Originally Posted by
eggplantwalking
As a formation pilot you know the concentration required and your eyes are outside of the cockpit 99% of the time. When the engine quit the first time I would not have thought to much about it as the carburetor on the Merlin is downdraft and will do just that, if a negative "G" is put on it. On the second failure I would have immediately left the formation with a quick call, and been with eyes inside the cockpit checking oil pressure, fuel pressure and coolant temperature while establishing best glide and turning toward the airport. Remember Murphy's Law: In aviation whatever can go wrong, will go wrong and will usually get worse. In this case he continued to try to stay in the formation wasting precious evaluation time of the situation. Assuming all the tricks to get the engine running failed, the pilot should have put the propeller at full low pitch to help extend the glide and concentrated on flying the aircraft; not taking advice from the tower. Watching the video it should have been possible to preform a successful landing, in my opinion. I had two engine failures with the Merlin, one while at altitude; no problem. The other just after take-off and that was much more interesting. And, it both instances no damage to the aircraft, only engine repairs.