or not, it was a pretty crappy day.

[GasFitter]

Originally Posted by GPMG

Only seen one and it's put me off air displays for a while. I was in the crowd when the Firefly went in at Duxford. Terrible loss of 2 people and a wonderfull airframe.

Cock up or not, it was a pretty crappy day.

Couldn't agree more. I understand the media weren't very nice about how they went about getting their story either. But then again, what's new?

[Mal Drop]

I was at Fairford for the Mig + Mig incident, taking a break from getting lost in Albert by being a minder for the press. I was getting some 12 aviation photogs I was given the pleasure of escorting back into the minibus from a predictably tedious shoot on the live side of the airfield when the collision happened and debris started raining down all around. I just had time to observe on the radio to Media Ops that there had been a crash when a little voice screamed over my transmission "Incident, incident, you can't say crash, oh bugger...". The photogs could now all see a years earnings in a day and had fecked off in directions various so I went off after them on a sort of "One Man and His Dog" on performance enhancing chemicals exercise. On my travels I happened across an ex-Sqn mate who was on exchange flying the Belgique Herc, one of our old exchange Belgian Co-pilots and the next variant thereof. Having made a rapid descent from atop a v. shiny (and hence v.slippery) display paint job Albert roof-terrace they were understandably in a state of mild distress. One of the Belgian Co's asked if they could get a ride in my unsurprisingly empty minibus to somewhere quiet and generally untroubled by falling, flaming bits of fuselage. I was happy to oblige but also very re-assured to see him go back onto the now stricken Albert to recover a couple of cases of Belgian Trappist Beer (of about the same abv as a weak scotch). As fine a display of Belgian audacity in the face of adversity as I could ever have hoped for and a taster of the exploits of a man who became another contender for Lyneham’s craziest import.

[RUCAWO]

Ulster Airshow,Newtownards 1987 Ken Wallis had just taken off to display Little Nellie when the engine cut out,he put it down nicely on the grass but nosewheel caught in a hole.Autogyro does a couple of flips with bits flying everywhere.Silence,nothing moves apart from one ATC cadet running to the scene,Wg Cdr Wallis stands up,gives himself a shake,waves at the crowd then starts picking up bits of the shattered machine.Incredable man ,not a scratch on him.

[rab-k]

Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator

There was also the Merlin display, 05 probably, reported here on Pprune, where he dug the nose wheel in the mud good and proper then did it again before taking off and raising the undercarriage. Sinking in the mud is unfortunate. Raising the undercarriage afterwards is surely questionable.

Approx 2.5 mins into this vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsJAXb_jA3Q

[Jhieminga]

Originally Posted by ShyTorque

There was a great set of pics, taken with a motor drive, of the vertically falling and nose-less Mig, just before it took the tailplane off a Belgian C-130. In one of the pics, there were three aircrew standing on the fuselage, below the fireball. In the next pic there were only two, then one, then none, as they all jumped off! One of them, a female crewmember, was later rescued as she was hanging off the HF aerial cable on the side of the Herc!

I know which photos you mean. I was shown them by one of the crewmembers a few weeks later and I can still remember the chills that the story and photos produced. In the chaos one of the crew dropped to the ground (left side of fuselage) and turned left, into the fireball! Within seconds he realised the mistake, pulled his flightsuit up to cover his head and turned around. No damage whatsoever, but it could have been a lot worse.

[green granite]

Pulse 1, I was also at that Farnborough show with my wife, she's never been to an air show since. Afterwards we went back to the company's depot in the town centre where we'd left the car and one of my colleges was sitting there shaking, He was waiting to turn into the RAE main entrance when the atlantique hit the area by the main gate, it took him a week to recover.

[GasFitter]

Originally Posted by rab-k

Approx 2.5 mins into this vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsJAXb_jA3Q

Should he have left the U/C down? That'll be a tour at the Inspectorate of Flight Safety for that pilot, then!

[Lon More]

The aeroclub at Sanicole in Belgium usually has an airshow each August.
In typical Belgian fashion very little respect is paid to such things as distance from runway to the crowd line, compounded by the fact that the distance from the runway edge to the main road/airfield boundary is only about 25 metres.
Visiting B52, several years ago, eventully found the field and made a low pass down the runway - the wing and the outer engine were actually over the crowd.
Later a Harrier did his piece, ending by curtseying to the crowd, unfortunately so close that he blew a tent selling frites over. As he departed the fire crew were busy extinguishing the remains.
Yes, it has gone tits up. Fortunately with only one fatality, when a Belgian Mirage pilot did his display in very marginal weather. He flamed out and ejected at about 500 feet, unfortunately inverted. The a/c crashed into some empty army barracks.
I now normally watch this from the car park on the other side of the road, keeping large numbers of belgians between me and potential accidents

[West Coast]

Staff officer replaced F18 demo pilot at MCAS El Toro airshow 92 or 93. The rest is history. Good video out there of a perfectly flown 7/8th loop.

[forget]