B17 crash at Bradley

[Gipsy Queen]

Originally Posted by Pilot DAR

Of course, I can do this, as the group of people will be six to ten, not a cabin of a hundred plus, with ear buds in. So similarly, a group of people paying the big bucks for a vintage ride, have a greater than pedestrian interest in the goings on of the plane, and once briefed, the emergency procedures. These people don't rise to the level of "crew", but their involvement exceeds that of "just going to visit grandma a few hundred miles away".

This is where the regulator has a role to define, review, and approve a more detailed than normal passenger briefing. The only reason that the briefing that I, and/or the flight crew of the day, give for the science flying on the DC-3's does not require "approval", is that the regulator knows it's being done correctly to begin with.

Thank you Pilot DAR for a well-reasoned response to my post which, I admit, was a little flippant as I was imagining a DC3 conversion to include over-wing exits and a slide from the forward door straight into the port prop. I suffer the frustrations of a dinosaur from an age when a/c were controlled with "joy sticks" and punters went aloft for "joy rides", long before we were swamped in the myriad regulations and restrictions which hobble us today,

I have vivid memories from 1944 of busting the string which was supposed to secure the porthole bung on a C47 and spending the rest of the flight searching for the wretched thing under the canvas pipe cots. I have never forgotten my father's displeasure and the lecture about loose items and jammed control cables. Strangely, I don't remember anything about that in the briefing! Years later I was still in trouble, this time for busting a tail wheel shear pin . . . .