Battle Stations last night... and ATC

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

The Excellent 'Battle Stations' Ch4 program last night featured the Lockheed Lightning twin piston WW2 aeroplane. As I've posted on the 'Aviation History' forum, it came across to me as a bit of a poor-handling dog, albeit very fast in a straight line.

The prototype did a record breaking West to East US coast-to-coast flight, and beat the record. But it ran out of fuel while holding for Air Traffic at the destination, and force landed on a golf course, writing off the aeroplane but sparing the pilot.

This was Lockheed's chief test pilot in the very latest in aeronuatical exotica. Why didn't he just tell them he was fuel-critical, and go on in and land??

I thought pilots being intimidated by ATC was a relatively new problem among some PPLs. Obviously not....

SSD

[knobbygb]

Very enjoyable program - I believe it's a series too - next week they're featuring... damn, forgot, think it was either the Mustang or the Me262.
There do seem to be quite a few aviation related documentaries on at the moment, don't there?

[Final 3 Greens]

Why didn't he just tell them he was fuel-critical, and go on in and land??

That's an interesting point.

I wonder if he didn't realise for whatever reason? My limited understanding of military flying is that fuel reserves tend to be tighter than in civvy street.

Maybe the gauges over read and he thought he had enough at X mins when he had only X x 50% or whatever.

It would be interesting if anyone knew the real reason.

[Piece of Cake]

I think next weeks program is about the Corsair (that's what they said at the end of the P-38 program anyway)

Also with regards to the coast to coast flight, I think there was a certain degree of Press-On-itis, new aeroplane ,trying to beat Howard Hughes' previsous record etc so instead of maybe diverting to another airfield en-route that's why the fuel ran out.

PoC

[SteveR]

and what about the Lindberg connection?

I'm not au fait with the magic of manifold pressure, but apparently he recommended 1400 rpm and an enormous something pressure. The engineers said they'd blow the engines, but they didn't and the range was increased by (was it?) 8 hours ?!?

Steve R

[spekesoftly]

SSD,

I understood from the TV programme that the pilot was waiting for the arrival of some VIPs, to witness the record attempt, but consequently ran out of fuel. Nothing to do with 'ATC' delays!

[FNG]

Hey, the dude was a fighter pilot...bear in mind that those guys were trained to got lost if the railway points changed, and never to look at fuel gauges.

Seriously though, Lindbergh (partly) redeemed himself for his flirtation with Nazism (didn't give Hitler his medal back though) by secretly training USAAF and Navy pilots in endurance flying (in which he was of course the world supremo) for the Pacific theatre. He was rumoured to have shot down a Zero on one op. There would have been a terrible fuss if he had been captured (he was a civilian: FDR swore blind that he would never let him back into the air force after the America First hoo-hah).

PS: just seen that Shaggy posted much the same info in the version of this thread running in the aviation History forum.

PPS: as for P-38 handling, didn't it have wacky flaps that could be opened at high speed and g-loadings to allow sharp turns?

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

SSD,

I understood from the TV programme that the pilot was waiting for the arrival of some VIPs, to witness the record attempt, but consequently ran out of fuel. Nothing to do with 'ATC' delays!



Not my recollection; the prog said no-one had advised the destination of the record-breaking flight, so when it arrived it was kept holding 'till ATC could deal with it. Ran out of fuel and force-landed on a golf course, written off, pilot walked away.

SSD