Firefly Accident in California..PILOT OK

[Steve Nelson]

Just saw a mention of this on a modeling forum, and found this news story. Seems a Fairey Firefly had a gear failure while landing at the "Wings Over Gillespie" airshow this afternoon.

http://www.10news.com/news/31148555/detail.html

Full slideshow of the incident on Facebook..

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.228830613900295.50474.100003200742943&type=3&l=8244cc6459

[Warbird Kid]

HOLY S@#$! WOW. Glad to see he's okay. And the aircraft is in relatively good condition considering the outcome.

[Dan K]

Aww poop...

Glad to see Cap'n Eddie walk away though.

[ZRX61]

Not very impressed with that firetruck racing to the rescue...

[Keith Gaff]

Actually the Firefly is a good aircraft to belly land if one can use the word "good". The catapult harness attach points project below the fuselage and are substantial steel fittings. The aircraft runs along on them rather than the lower fuselage. An expertly executed belly landing bends the prop and that's about it. For anyone living in Melbourne Australia, next time you are at the Moorabbin Air Museum take a look at the catapult points on their Firefly. Note that the bottom of the points are ground flat; the tell tale sign of a belly landing.

[BeckyFeets]

Bill and Becky are so glad that Eddie is ok. We send him our heartfelt best wishes.

[MX304]

Actually the Firefly is a good aircraft to belly land if one can use the word "good". The catapult harness attach points project below the fuselage and are substantial steel fittings. The aircraft runs along on them rather than the lower fuselage. An expertly executed belly landing bends the prop and that's about it. For anyone living in Melbourne Australia, next time you are at the Moorabbin Air Museum take a look at the catapult points on their Firefly. Note that the bottom of the points are ground flat; the tell tale sign of a belly landing.

This was a little worse than just a belly landing. In the first pic in the series you can see the right main gear is folded under the wing opposite of it's normal direction.

[AvroAvian]

Much more than a five minute job to fix this one....

Judging by the differing blade angles, I would say the prop hub is toast too....