Victor Airborne (Merged)
 

Ok, I am going to guess that this will be deleted as there seems to be a wall of silence prevailing, but what on earth happened yesterday (3rd May) at Brunty and why the desperate attempts by some to subdue any news?

I've seen a set of stills showing the Victor airborne and looking close to a potential disaster and all the clips on YouTube, forum postings etc all being deleted "to avoid implication" whatever that means, by order of "the owners".

Bizarre, any eye witness accounts?

Ive seen the photos as well, and probably have hundreds of others. yes the touchdown does look a tad wobbly. problem is as I see it, the CAA will now probably (over-)react and ban all such fast runs to prevent it from ocurring again.

Too late if they want to keep it quiet, the genies well and truly out of the bottle. My only regret was i was snapping one of Mr Branstons A340s yesterday, and missed what may turn out to be the last ever fast taxi run in the UK.

I wasn't there, but have seen a picture of the Victor, probably about 20-30ft up at the time.
Could have been disasterous, but thankfully not.

I really don't know whats going on with this blackout of pics and video, but its rather disturbing.

I would imagine there is less chance of it being the "last fast taxi" if they just come clean and be frank and open. The stills I saw show it port wing down over the grass and looking very close to a strike, might just be the angle but looks scary close to impact. I was thinking how close they must have got to having to either open the taps and attempt a circuit or take out a few hundred yards of trees with attendent terrible consequences.

I had to read this astonishing post about three time before it made any sense. VICTOR???? Fast taxi????? 30ft Airborne???? What kind of fast taxi is that? Beyond V1 for certes...

Or we have an airworthy Victor suddenly appeared from somewhere?

The alternative is hard to comprehend. Tell me this wasn't done by the same people who "run" the Vulcan???

I'm no expert in operating Victors but I have been involved in flight test for many years and that included planning fast taxi runs. If the aircraft is not airworthy or not intended to fly then we took measures to ensure it didn't get airborne accidentally. This included not extending the flaps, making sure the thrust was reduced before lifting the nose etc. etc.

Planned short hops were actually more dangerous than getting airborne anyway because of the reduced stopping distance and inherent difficulty of stopping well after V1.

A fast taxi that went slightly wrong. I really don't know or want to speculate how it happened though. Thats for the CAA or whoever to find out. It WASN'T done by the same people who 'run' the Vulcan. Its nothing to do with them at all.

No deletes Andrew. The starter may have done so and I did see a 'note' to the effect that this incident should not have been 'reported.' Curioser and curioser as the great CD once said. ;)

Cheers Pop, I have seen the pics and this morning you'd think anyone spotted mentioning it would disappear ona rendition flight. YouTube posts, PPrune posts, and other message boards changing by the minute I assume the pilot was on the grassy knoll too......

Well, I was there and I saw what happened and, as an airline pilot, I would have said the interests of the organisers would be best served by coming clean with the CAA. It was a great day and it would a terrible shame if these events were to stop happening. That said, the organisers are extremely lucky they did not end up something far far worse on their hands.

This is a very large aircraft we are talking about, not a Cessna 150. They pointed out earlier in the day that the runway at Bruntingthorpe is approx 2 miles long which although long, is not THAT long. This wasn't simply a case of stopping after V1. The thing was airborne before it landed and then braked. How the hell they managed to stop the thing is beyond me and I would have said that whoever was at the controls will have some tricky questions to answer.

I hope lessons are learnt from this and that these days keep on happening because as a spectacle, and as an aviation enthusiast, they need to. That sort of thing, however, should never happen again.

Andrew,
I posted a thread on Mil forum yesterday within about 30 mins of it happening!
I had a call from a mate who told me what had happened!

I made a call to an operator there yesterday to confirm and he did!

I posted two questions:
They asked about the implications of this incident concerning the future
of the fast taxi runs that so many enthusiasts and professionals spend countless
hours to keep the aircraft going and thus uphold our aviation heritage!!

The issue as far as I was concerned was about my questions!
NOT whether or not the Victor had actually got airborne? It had!

I asked them to aviation professionals on this forum! I was and still
am interested in their opinion?

The first two posts were speculating that I could have confused it with a JP!
Its nose wheel had apparently lifted during its run!!

I waited for any sensible reply, there was none!

I considered other threads I had read on here recently and
decided that I didn't want to be associated (as thread starter)
with what could turn into a pathetic slanging match!

The poor Victor 'Captain' has enough to think about, I didn't
want to add to that!
I pulled it! No conspiracy!
AB

Cheers Snapshot, appreciated. One or two have been running a day long crusade on YouTube to supress footage and comments and its pretty pathetic, be better if they just owned up to the CAA and deal with it than trying to run their own suppression policy.

Thanks for updating the story, the main thing is everyone is unhurt seems it could have been very different.

I sincerely hope that that is the case. Trying to hush this up will do nothing for their credibility when the CAA inevitably find out.

It isn't the CAA who will stop high speed ground run demonstrations (for that is what they are - let's drop the euphemism "taxi") it's the the insurers. If they perceive additional risk then the premiums will rise or they may even decline cover altogether.

What makes this incident so potentially dangerous is that you can do all the takeoff calculations in the world and calculate the maximum speed to which you can accelerate and stop in the available runway distance, but once you get airborne all bets are off. The options then available are to try and land in an incorrect configuration in the remaining runway available with no clear indication that it is sufficient, or to carry on and fly a circuit and land. Neither option is appealing and if anything the former carries the more significant risk.

YS

What on earth is there to be gained by this heavy-handed suppression of photographic proof that the 'flight' occurred?

Publish and be damned, I say!!

well there are a series of three pics online right now which say it all.....

They aren't mine but publicly available so unless that's a problem I am happy to post the link.

Why shouldn't you post the link?

I agree with BEags there is little point in hiding it now. We would not have done so anyway when I first saw it. People are free to post so long as it stays in the boundaries of PPRuNe rules.

However, the poster has a free choice to keep it or remove it and he chose the latter - as you can see it made little or no difference.

because they have now been deleted !

Good job I saved them.......PM me if you want a peek.

There is no point in not posting Andrew, the damage if any is done. Its news and its aviation.

http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/l...84096fc2c4.jpg

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For the record they aren't my pics, they were posted on flickr earlier and were in the public domain.

I think that might be the moment you find yourself hoping that nice big brake chute doesn't candle.

I wonder if there'll be any 'Victor to the Sky' club badges available? :E

Well done Hurn!!! you are only the 89084247209847 person to have used the "Victor To The Sky" line.:ok::)

Only if you give us money every month for ever as we can't get a major sponsor to pay for the nappies the crew will need (and maybe a few farmers new by).

Well if all those people would just pledge a pound...... :p

I see what you're saying Yellow Sun but I guess in this instance it becomes a CAA issue the second that thing got airborne.

Everything else in your post is bang on. You can imagine my suprise seeing it not only get airborne but then landing again. It goes against every facet of operating large jets, which is why it's so serious, and why the outcome could have so very much worse. Attempting to cover it up doesn't help!

The line that this was an 'accident', not a big deal and simply a taxi run gone a bit wrong just doesn't wash. I've my suspicions as to how this happened but as it's nothing more than 'informed' speculation i'll keep it to my self.

To re-iterate, I really hope this doesn't put paid to days like this. The rest of it (particularly the Lightning) was awesome. Don't let one cock-up ruin it for everyone!

:eek:Coldplayer, I think you're speaking from the wrong end. Many moons ago as I was about to go home (or to the bar) when the engineers asked me to do a fast taxi on a Viscount and lift the nose wheel to check a reported shimmy. I was flapless but with only a min quantity of fuel, and as I raised the nose wheel she got airborne. I was not strapped in, and had an engineer in the right seat, all the options flashed through my mind, but I checked the feel of the controls, throttled back and landed with plenty of runway (Aberdeen) in hand, therefore no fuss and no paperwork. I was surprised at how easily she got airborne nowhere near the normal rotate, so I think the Victor flight was accidental.

Yes, but with respect, a Viscount is not a heavy 4 engined jet and you simply don't/can't do that in a jet.

To do so is to push your luck beyond its design limits.

OK I was there and saw the final few seconds, as my view was blocked by the tail of the Hunter. I saw the left main gear touchdown with blue smoke then slew just onto the grass.

More to the point had the a/c been pre-flighted (even though it wasn't mean't to fly) to check that all controls and surfaces were properly responsive and working?

I should hope not, as I'd have thought they shouldn't be putting the aircraft in the position to get airborne in the first place.

So you'd happily line her up and tank it down the drag without knowing things work as intended?

Given that at those speeds all surfaces would be aerodynamically effective I assume you'd want them all pointing in the right directions.

Sorry Andrew - replying to the post above yours (I can't reply to a post in less than a minute:ok: - we posted almost simultaneously).

As for yours, I'd hope they had.:)

So from a crew safety point of view you're saying they should have gone around and then landed if possible?

If that had happened wouldn't they be in worse trouble with the CAA as they would have potentially been flying over a built up area of houses rather than staying within the confines of the airfield, or would it be treated the same?

Didn't this happen with a test of the first F-16?

Also I'd like the pilot to pick me 6 numbers for next week.

Speculating in public is not what I intended to do so I won't. However, in response to the above point, no that's not what i'm saying.

What i'm saying is that the aircraft should NEVER have got anywhere the speed at which it could lift off the ground. There should (and i'm not saying there wasn't as I don't know) have been a full brief so that everyone on board was aware of the exact sequence of events and under no illusions as to exactly what speed the reject (or should I say 'end of the fast taxi') would be initiated. What is for certain is that, in my humble opinion and experience, it should not have been doing much more than 80kts when this happened.

What I will say with absolute certainity is that under NO circumstances should this thing have been taken into the air as a solution to what happened. It is not airworthy, end of story. Any speculation as to that being the correct course of action should stop!

I am 100% certain that the CAA will be involved and there will be a conclusion to come from that. Speculating as to what that may be will help no one. I suspect that the attempt to supress video, pictures and comment was for the very reasons mentioned earlier. I find it hard to believe the organisers haven't gone to the CAA themselves.

Again, I say that I really do hope that this 'incident' does not put the tin lid on these days. This aside, it was fantastic and well organised.

:ok:I don't think I've mis-identified your speaking orifice, there is not a lot of difference between a Viscount and an empty Victor which will get airborne well below Vr regardless of calculations. I've also flown 4-jets for many years, I don't think you can be a pilot.

:hmm: The above comment of course is to Coldplayer.

but then you do just that !