absolutely brilliant flying: a humble "congratulations"

Damn! I saw the sea fury performing at Farnborough this year. Beautiful bird, wonderful sound.
I hope the damage is not too severe and it can be restored to flight in short order.

Initial thoughts from yesterday are that he had an engine failure at altitude that lead to a drop in hydraulic pressure. As the lack of engine would mean his airspeed slowing, he did not want to create extra drag by dropping gear. When he does get near enough to drop gear, no hydraulic pressure means he has to gravity drop them. Left gear eventually locks, but right does not and then the rest you've seen in the video.

Some of the press have taken it a bit far with lines of 'avoiding thousands of spectators' (I don't think it was ever that close), but to get it down and avoid a fireball the pilot did well.

If the RN do 'green endorsements' in their log books ( I don't know if they do or not), then I think the handling of this situation is worthy of one.

Top stuff sir.

From looking at it, the decision making behind this very successful forced landing is worthy of a Case Study in HF and flight safety courses. From the videos it looks like Chris traded energy for height, bought time, made the decision not to step overboard (lack height probably helped...) flew the aeroplane, thought about the gear, got her down and then, it seems, retracted the gear when he felt the RH leg go, mindful of the tendency to ground loop and nose over (hence JBs decision to jump years back with one leg stuck...). All with adrenaline running. Brilliant airmanship - BZ indeed!

MPN11

G-FURY displayed at Kirmington airport or Humberside as its still called, despite Humberside being abolished 20 odd years ago.

I wasn't there at the time but I lived up the road from it.

V1

My guess it was one of a number of scenarios the pilot had thought through on the ground beforehand. If not, he must think blindingly quickly.

Glad to see Chris walk away from this after watching him display the Sea Fury at Yeovilton last weekend. He is one of the best pilots I have had the pleasure of serving with, BZ for dealing with an extremely difficult situation. Fingers crossed that the experienced maintainers at RNHF can put the Fury back in the air before too long.

I remember many years ago a chum on my Sqn getting just a little too enthusiastic with dive bombing Filfla Rock (just off Malta) and both engines of this Canberra flamed out due to negative G. He glided back to Luqa airfield and had to hand pump the undercarriage down. The main wheels came down at about 10 feet and he held the nose up whilst still frantically pumping until the nose leg locked down. He got a good show for that and a b*llocking for flaming out the engines.

A footnote to the Air Day itself. I commented earlier that Culdrose had been lucky with the weather, for once.

Surprise, surprise its been peeing down here since lunchtime, with vis down to a level that would have wiped out most of the flying display. Glad the luck went with them this time :ok:

Superb flying, well done to the pilot.

Winkle Brown when flying the Gloster Jet out of the Farnborough had a flame out at altitude that wouldn't relight. He glided back to Farnborough, carried out a dead stick landing, rolled off the runway and back onto the parking slot he departed from... The Engineers seeing it arrive couldn't figure out why the engine was stone cold.

The tinwork and such is easily repairable given enough money but putting a Centaurus back together after whatever it was that broke plus the shock loading of the arrival is a massive task. Maybe the RN have spare engine(s)?
Bear in mind the Centaurus is a fabulously complex sleeve-valve requiring the most minute tolerances not a simple agricultural american style radial. Few people around with the skills to do that sort of work too I imagine.

Still, coulda been worse.

Then if necessary, put American radial in it, like they do at Reno ;)

That would be a crime against humanity.

It would also be an airworthiness nightmare.

N

I thought the Hercules/Centarus sleeve valve radials in de-tuned transport applications were very reliable, with 3000hr TBO. There must be specialist engineering support and that the sleeve valve system is a known quantity.

A large part of the Sea Fury appeal is the superb noise, and that the original, reliable engine is key.

With respect sp6, you obviously were never on Beverleys! Although to be fair I dont think they were de-tuned... that was probably the problem!

ISTR the Hercules 264 was derated in the Varsity Pilot Training role in that they knocked 100 rpm off the max. permissable. The engine was reliable in this role but the single engine' rate of climb at high weights on hot days was somewhat sixpence/half crown' if it was for real!

Good to read that Chris' skilful handling has avoided major damage to the 'Fury and that it should be repairable:

Exemplary Airmanship Saves Sea Fury