I try not to get involved,but.

To those that suggest the take off at North weald was slow, get a life, it was a hot humid day. The engine was fine. It takes time in those conditions.

To those that suggest it was a flame out. Please learn that phrase flame out
Means that. The flames out. No sign of fire, nothing, a compressor stall on the other hand would be a flame out of the front of the engine, not the back.bthe highest point of pressure is the flame can now,

Julian is an uninformed twit.

The losses on Saturday are almost beyond words and my only hope is that some good can emerge, although if it were my family, I would at this time, not understand how.

It is with some irony that the plane which flew after the crash of the DH.110 in 52 was a Hunter. A truly different world.

However maybe the lesson we can take from '52 was at that time the display was entirely about the future. So many displays are now purely retrospective. Yes we all love the sound of a big P&W, a merlin or an avon...but my young son who accompanies me to airshows, loves the F16's, the Typhoons, the Mig-29's, the Reds and the Patrouille de France etc. The A400M display at Fairford was draw dropping.

Can anyone remember Biggin, circa 81/82 when the Luftwaffe Starfighters burst low level from behind the crowd line and scared the crap out of us all....and made us smile to this day?

It was frankly embarrassing to listen to the jingoistic commentary at Fairford this year...all battle of Britain, the few, darkest hour etc...when the Luftwaffe were flying a Tornado along side an RAF and Italian model.

At what point do we learn to respect and honour the past but not dwell on it. In that same commentary, despite a Buchon being airborne, not one word was spoken about the "brave Luftwaffe pilots"...and brave they surely were.

Maybe looking forwards and not backwards might secure a better UK airshow environment for the next 60 years.

Doesn't embarrass me. All of Europe owes a debt of gratitude to the Royal Air Force which prevented the invasion of our country and all which would have followed on.
Never forget!

Yep M0.9/300kts this was identified as the cause of the loss of Hunter FGA MK9 FG 261 of 2 TWU from Lossiemouth in 28 May 1980 near Dufftown. 23 degrees of flap used for low speed ACM but if the flap is not selected up before M0.9/300kts is reached the nose will progressively pitch down and cannot be raised until the flaps are retracted. UK Military Aircraft Losses

Ka-2b Pilot

From the Hunter T Mark 7 Air Publications A.P. 101B-1302- 1, Chapter 2, Fuel System,

18. Under certain conditions of flight, particularly during inverted flying, air may pass into the front tanks. Air also comes out of solution from the fuel at altitude, or the fuel may boil. The expansion of this air or vapor while climbing may prevent fuel transfer and allow the front tanks to empty while fuel remains in the other tanks To prevent this, a vapor release valve is fitted to each front tank.
and
Thus, when the warning indicators show, the contents of the front tanks only are indicated, this being the only amount of fuel available to the engine.
and
From the Pilot's Flight Manual, section 1-1, page 9, paragraph 18, Fuel Gauge Errors: "The fuel contents gauges have been found to give erroneous indications due to temperature effects on the electrical gauging system. The magnitude of the error depends on both temperature and flight conditions. Low temperatures at high altitude give gauge underreading; high temperatures at high speeds at low altitude give gauge overreading. During a descent from altitude, if the inaccuracy is a gauge under reading, the gauges progressively become more accurate and may eventually tend to overread."

Given that the pilot is still alive, I'd hope that some of the controls and gauges will be intact and give the authorities some factual info to determine cause.

Taildragger123,

It is exceeding 0.9M that results in the uncontrollable pitch down; exceeding 300 KIAS when below 0.9M is fully controllable. The limit is always promulgated as M0.9/300kts but the reasons for the M and IAS limits are different. To put this into the context of display flying, please note that M0.9 at ISA, sea level is 595 kts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb1tdCz1vJ0

Is this the sort of thing that attracts so many around the world to air shows ?

Pace

Yes, that stuff is exactly what the majority want to see.

Lower, faster, noisier and more dangerous.

The trick, of course, is to make it look dangerous without actually being dangerous.

I don't think it is. They are just harder to research the further you go back in time and when death by accident was more commonplace.


For example there is this incident which is hardly recorded other than in this link: ASN Aircraft accident 18-SEP-1948 de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito FB.Mk VI TA507
( ten killed in a hospital)


The 18th September 1948 was a particularly bad day for Mosquitoes with three of them being involved in fatal crashes during air displays at different locations. The one at Manston also killed ten on the ground but in that incident I think those would be technically classed as spectators as they were on the road leading into the air display.

I don't think airshow afficionados will ever get close to experiencing this though: :eek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDDxU5sB-SI

TCU I think you will find that the five ship Starfighter team that approached Biggin from crowd rear, low and fast back then (81 I think) were the Canadian Armed Forces Demonstration Team the Tiger Romeos. Great sight and sound, especially running down wind to land, remember it well. The kid in front of us was so shocked he threw his ice cream all over the people in front!


Interesting that on all the threads I have read on this tragic incident there is no mention of the changes made to UK Displays after the Ramstien accident which I think was the last time any major changes were made to air displays in the UK?

Also, if you ignore all the big blue 'Police Notice - NO VIEWING' signs on and around the junction both sides of the A27 are you not deliberately putting your self in harms way?

jls: In 1976 I was at Bournemouth UK preparing for a beach show. The Red Arrows (gnats) arrived at the airfield and beat 7 bells of @£$% out of it. The Leader flew sedately down the runway at 30'. Behind him a couple of the others mowed the grass. One of the last guys came down the runway and I swear if he had lowered the gear he would have climbed. The gnat looked as flat bottomed as an F! car and your backside was as close to the tarmac as Lewis H.

Back to the video & pictorial of the Hunter manoeuvre I have the thought that the the pull up was not at 90 to the intended final pull-out line, the runway. The initial pull up might have been closer to 90 to A27. The roll off the top for the 1/4 clover was not a 90 roll but would have required more like 135 roll. The target line was blind to the pilot as the roll off was initiated. The most significant ground feature for orientation was A27. During the pull through after the roll off the top A27 would have been the most significant and visible ground line feature, and it would have led to the runway centreline. During the descent a resulting roll of 45 left would have been required after the runway centre line was acquired. If it was realised late that the pull out was the priority then the roll left would be forgotten. It was now survival.
If the arrival manoeuvre had been a 3/4 loop then the runway would have been in view all the time and a 45 roll made on the descending portion of the loop to realign with the runway. As this was now a roll towards the target. rather than away from, then the initial pull up might have had to be made a little further away from the threshold to allow the realignment manoeuvre. My thoughts being that the target line would have been in view at all times, no blind spots.
Those with more experience might have further insight.

Jlsmith

The interesting thing about the Argentinian misbehaviour is that whilst it may be dangerous to mess around like that in peacetime, in wartime it served them well.

At post 449

The signs were most probably put up with the intention of not blocking the highway. It would be impossible to differentiate between road users and pedestrians and those who wanted to get a free view of the airshow with respect to risk.

one of the most amazing/dangerous display I saw was a Fouga Magister doing a low very level pass (10') at BoB Gaydon , he was inverted!!

[QUOTE]Ka-2b Pilot
From the Hunter T Mark 7 Air Publications A.P. 101B-1302- 1, Chapter 2, Fuel System, 18. Under certain conditions of flight, particularly during inverted flying .... I'd hope that some of the controls and gauges will be intact and give the authorities some factual info to determine cause. /QUOTE]

Not sure what you are getting at here, Ka. The Hunter has vapour release valves fitted, and anyway if there is a transfer failure, the warning doll's eyes will turn white and the fuel gauges will then indicate only what is available to the engine, i.e. 790 lbs per side. If you miss that warning, then a couple of minutes later, the very visible bingo lights will come on at 650lbs per side, which is a signal to land quite soon.

Fuel problems, flameouts etc., are probably red herrings because if you have a problem of this nature before the vertical upwards phase is reached, you will roll over and pull out of the manoeuvre. If already in the upwards vertical, you would complete the top of the loop and then roll off and go and sort the problem, or do a forced landing, or an ejection over the designated safe ejection area.

I ask this question from a position of virtually complete ignorance, so please forgive me if it appears crass. And before I ask, I should say that to me the pilot of this Hunter was as well qualified to fly this aircraft as anyone out there...

But, how can any pilot, who is not "line flying" the aircraft in question, completely understand the technical nuances of the particular aircraft, to a point where he can adequately cope with any eventuality? I'm guessing that the Hunter (or any other vintage aircraft) has plenty of "characteristics" that can only truly be mastered with many, many hours of familiarisation...

Red Arrows over London - if an engine failure
 

To answer a comment a bit further back about a possible engine failure over London - as single engine aircraft are not normally allowed to fly over London.

Few years ago a pilot from the Battle of Brittan Memorial Flight said in a TV documentary if they had an engine failure when doing a fly-past over Buckingham Palace, etc, they would 'bite the bullet and go in the Thames'.

He didn't say they had 'orders', from his tone it was just the accepted thing to do.

Practice, practice, practice, and if you can't afford that, either time- or money- wise, then back off the level of difficulty or risk that you expose yourself to.

I don't understand why people are citing inverted flying limitations. The Hunter may have looked inverted but surely it was pulling positive g all the time.

This is not about why an aircraft crashed, it is about where an aircraft crashed.

Cows getting bigger.

Top man ..the most relevant post so far

I am not minimising the importance of the AAIB report when it comes out! Hopefully by then the pilot will have recovered and again hopefully he will have a detailed memory of the crash ? But that's not guaranteed!

With these sort of display aircraft the option for something small going wrong with disasterous results is horrifically shown in the thread on a Pitts fatal crash and that is a much slower aircraft than a fighter travelling at over twice the speed!

How would you prevent this happening again from an AAIB report ? It's unlikely you will other than raising the base of the display and giving the aircraft more space for something to go wrong and recover!

The other option is to take the aircraft further away over uninhabited areas but both of the above will water down the whole thrill excitement factor which attracts crowds in their thousands and will destroy the attraction of air shows

All the AAIB could do is discover a failure in the aircraft which lead or contributed to the crash so theoretically demand that part is replaced or renewed but somehow I doubt whether there will be anything earth shattering revealed which will make much difference other than regulations to water down these shows

Where the aircraft crashed has something to do with why the aircraft took that flight path. In a fast jet it covers a lot of ground very fast. If something goes wrong either mechanically or through the pilot it will still travel very fast but in the wrong direction in the same way that if you loose your car you maybe following a windy road but will probably take out a hedge and end up inverted in a field where you are not supposed to be!

Whether a busy road like that road should be open so close to an airshow is another question and one option would be to close it and divert traffic on an airshow day

Pace

Who rescued the pilot alive from this blazing Hunter T7 inferno?
 

Little has been reported about the person(s) who extricated the pilot from the Hunter T7 cockpit section. This part of the T7 fuselage appears to have slid forward along the ground and is shown in some photos to be marginally ahead of the main inferno, albeit with the left wing canted 60 degrees into the air and spewing flames.

See picture 22.25 below: Hawker Hunter crash on the A27 near Shoreham Airshow, Photo by Terry Smith.

Shoreham, Air Show plane crash: seven dead and 14 injured after Hawker Hunter smashes into four cars - Telegraph

But praise is due.

The T7 canopy is pictured open - probably as a result of impact forces.
The pilot will have been strapped in with an integrated parachute harness and 2 leg restrainer cords.
So it was no easy or safe task to extricate a pilot with live top and bottom Martin-Baker ejection seat firing handles as potential grab hold points.

The rescuer(s) should be recognised, commended and praised.

**s***d**s i*clud*d m*mb**s *f BASICS (B*itish Ass*ciati** f** Imm*diat* Ca** wh* a** qualifi*d m*dics a*d *a*am*dics) i* *a*ticula* T**y K*m* a*d tw* *ff duty G*s, D* Ma*ia*** Jacks** a*d D* Ka*** *astma***

EDIT - some corruption of text - not sure why.



First responders included members of BASICS (British Association for Immediate Care, who are qualified medics and paramedics) including Terry Kemp and two off duty medics Dr Marianne Jackson and Dr Karen Eastman.

BASICs are integrated into national and local emergency planning responses to major incidents and disasters, which is where I have practised with them.

Their contributions to Shoreham and other major events cannot be underplayed or underestimated in any way. They attend tabletops and live exercises, and are on call 24*7.

bigglesbrother:

That is a good and fair point.
I think, quite rightly, much praise has been given to members of the emergency services but they did not arrive until several (if not more) minutes after the crash.
It may have been a member of the emergency services who extricated the pilot, but again, it may well have been a passing member of the public.

Toward the end of the walk around video taken of the aftermath, as the camera looks down the road at burning cars, if you look closely top left, there appears to be a figure pulling a fire hose, moving left to right.
The camera is pointed down the line of the direction of the impact so the airfield is on the left. So perhaps this figure is from an airfield crash truck? Did a truck respond by staying on the airfield and runing a hose through the bushes?
This would apparently place them close to the cockpit.

Although the figure does not appear to be wearing a helmet? A member of the public helping?


Mickjoebill

It was, this short interview with Terry Kemp may be of interest...


Shoreham crash: First aider's battle to reach air show pilot - BBC News

I do hope he and his colleagues are officially recognised for their bravery.

Also this link to a report in the local paper (Argus) from one of the firefighters first on scene (from post 366).

Will the insurance cover be adequate on this one ?
 

As someone said, the real question isn't really why this piece of ex mil high density hardware crashed, but where it crashed, and how that makes a big difference.

I did a quick search throughout the thread and it seems that the insurance question whilst posed on page 11, hasn't been run with. There's been suggestion that airshow premiums must surely now rise, assuming the insurance coverage is adequate but that the premium rates may not be. I am actually wondering whether the airshow and operators insurance limits of indemnity might need to rise too? They might surely be tested by both the effects and breadth of carnage in this incident.

I haven't seen much in the press about the type and extent of life-changing injuries that are likely to have been sustained, as the reports such as the one in the Argus link slfie gave in the post above are thankfully professionally restrained. But I think we can read between the lines that what resulted from the event has remained a hell on earth for a large number of people which will have to be very properly compensated.

So whilst we can guess who unfortunately will find themselves in the frame for paying for the aftermath, can we be confident that the insurances will be adequate?

I think CAA have been concerned about this type of accident for decades (ex mil high density). Although maybe only 1/4 the problem (half the weight) of something like the Lightning which CAA effectively banned from the airshow circuit in the UK long ago, the Hunter has always been a bit of a worry and always a potential handful I think? Hopefully CAA have long been insisting on some pretty bombproof insurance liability limits as a condition of approval of these type of ops/events?

I think there are probably many on the forum who could comment sensibly on the size of insurance limits airlines typically carry, but anyone know what aggregate limits are typical for this type of display op?

As a general statement, rather than it simply being something agreed privately between CAA and operators, if the risks are regularly approved by CAA as publicly acceptable, then evidence of the risk transfer devices required as a public protection (insurance) should I think also be exactly that (public). A notice on the gate, in the programme and on a website would suffice. Anyone seen such ? Sound a bit OTT? Not something many think of I guess.

Kiln provided the Hawker's liability cover with a limit of £25m, or about $40m. Limits in the US are more typically in the $50-100m range.

Kiln leads Shoreham Airshow loss | Fenchurch Associates

Pace - CGB is quite right. If the Hunter had crashed on the airfield with only the pilot injured this wouldn't be much of a news story outside of the aviation community. And it is unlikely that there would have been any directives from the CAA other than grounding Hunters until the cause was known.

Yep, in normal aircraft operations it's take offs and landings which are deemed the phases of flight with the highest risk requiring most regulation. With aerobatic air show displays, that risk profile is perhaps turned on its head. Sad that it takes an accident like this to illustrate it.

Are there any videos of previous displays by this Hunter following the same display pattern?

Interested to see what the manoeuvre looks like flown successfully.

SGC

All I can find so far:-


Edited to add:-

The Sky News chopper has been in the air and provides an aerial video of the accident site here:-

First Aerial Pictures Of Shoreham Crash Site

Andy ?
 

Any news of how AH is doing? Partly from concern for one of what I like to consider my "Band of Brothers", and partly because he'll hopefully be the one person who can input most as to what went wrong.

GBWY Andy

Bigglesbrother said in #451:

Who rescued the pilot alive from this blazing Hunter T7 inferno?
Little has been reported about the person(s) who extricated the pilot from the Hunter T7 cockpit section.

Interesting observation. In the last closing minutes of the Nick Ferrari breakfast LBC radio show, a couple of days after the accident, someone asked this question and suggested that the Queen should create a civilian version of the Victoria Cross to be awarded on an occasion like this. The place must have stunk of hot steaming paraffin, and if I remember correctly, on that type, there are two ejector seat handles, either one of which could be damaged and on the edge of going off.

There must have been more than one person involved. I suppose they dragged him to safety, saw the medics, got back in their car, and drove off.

Maybe the medics who attended could throw light on this.

Downwind Lander

They have, it's effectively covered by the BBC interview I provided a link to in post #455. I suspect the fine details are not (for now at least ) for general consumption, but for the enquiry to delve into.

Downwind Lander #465
 

There already is such an award: the George Cross.