15 years since I last saw a VP1 and I still feel sick at the thought....
A guy, I think he'll remain nameless, turned up and started flying the Warrior at the airfield where I used to work when I was a young oik. Gradually he started saying how he wanted to go back to PFA and tailwheel flying and, one rather shocking day, turns up with a trailer on which is a bright orange coffin with a fin and a couple of slabs of white cloth that resemble bedframes.
Over the course of the next six months he spent every waking moment doing something or other to this thing, which gradually began to resemble something that a 3-year old aircraft designer might draw.
I'm not sure why, but with hindsight the more time someone spends simply tinkering with something you just know it's going to end in disaster. So, one sunny day comes along with no wind (which from the previous posts isn't necessarily helpful!) and the airfield is packed for the first flight of "that f*cking deathtrap" as she was lovingly known. The fire crew, of which I was one, were all sitting around re-reading our course notes on firefighting and first aid, I'm sure that we all knew what was coming next.
So, G-"TFDT" taxis out with a tall man wearing an RAF bonedome on it (not in it) and lines up for departure. I can recall the exact question that was asked as the throttle advanced "When did he last fly a taildragger?".
From that point on, it was just a matter of time really. He dragged it off the ground in a Warrior-stylee, invisible-nosewheel first and was, from then on, sitting on the back of a very large and unforgiving drag curve. I suppose it was a combination of the sunshine and the large white ailerons that first gave us a hint something wasn't right - there was rather too many glints of light coming off them, as if he was trying to generate some forward motion by wafting the ailerons around - then, almost as quickly as it started, from about 150 feet it slowly rolled to the right, the nose dropped and it completed a couple of slow spins on its unrecovered descent into the field to the north of the runway.
By this time we were all already sprinting to the fire engine and the crash alarm was blaring out across the airfield. I admit, at this point, I chickened out. Fifteen firemen all sprinting to the two seats of the Range Rover weren't going to go, so I stopped and called the fire brigade and the ambulance instead. A decision which actually led to a shouting match with the airport MD who said that we shouldn't call them until we were sure there was a fire and an injury - something I'm glad to say the rest of the logical world didn't subscribe to and I'm pleased he's no longer running airfields! The successful sprinters were confronted by a VP1 stationary in the field, the right way up, wheels up through the wings and all of the various wires which held it together "twanged". On the cockpit was a slumped figure which a few moments before had been flapping around trying to find lift.
Then he moved. I think the response the firemen gave was "f*cking hell, he's not dead" - as they pulled up, one almightly lucky f*cker was starting to undo his straps and clamber out of his new project for the next 12 months.
To this day I can still visualise every single second of that morning. It is the slowest motion slow motion I have ever seen in my life and what probably lasted 30 seconds takes about an hour to play in my head. To my mind, there's no way he should have walked away from that - a last minute stick forward - stall break, stick back - "!!!!!! Ground!" moment saved him - combined with the low speed and soft Welsh earth cushioning it. I am not even sure if the AAIB got to hear of it...
I'm sure the report would have recommended:
1. Do do some recurrency on taildraggers.
2. Don't keep polishing the bloody thing, you're stacking up the odds in the "hindsight, always going to happen" stakes.
3. Just.
4. Don't.
I'm not sure whether it's fair to single out the VP1 as maybe any low powered taildragger would have resulted in the same ending, but it just seemed that the VP1 was just too risky. If you're going to do it, good luck, but you must be off your bloody rocker.