Hi Lister - they were practising circuits and this was the fourth landing. Damned shame. It's great the crew walked away, of course, ("We killed them afterwards", came the comment in the Tiger Club clubhouse yesterday) but how the Tiger bites!
Since I started converting to the Tiger a couple of months ago, I have heard a lot about how easy is the Tiger to fly, the usual corollary being, but it's difficult to fly well.
How is it easy to fly??!! We only have the one long runway at Headcorn, so you're usually landing with a crosswind; and while they're a doddle in a Cessna or even a Cub, x-wind landings in the Tiger require extreme concentration, sound training and a prayer or two. I've done five hours now (two in Gadget, bless her soul) and as well as the appalling view on approach, you have to master the into-wind wing-down, top rudder technique, right down to the flare. I'm getting on okay, but I can well see how this situation could occur, as I have been skidding over the grass towards the markers myself - the check pilot mercifully got us out of that one - and it can all happen
very quickly. It's a bit of a mystery why the aircraft shot off downwind, though. You'd normally expect her to weathercock into wind; which was coming from the camera's 9 o'clock.
Glum faces at the Tiger Club.
Many thousands have been spent on re-furbishing Gadget, which can't be recovered.
