Wittering Tutor in a field
 

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....3a1dd507a2.jpg
From the RAF Wittering InstaSnapFaceWhatsBook page;

The RAF can confirm there has been an incident involving a Tutor training aircraft near RAF Wittering. The aircraft has landed safely on open ground and the pilot is uninjured. A recovery operation is underway and a full investigation will follow.

May there always be such a convenient field for airmen in difficulties ………….

Good job with what looks like a textbook force landing, but I have to admit my first thought when I saw the picture was "this would make a great CAPCOM entry" :O

'tis Fake News - at least the local press has it as false - who do they have as editor, a three year old ?

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....418051561c.jpg

Something lost in the translation there.
It could easily have been a "farce landing".
Or a "probationary landing".

Or even "forced" landing. It's these regional accents cause the problems.........

That's what I thought. As you know there is a dearth of such fields in Cornwall, and the "hedges" which surround them sneakily conceal large chunks of granite under the vegetation, Doing my PPL one day my instructor asked me to select a field for a forced landing if the engine suddenly failed, I had a quick scan around and pointed out a field which I thought we might just reach and get into. He said it might be a possibility but perhaps the golf course immediately below us would have been a better choice!

Incidentally that field looks bigger than St Just aerodrome where I used to fly from!

I think you rather missed my point....;)

Must have been a glider pilot. Field landings always a possibility/probability on a X-Country. I even have a beach landing/aero-tow out of a beach once.

I hope the tide wasn't coming in; could have been a stressful wait for the tug to arrive...

Empty beach, 1000yds or so long. On the instance of the wing tip touching the ground, not only did dozens of kids and a few adults appear as if zombie like, arising up from the sand, but also a policeman on a BMW motorbike complete with flashing blue appeared from between the dunes. Within 30 seconds or so he had ascertained that "No I haven't crashed" and told me that that was great, as the paperwork for an aircraft crash was "quite horrendous" and off he went. The tide at the time was at the bottom of the ebb. phew!

Life's a beach, we are assured.

Naah cos then his aeroplane would have been sitting in a hanger gathering dust for the last few years awaiting the breakers :sad:

All 3 blades still attached, progress, woohoo.

NS, I don't think I said ACO glider pilot. They tend not to fly X-Country, rather give the young, oops gave, the young cadets the basics i.e. to solo standard (Not solo on a FS flight sim derivative, bu rather in a real aeroplane) Anyway back to the thread, well done that man. An aeroplane that can probably fly out of the field providing that the problem is fixable in situ. And if not, at least no BoI required.

A342

I understand the RAF Tutor fleet is now grounded.

Ooh heck, is that Air Cadet management in the background........hat, coat....

On a more positive note at least the propeller had not fallen off. Expect fleet grounding in 3,2,1....

But that one was repaired and later given to me to fly; it had my name written on the engine cowling for some years. It flew OK but on the ground it always tended to sit tail low. Although it was rumoured that it could not afterwards be used for aerobatics, there was no such limitation in the F700 during my time. Then someone else crashed it in a field during another forced landing at a summer camp and it was eventually sold for spares.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=143797

The similar report for XX618 that had the spin is here... https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=60093

and XX623 here. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=60092

During my time on the Bulldog, it was drummed into us that getting out by 2000ft was imperative. The incident below we were told at the time was left very late, around 800ft if IIRC. The story doing the rounds then was that one of the pilots went out as per procedure and broke his nose and ankle on the tailplane. The other had sky diving experience and went out in a in a sky diving attitude and was unscathed. I have never enjoyed spinning if I am not wearing a parachute ever since. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=137218

The Bulldog had a strict limit on fuel asymmetry for spinning. Students were always required to keep the left and right tank contents in balance, so often the selector was moved from the 'BOTH' position to achieve this....

The only delayed spin recovery I ever encountered was when my (very good) student entered a right hand spin. It didn't seem to want to recover, so I thought that he must have relaxed the back pressure too soon before applying full left rudder. So I took control, re-applied full pro-spin, then recovered, but again it took a while....

I wrote up the trip in Bloggs' notes, but later we found that one fuel gauge was sticking and was hugely in error. So in large red pen I amended Bloggs' write to say "Not his fault - aircraft had an unserviceable fuel indication system!".

Keeping the ball in the middle and the fuel selector on 'BOTH' would probably have kept most Bulldogs' fuel in better balance than believing the useless fuel gauged and balancing as indicated.

Quite why we lived with such a well-known snag as the Bulldog fuel indication sysem for so long beats me....

Cessna suffered a problem with their rudders jamming over, took 50 odd years to come to light and sadly an instuctor died, see
Main

Beagle, I am guessing this one would have been around your time on the Bulldog? https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=137257. The poor instructor fell from his harness on the descent. IIRC, but Beagle please correct me, you undid your chute harness first ,before the safety harness at the end of the sortie? The enquiry believed he had released it prior to abandonment. When the 82 spinning loss took place we were all drilled on quick abandonment. One of the star pupil flyers and who later became a CFS instructor, 'banged out' in the hangar sans parachute, with the words, ' I think I had better do that again!' We thought it funny at the time.

I watched the two Bulldogs come to grief on Southport beach whilst travelling as a car passenger along the coast road. I assumed them to be large remote control models and stated that "Someone has just lost a small fortune" - I guess size is relative to distance - and I did not see any parachutes. (But then I must not have seen anyone with an RC transceiver either ;-) )

During my time as a Bulldog QFI (late 80s/early 90s) the engineering powers on high had become concerned that parachute packs were suffering wear in normal use. To reduce wear on the packs we were instructed to remove our parachutes before exiting the aircraft, either after shutdown or during a running crew change. We were required to sign for carrying out a practice "emergency abandonment drill" every month.

I point blank refused to ever remove my parachute harness in the aircraft because I saw it as a highly unsafe practice. Mental conditioning to routinely undo the parachute harness before climbing out was just asking for trouble, imho, so I practiced my abandonment drill every I climbed out. There was another, later fatal loss of control accident when it was thought that the instructor inadvertently unlocked his 'chute harness (box rotated by 90 degrees) before abandoning the aircraft and that the QRB was knocked during his subsequent parachute descent, whereupon he tragically fell out of his harness.

I seem to remember Shy, that the parachute was the seat backing and we always left them in situ in the cockpit?

Sorry, no! The 'chute pack certainly had a stiff back to it (which is the part that first showed wear in use) but it was separate from the seat and kept in the line office. We were supposed to undo the chute pack, climb out, then retrieve it. As I said, I never left mine in the seat.

As groundcrew at CFS, '81- '93 all parachutes were left in seats and it did worry me about muscle memory & unlocking seat harness & parachute QRF together every time you exit the aircraft normally. I did on occassion have to do countless canopy jettison resets in the hangar so all pilots could actually experience canopy emergency opening. As an occasional passenger I also had to practice emergency abandonment. It wasn't an issue not unlocking the parachute - it was too novel an action in the first place. When I was in the cockpit ground running there was no need to be strapped at all.

As 132bod has mentioned there Shy, I am fairly certain on my time 81/82 the chute was left in situ. As per my previous mention of my student colleague practice abandon without the chute. Drill was undo chute, undo harness after a sortie. He was going through the normal sequence to leave the cockpit on the ground. Of course it may have changed by the end of the decade. 132bod thank you for the info.

rolling20, I had known the chap who was killed when he released both seat harness and parachute - but only as a fellow ULAS student many years earlier.

I can't remember the exact procedure we used when I became a Bulldog QFI in 1991, but the fatal accident was still quite fresh in peoples' minds and some procedure had been adopted to reduce the risk of inadvertent chute QRF release during a real abandonment.