Warbird Information Exchange

Just caught a brief blurb on the news....looks like John Vick's/Warren Rempel's T-6 'TA-607' suffered some sort of in flight failure while in flight over Weld County, CO near Greeley and managed to slide in on the snow...just a brief blurb on the news, more at 10 pm tonight...for those of you familiar with the plane it is all over dark blue with red and white stripes on the rudder and engine cowling, and the plane is, as I recall, possibly former South African and has been a resident of CO for about 10 years now....luckily the pilot walked away from the accident sight and it looks to me as tho the plane is totally intact and rebuildable, only undersurface and prop damage. Usually when the T-6's come here it is to go to the prop shop, cuz it has a good reputation around these parts...

Mark

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Mark Morris

Mark,

Just saw it on the news, major bummer. This from the 9 News website.

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=65856

Yep...that be the one. See, sitting PERFECTLY on its tailwheel!

Nice to see a plane down without death being involved...wish they ALL ended this way....

Well....not NICE....but a BETTER ending....

M

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Mark Morris

Sure would be nice if they didn't use the loaded terms "went down" or "goes down." This was an off airport landing after all, not a smoking hole.

Turns out the pilot was John Vick and he is citing a fuel pump failure for bringing the plane down....looks like aside from underside damage, he'll need only ONE new prop blade on the bird.

M

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Mark Morris

I don't know how the fuel system works on the T-6G, but on a Harvard I'm under the impression that with a fuel pump failure you could keep the engine running by use of the wobble pump. Is there no such option in the T-6G?

Yes, there is a wobble pump in the stock T-6G. Some owners have elected to remove them in place of an electric boost pump, however.

Thanks Tim. Not sure why anyone would do that, but to each his own!

Actually, a couple of folks had me put an electric fuel pump in their T-6's back when I ran my own shop. They were installed in addition to the wobble pump, not instead of, in our cases. The logic was that if an engine driven pump failed, you could simply turn the electric pump on and focus more on flying the airplane, rather than pumping the wobble pump. That had happened to one of my customers (before the installation of the electric pump), and he said it wasn't much fun trying to fly and pump all at the same time.

They still use the wobble pump for normal operations (start-up, etc.), and the electric one is merely for emergency use.

Hope that helps explain it.

Gary

Gary-

I have seen them here in the shop both ways. With the wobble pump completely gone and with the electric pump just added into the system.

John Vick is a nice guy, an experienced Warbird and airline pilot. It great to see he is not hurt at all other than at the wallet. It looks like the terrain was pretty flat and he did a good job of the belly landing. A T-6 and many other types such as P-51, have been bellied in many times without injury. They are strong, tough planes around the cockpit as long as there is no fire. The key is that when things come to a stop you want to be sitting in the plane right side up, rather than having the plane sitting on you. I'll phone John later.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Wasn't trying to argue. I've seen 'em both ways too. Just wanted to explain the reasoning behind our installations that we had done.

Gary

Hi Gary- I didn't think you were trying to argue

I phoned John, did not get him because he was out flying. A friend said he was fine, no inury, the engine was high time and did quit in flight, no more details now. John and his partner Warren have a small FBO at Longmont, not the one right in front. They have about the cheapest fuel around. It is back at the NE corner with new fancy self serve pumps. Boulder also has good fuel prices at the self serve pump, but they aren't warbirs guys.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

If the engine quit in flight, does the prop continue to "freewheel" as the blades are bent and I'd think that would mean the prop was rotating when he landed

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."