Pinky and JT............
Found an interesting eyewitness account of the VH-DBB Bendigo Mustang accident at:
http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/s...opic78421.shtm
I once saw a man kill himself with the applied torque of a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.
The man's name was Don Bush, the aircraft was a P51 Mustang VH-DBB and the occasion was the openong of Bendigo airport early in 1970.
There was an airshow to celebrate the opening and Don's Mustang was a star attraction. He made several low passes, pulling DBB round, steeply banked, at each end. After he'd finished, the show controller (so I'm told) asked for "one more for the crowd".
The pilot applied power in a tight turn, "torque stalled" one wing and struck the ground in a near vertical dive at about 200 knots. The engine was dug out from 10m deep in the ground.
Not surprisingly, it made a deep impression on the recently commenced air traffic control trainee who saw it, I can still see the sun reflection flicking across the tops of the wings as it spun in. Never, ever, ever, do anything unplanned in or with an aeroplane at low level.
The last sentence of the last paragraph really says it all, don't you think?
Don Bush had only learned to fly a couple of years or so before he bought the Mustang. He was a very wealthy bloke, and used to rock up in his Rolls Royce at Moorabbin for his flying lessons. I seem to recall that CofG was a contributing factor in the accident, and that Don was held for quite a long time before it was his turn to entertain the crowd with what turned out to be his classic 'show stopper'.
Like I said in an earlier post..........it was a very sad end for Don and VH-DBB.