Warbird Information Exchange

Was watching Destroyed in Sec's on TV, and it showed some id's in LA hitting eachother on the road because the carpool lane was blocked (talking on cell phones?).

Anyway, among other things was watching the 1990 Phoenix 500 on TV where the Corsair caught on fire. It looked to me like the plane could've been landed ok. Anyone know why the guy bailed?

Thanks,

Please note the thread: http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... hp?t=10563 Thank you. Mod: JDK

Hey man, when you get a chance, you may just want to bump into the title that this is an older crash and not one that just took place.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

ditto

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005

Unlikely the plane could have been saved. It was well and truly on fire and the pilot,Kevin Eldridge was lucky to survive. He hit the tailplane as he bailed out. Many people over the years have tried to save the aircraft as well as themselves and perished in doing so.

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Flying ,WWII aviation

Pull it up on youtube, it has a clip of him explaining why he left the aircraft. I dont think there was much more he could have done.

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005

he didn't want to die

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Don't touch my junk!!

Take a moment and consider where the fuel tank is in a Corsair. You've got a whole bunch of Avgas between the source of the flames and the cockpit. He made the correct decision.

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"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

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I'm sure it sucked for him to lose the warbird, but your life has to come first. I did see this though, and it is pretty wild.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

I was there, and the way it was burning, there was no way to get it on the ground and live. He had all ready used up his fire bottles and had no other way to put the fire out.

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Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
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Yeah at some point you have to know when to bail. This is true in so many forms of aviation not just departing an aircraft.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

1. The engine started running rough so he pulled up and out of the race to make a precautionary landing.
2. The safety chase pilot told him he was on fire at which time he discharged the fire bottles. The fire momentarily subsided.
3. The fire started again and he was told by the safety chase plane pilot to get out (he could not see the fire which was along the bottom of the aircraft).

My motto: When fire extends to more than the length of the aircraft, it is probably a good time to leave.

We had a discussion on this very crash not to long ago.

There were several things working against Kevin -

1) There was a tab on the rudder that was ground adjustable only that was used to offset the massive torque created by the new engine. This tab made the airplane very difficult to fly if the engine failed and added a lot of drag.

2) The firewall of the aircraft had to be modified and as part of that modification, it did not "separate" the pilot and the fire as well as the original did (although I've heard the original wasn't great either). At the speed he was going, the fire was blown into the cockpit and he ended up with the entire front of the airplane from the engine to the instrument panel engulfed within 30 seconds of the failure.

3) Kevin did try to deadstick, but when the fire spread, he knew there was no chance to get it down so he decided to bail out. Unfortunately, the wind pressure kept him from making a clean exit and he ended up badly injuring himself on the way out when he hit the horizontal stabilizer of the aircraft.

The oil reservoir was located behind the pilot, so the oil lines ran through the cockpit. I am not aware that there was actually fire in the cockpit. I also don't recall that the firewall was substantially modified, but I'm not sure there was an adequate exhaust flame shield like the original R-2800 had. You can second guess all this, but when an engine blows you can't account for every possibility. Art Vance bailed out of a completely stock Corsair that caught fire on a cross country, so you can't blame it all on racing.

I heard about that. I thought it was a loss of engine power, and that he possibly could have saved it. Was that the same guy who wrecked the F6F? it's all kind of hazy right now.

Isn't this what they call P.C.?