Warbird Information Exchange

I have a few questions regarding this.

First off, I never met Mr. Schultz prior to his passing. Was he known for taking unnecessary risks?

Second, as a previous post above me indicated, why are the flaps out? I don't know of any airplane where the flaps are intentionally put out to decrease the radius of a loop. I'm not saying you can't do it, but I would definitely think it's non-standard procedure to do otherwise. Are the flaps automatic in the Mig-17? In other words, is it somehow dependent on either airspeed, or AOA? I would gather that Mr. Schultz probably saw the ground rising up at him when flying down on the backside of the loop and put some flaps out to decrease his pull-out radius and also increase the amount of lift vector. Is that what happened here?

Third, is there an official accident report on-line that concludes what happened on his fatal flight? In one of the links above, it mentions that the Mig-21 was going into the ocean at a high-rate of speed. To me that would indicate either a loss of consciousness (i.e. G-Loc, or incapacitation from a heart attack, aneurysm, etc.), spatial disorientation, or some kind of departure from controlled flight due to loss of aircraft control. Does anyone know what happened?

I may be totally wrong, and I know little about jets, but I believe Doug said he had done a maneuver using partial flaps and did not get them retracted before doing the loop and so his speed was too low, thus the tail strike.
Next, I think it is too much to label Doug as reckless or unsafe. I am sure he was aggressive. He had flown jets in combat in Nam, (F-4s?) and been an instructor, attack pilot, for the Top Gun program. I flew with Doug in Crazy Horse a couple of times, he was a very skilled pilot. I liked him, he seemed to care about helping you learn the Mustang. He was much better than an average civilian instructor, and he and I seemed to find good communication. He and Lee both are near the top as instructors. I probably have a different mindset on Nam, but I found Doug to have a sense of humor, I liked him and was sorry for his loss. I don't like to do vertical maneuvers that close to the ground, but it is commonly done in shows. Most airshow pilots are type A, and their acts don't always leave a large margin of safety. We usually don't call that reckless, at least not before an accident.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I was told that they decided to fly the airplane supersonic with the drop tanks installed. I am no expert on the 21 but I was told this was not allowed by the pilot manual.

Doug was a great guy I met up with him somewhere in Kentucky at a fuel stop for the first Mustang Gathering. We flew down the rest of the way together.

I had over 6 months of trouble with my ignition system and was getting very weary of takeoffs with bangs and pops from the engine at various settings. Probably 15 plus flights. Then the clam shell gave me problems. Doug took Worry Bird up for me to give me his opinion when I needed him. He knew there were issues and he knew he was more experienced and did it to help.

He was a great and talented individual.

Well played.



I have seen it happen once personally (didn't see it happen, but saw the airplane after it was back on the ground), and heard of it happening one other time, with operational USAF fighters.

Russians did it once at Paris Airshow, not sure which year. Kremlin didn't appreciate it nearly as much as the crowd at the show.

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Eric

"I spent most of my money on alcohol, women and skyraiders....and the rest of it I just wasted."

I hate to talk out of my rear end, but this is the account I've been told;

Mig-21's are equipped with a centerline fuel tank. The pilot handbook expressly states not to go supersonic with the centerline tank empty, as a structural failure can result, causing the aircraft to break up in flight.

In this case, the aircraft apparently exceeded the sound barrier with the centerline tank empty, suffered a structural failure, and broke up in flight. I have not heard any speculation as to why the aircraft went supersonic, only that it did.

Again, take that scuttlebutt for what it's worth. I've not seen the actual incident report. Perhaps some of the jet jockeys can shed some light on this, does anyone know of a "do not exceed the sound barrier with an empty fuel tank" restriction on other aircraft? Is this at least plausable?

Take a look at this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72541093@N00/188834502


Which has some pics of the MIG21 taken the day before the crash and it has the centerline tank installed.


www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/dfs/pdf/REPORTS/FTI/mig21.pdf

This is the crash report (in French and English) and it said he was going supersonic at 12,000', it vanished off radar, "cause of the mishap is unknown".

It seems reasonable the empty fuel tank got it............

Mark H

I would suggest that we honor Doug on here and not specualte on the cause of the MiG-21 Accident. The answer to that question is that no one will ever know. There was almost nothing left of the jet. The centerline theory is just one of many theories as to the cause.

The key is that Doug was doing the one thing that Doug loved and was best at.

Doug was an amazing human. He had a warm and caring heart and a fighter background that was truly awesome.

For many years, Doug was a part of my life, that of my familys, and knowing him made a great impact on me as I grew up.


I know that many that have read this thread have their own experiences and memorys of Doug and I hope that we use this bit of cyberspace to remember the good times we all had and the aviation skills we learned from him.

Somewhere up there in the big ACM engagement in the sky Doug is on some MiGs SIX !


Regards,

Brad Lauderback

Well spoken Brad... and I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Live free. Fly safe.

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Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

[quote="Hunter1"]I would suggest that we honor Doug on here and not specualte on the cause of the MiG-21 Accident. The answer to that question is that no one will ever know. There was almost nothing left of the jet. The centerline theory is just one of many theories as to the cause.


Where is the speculation? This accident happened over 10 years ago and someone just asked the question what happened? He was provided with the prevailing theory, thats all.

The prevailing theory on Flight800 was that it was a spark in the center fuel tank. There is still no proof. Should we not discuss that either?