I've had a good read of this, as it's all rather local to me, and interesting reading it makes but I have to point out a few big holes in your interpretation.
Oh really?
I think you should pay more attention to the sources and not start with the pre-conceived idea that the BoI were right. The Tench report should alert you to the possibility of a cover up. A Quote from Tench
" A disturbing feature is the influence which senior officers seek to exert on the investigation process, particularly in the RAF. Presidents of boards are conscious of a hovering presence in the background. The pervasive nature of the involvement some station commanders and even commanders in chief, is an unwelcome intrusion upon what should be the complete independence of the board of inquiry
The opportunities for staff to influence the boards interpretation of evidence or even their findings, must throw some doubt on the complete freedom of the board to draw its own conclusions.
"
As Hipper rightly says the BoI never mention a 180 degree turn, They say the A/c would stall by the time 90 degrees of turn was achieved. This number was arrived at in the Simulator flights run on day 3 of the Inquiry and before the Board had reconstructed the flight on a map on day 4.
I can't see why you think the turn was through 120 degrees rather than 180 as per the BOI PDF. An initial impact direction of 44 degrees veering to 110 degrees certainly seems to indicate the turn was nearer 180 from the initial take-off direction of 260 than the 120 you go with.
So if as the BoI state the A/c would have stalled by 90 degrees of turn, how could it possibly have made it to 180 degrees? (or 120 degrees for that matter) Considering that Pilot's notes for the Valiant states the A/c will invariably roll out of a stall in the turn without the intervention of the Pilot it would appear that 90 degrees is the maximum turn achievable according to the flight simulator tests. Further more a port turn (backing not veering) is consistent with a 140 to 110 change in direction and consistent with the photographic evidence and Witness 1's statement hitting with the left wing first.
Pilot's Notes also says stalling a Valiant is 'very unlikely'.
Why then do the BoI pursue this 'very unlikely' occurrence as a cause of the crash after 2 days of their investigation when they'd found a fractured centre line spar at the scene, the main structural component in an A/c designed with the 'safe-life' strategy, a strategy that could not guarantee safety in a catastrophic failure, built from a material that was known to and had previously failed catastrophically i.e. DTD683. Surely this is the more likely cause than the 'very unlikely' stall hypothesis. And yet it was not investigated at all, in-fact it was studiously ignored by all concerned.. How do you explain that?
Also 'veering' means a clockwise turn, so a turn to starboard, no witnesses mention any turn to starboard only port turns and dips are mentioned. The 120 degree turn was arrived at by taking all the witness statements as a whole, not just each one singly there is a consistency in their statements, it's why the BoI chose them over the many others who'd witnessed the crash and made statements, taken together it's relatively straight forward to reconstruct the path, it's what you should try to do if you think I've got it wrong, use a map and try to plot it for yourself rather than this 'hand waving' approach you seem to favour, at least give me the credit of actually sitting down for a few hours and studying it and then drawing it out. There were many other witnesses that were not included in the report and I've spoken to a couple of them and I've spoken to and met Witness 1.
Witness 1 was delivering manure to the field you can see the piles he was in the process of making on the field you can also see the tractor tracks in the image. He was methodical, moving from left to right in the image he was in the process of making the third row of piles, and was either half done with the last pile in row 3 or about to start a fresh pile to the right.
Similarly, your flight path seems off, as it's drawn east of Harringworth but witness 2 says it flew over Seaton - NW of Harringworth.
Witness 2 states it flew over Shotley not Seaton I do wish that you get your facts straight before posting to this thread because this error on your part makes the rest of your post meaningless.
I'd thank you sir not to patronise me as I spent a lot of time working out the flight path something you clearly haven't bothered to do.
...... The witness reports are all so vague in positions and distances it is hard to make much of them really.
This is patently not true the BoI were careful to choose witnesses that agreed with each other and that corroborated each others statements.
Witness 1 in particular is no use as his location could be in any one of 11 'runway intersection' spots in the vicinity of the crash site, all of which vary the aircraft's path dramatically compared to others.
Again simply not true and shows just how much time you've spent looking at the material (very little) you can quite clearly see on the photographs where he was working and as I say I've spoken to Witness 1 as is clearly stated on the web page. If you're not prepared to at least do me the courtesy of reading AND understanding the web page then please do shut up!
With wind reported at 350 (and this is backed up by the spread of scorching from the fire on the aerial photo of the crash site), runway 14 at Spanhoe was about the worst possible choice - shortest, tailwind, no fire cover, and poor surface quality. Recipe for disaster - particularly with a flapless approach!
OK this statement is so full of holes it's incredible. Have you actually read the page because it looks like you've just scanned it given the level of comprehension exhibited in that last statement.
First what you call 'the spread of scorching from the fire' also contains the debris field including the engines, where they ended up is consistent with 140 degrees at impact.
RWY14 was as short as RWY 20. Trying to put down on 20 would mean a turn of 60 degrees, less time to loose height, flying on gave an extra 30 seconds of flight time and about the same distance for a glide approach. So no, I think 14 gave them more time and more opportunity to lose height and speed than 20 did. Spanhoe was a DISUSED airbase so no 'fire-cover' at all. The Valiant sir was the 'Recipe for Disaster' and it should have been scrapped or rebuilt in 1956 as other 'safe-life' designs were.
With the impact point almost in the middle of the triangle of grass between the 3 runways and an initial impact heading of 44 degrees,
This is clearly an error by the AIB man he's obviously just left off a 1 at the start it should be 144 degrees, as in witness 1's statement flying along the line of the runway, RWY 14 that is.
you'd be better off making a case for them trying for a forced landing on the longest of the runways at Spanhoe (07?), which would have had much less in the way of a tailwind, though a hefty crosswind.
Well if you're trying to fly a seriously structurally compromised A/c I don't suppose you'd have the luxury of choosing which runway. See the quote below from the ex chief test pilot who was flying Valiants in 1960.
However... if a landing at Spanhoe was being attempted, why were the engines at high power?
There might be two reasons the first is to avoid hitting a man on a tractor and the second might be that too much height was lost in the turn, that is they had flown down into the Welland Valley and were trying to re-gain height, I favour the former, though Witness 1 does think that they had flown up out of the valley to some extent.
Why was the gear still up?
If you suspect a fractured spar you leave everything alone where it is. See the quote below from the ex chief test pilot who was flying Valiants in 1960.
If a belly landing was the intention, why was the cockpit hatch not jettisoned?
He thought he could make it remember he was allegedly 'Over-confident'
Why were no radio calls made after the initial call that they were remaining in the local area to sort out the nose gear fault?
OK there are a few things wrong with the assumption, that 'the problem' was the nose wheel, there was nothing to do in a nose wheel failure other than to abort, so there was nothing to 'sort out' with the nose wheel failure. Secondly what he was 'staying local' to sort out was 'the problem' and not 'the nose wheel', you're filling in the blanks with your own pre conceived notion of what 'the problem' was, 'the problem' may have been the structural failure of the fractured spar.
'The problem' may be indicated in the telegram sent out from Wittering at 1pm.
G(2) above is why the AIB were involved at all (See Tench) and the 'UNUSUAL OR OBSCURE FEATURES' clearly does not indicate the nose wheel, which was neither 'UNUSUAL' or 'OBSCURE'.
We'll never know of course because Wickham and his crew are dead, and the BoI did not ascertain when the fractured spar actually failed. The AIB man states there was 'no evidence' of a pre impact structural failure, and as he clearly, studiously ignored and failed to investigate the spar failure he can say without lying that he had found 'no evidence' because he simply hadn't looked at the spar. This is similar to the Mull Chinook incident, one of the AIB investigators was asked if finding 'no evidence' of a technical fault meant there hadn't been a technical fault he replied, 'No'.
All of your questions were clearly not answered in the BoI it was the BoI's duty to answer these questions. It is telling that the BoI did not ask these questions and you should not expect me to answer them. If they thought they were about to blame the Pilot the BoI should have allowed the Pilot representation (See The Tench Report) at the BoI (even if he was dead) with the right to call and re-examine witnesses, Wickham was not given this right. Just another indication of the shoddy way he and his crew were treated by the RAF/MOD. Disgraceful I'd call it and it dishonours them.
You postulate a possible fatigue fracture of a spar to explain it all - these failures did not show up on any production Valiant until August 1964,
It's not a postulation it's a FACT of evidence a fractured spar was found and it was not investigated. A fractured spar if found would be the most probable cause given that this fractured spar was the backbone of a 'safe-life' design made from a material that was known to be prone to catastrophic failure.
four years and a lot of flying hours later. Second prototype WB215's spar fracture in 1957 was in a different place and thought to be due to the beating the aircraft had had during its trials life - including heavy landings, wing flutter incidents, and repeated RATOG firings.
You're just regurgitating the 'official' yarn if you read Andrew Brookes' 1980's book you'll see for example that when 138 Sqdn was being disbanded in 1962 one Valiant was 'so badly cracked' that it couldn't be flown out of Wittering and had to be broken up on site.
DTD683 was known (in 1956) to undergo a structural change when over stressed, which would lead to a rapid 'auto catalytic' and catastrophic failure. Humphrey Wynn mentions another fatigue failure in a Valiant in Africa a few months before the August incident he calls it a pre cursor. All this was known in '56 the Valiant should have been scrapped or rebuilt in 1956 a year after it had entered service
The only part of your page that I agree with is the criticism of the narrative style of the report (with its attempt to paint a picture of what might have been going on in the cockpit in those 3 brief minutes) - but it's a style used in most reports of that era.
It's a blatant, clumsy and deliberate cover up which dishonours the crew of XD864.
Incidentally I see no inconsistency between "1800ft QNH" and "1000-1500 ft above airfield level (300ft)" - that's 1300-1800 ft QNH, and with multiple witnesses stating 'lower than usual' that's a pretty sensible hedging of bets. If I were being unkind I'd think you were trying a bit too hard to find "errors"
If I were being unkind I'd say you are an idiot. The errors the BoI made show what a bunch of amateurs they were the errors show how sloppy their approach was how careless they were.
On balance, the conclusion of the report seems entirely reasonable and likely to me, and your theory so far away from likely that you need a passport, a visa and a damn long flight to get there. Interesting effort though.
Ha Ha Ha poor authoritarians, always think the authorities never lie. Ha! 'entirely reasonable'? barely, only with a massive stretch of your tiny imagination is it plausible. The fractured spar is a more probable cause than the 'very unlikely' stall hypothesis. The spar was ignored in the investigation.
This report is not the basis on which to convict posthumously a Captain of 'blameworthy neglegence'. It is preciseley this kind of report that prompted the RAF to add
“ONLY IN CASES IN WHICH THERE IS
ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER SHOULD DECEASED AIRCREW BE FOUND NEGLIGENT”
To the regulations governing BoIs
Here's what an ex Avro chief test pilot who was flying Valiants in 1960 says....
The BoI findings appear to me to be 'a rush to judgement'. To me the telling evidence is that of witness statements that lead one to conclude that the Captain was attempting an emergency landing, and that the aircraft was under control as it flew along the disused runway. This is totally inconsistant with a recovery from a stall but fits in with the supposition that they had suffered a spar failure. In this case the captain would have tried to minimise the stress on the wing by limiting any changes in configuration, ie; u/c and flaps, and keeping the speed and angle of bank low. The only surprising thing to me is that there is not any evidence of a radio message.
Kindly read and understand the material before coming here to wave your hands about in this feeble way. Read it with a genuinely open mind rather than the obviously closed one you have. You owe it to the dead crew.