A friend of mine recently moved into a retirement home in Melbourne. He asked if I would like a bunch of Aviation Heritage magazines he had stored in his shed. They were titled the journal of the Aviation Historical Society of Australia. Because it would be a shame to see his treasures dumped into the Monday morning council rubbish pick-up, I somewhat reluctantly agreed to accept them; along with his pair of WW2 fur lined flying boots he had from the days when he was an air gunner on Lincoln bombers. I couldn’t see me tramping around the house in fur lined flying boots so by now my local Op shop has probably sold them for ten dollars. .
I figured if I read the Aviation Heritage magazines one each week, it would take nearly two years to get through the lot. The first to be read was Aviation Heritage, Volume 39 – Number 2, June 2008. Among the stories, was an interview conducted by Greg Banfield with Captain Graham Lance (born in 1924) and recorded on 29 September 2004.
Graham enlisted in the RAAF in 1943 and after graduating as a Sergeant Pilot was sent to England where he flew Handley Page Halifax bombers on operations over Europe. After the war he returned home to Australia and flew as a First Officer on DC-3’s and DC-4’s. He later moved to Qantas flying Boeing 707’s.
It would be impractical to scan his full story to Pprune, even though it makes fascinating reading. However one short paragraph on page 37 of the magazine, struck a chord with me. It said: “On 8 August 1951 I was scheduled to fly with a new captain on a TAA DC-3 freighter VH-TAT to Hobart, but at the last moment I was pulled off that to do a Perth trip instead, because someone had gone sick. The DC-3 I should have been on, crashed into the sea in Barilla Bay, near Cambridge, when it developed underwing icing and the new captain didn’t realise what was happening. That was TAA’s first crash, although, being a freighter, it didn’t get the same publicity that a passenger aircraft crash would have”. The crew was Captain J. Haslope and First Officer T. Bennetts.
One report stated the aircraft took off from Cambridge and one mile north flew into the waters of Barilla Bay and was destroyed. The accident was caused by loss of control during a low altitude turn. The loss of control was attributed in the official accident report, to the presence of ice on the aircraft surfaces.
In those days, all RAAF Dakota’s were equipped with de-icing equipment that included inflatable rubber de-icing boots attached to almost the full length of the leading edge of the wings, the tail-plane and rudder fin. On the other hand, all Australian registered civilian DC-3’s had Regulator approval to operate with de-icer boots removed to save weight and maintenance costs. Operators were required to keep clear of icing conditions.
Of course that was impossible to police and it was left to operators to self-regulate in that regard. We can all guess the result. In winter, icing was invariably prevalent on the Melbourne to Tasmania route, yet it seemed that the Regulator looked the other way.
Sixty five years on from the 1951 crash of the TAA DC-3 night freighter into Barilla Bay, there are sure to be general aviation light twins with no wing anti-icing equipment still running freight in icing conditions between the mainland and Tasmania. Many of these do not have weather radar for which to avoid ice-filled clouds at night, so their pilots simply cross their fingers and hope for the best regardless of the threat of icing.
While there is no shortage of educational material for pilots on the perils of icing, complacency can easily set in. The more often we do something dangerous and get away with it, the less we perceive the danger. Eventually, our mind fools us into thinking there's no danger. A risky activity done many times begins to feel safe. This is a human trait that is in all of us.
This writer saw the light on how contamination of wing surfaces while flying at slow speeds, typically shortly after lift-off, can catch a pilot completely off guard. In this incident, which was in a RAAF C47 Dakota (DC3) at Townsville, the OAT was warm so there was no chance of icing.
Undergoing an instrument rating test was the Commanding Officer of RAAF Base Townsville. He had flown Martin Baltimore light bombers against the Germans during the WW2 campaign in North Africa. Desk-bound now, he was still a keen and enthusiastic pilot who flew both the Lincoln and Dakota whenever he could get away from his HQ office.
In those days, for in-flight instrument flying simulation, the RAAF used two-way amber screens installed on the inside of the Dakota windscreen. The pilot flying wore blue goggles and the combination of the amber screen and looking through blue tinted goggles made it look completely black outside. The instructor could see outside easily since he did not wear blue goggles. The take-off run was on instruments with the instructor giving verbal corrections to the other pilot in order to maintain the centreline of the runway.
In this incident and shortly after becoming airborne, the instructor selected the undercarriage lever to up and reaching over to the pilots instrument panel, caged the pilot’s artificial horizon to simulate its failure; the aim being to climb out on limited panel. In those days artificial horizons were not as reliable as today and AH failure was not unknown. This was one reason why RAAF flying training accented skill at flying on limited panel.
Seconds later, the Wing Commander under test called that the starboard engine had failed. Certainly the Dakota was yawing and rolling and the Wingco was using almost full controls to keeps the wings level. As he was on instruments, in fact he was doing a very good job. There was one problem, however. The instructor could see that both engines were delivering full power yet obviously the pilot was struggling to fly the aircraft.
Then, to the surprise of the instructor in the right hand seat, the Wing Commander, convinced that the starboard engine had failed and with the altitude a bare 200 feet, reached to the overhead panel and tried to press the starboard engine feathering button. Fortunately, the instructor managed to block his hand to stop him touching the feathering button and informed the Wingco that he (the instructor) was taking control. The Wingco let go of the controls causing the aircraft to yaw strongly to the right and the starboard wing dropped sharply.
The instructor now had control using almost full aileron and considerable rudder pressure to raise the starboard wing. Another glance at the engine instruments revealed both engines still operating at take-off power, so clearly an engine failure had not occurred. The instructor then looked out at the starboard wing and was dismayed to see the de-icer rubber boot stretching from the landing light to the wing tip, had split in half with the top part flapping over the wing leading edge. The effect on the lift of the wing was quite dramatic.
The instructor was able to complete a circuit using almost full aileron and considerable rudder to keep the wings level. He decided not to lower flaps for the landing because of the risk of further controllability problems. A successful flapless landing was made with full aileron reached due to the slowing airspeed, just as touch-down occurred.
The failure of the wing de-icing boot was due to perishing of the rubber material over time in the tropics.
The incident left an indelible impression on the instructor as to the effect of contamination of the upper surface of a wing caused by icing; or in this case, an airframe defect.
Without having experienced severe icing, and the control problems it can cause, it is understandable that pilots may become complacent; especially if they cannot be bothered to study the subject. They would be wise to take time to read the following link to the Flight Safety Foundation report on icing accidents and maybe afterwards ponder “There but for the Grace of God, go I.”
http://flightsafety.org/fsd/fsd_jun-sep97.pdf
With winter in full swing and particularly the chances of encountering icing on the Tasmanian route quite high, I invite readers to contribute to this thread and describe their own encounters in icing where control problems have occurred. We can thus all learn from the experiences of others.