My Thanks to So Many

airnutz · **Posted:** Mon May 12, 2008 6:32 am

Matt Gunsch wrote:

airnutz wrote:

EDowning wrote:

The problem with formation landings obviously rests with the lack of visibility in the tailwheel fighters. However, another aspect to be considered is the risk of loss of control after touchdown (ground loop), even if reduced visibility were ultimately not a factor. May have been a factor in this most recent incident.

From witnesses I understood the Hurri groundlooped..but by the photos, she was only half way there.
As the preliminary report revealed..the right brake failed and she swung into Bills path.
I was wondering why the first bird touching down was assigned the "far lane" from immediately available
left turnoff? Were they landed long and was the midfield turnoff unavailable as an option?

When doing a staggered landing, the lead lands on the upwind side of the runway, so his wake turbulance drifts off the runway and not into the landing path of his wingman, so sometimes he will land on the left side, other times on the right.

Ahhh.Thanks Matt! What's the drill if the wind is not a factor?

airnutz · **Posted:** Mon May 12, 2008 7:09 am

Thanks Peter...the concensus is... if you blinked you missed it...happened that quick!! :shock:

Matt Gunsch · **Posted:** Mon May 12, 2008 11:14 am

If wind is not a factor, it is leads choice. That being said, there are not many times where the wind is straight down the runway.

BRpilot · **Posted:** Mon May 12, 2008 6:55 pm

Landings & takeoffs at airshows:

The safety committee at ICAS (International Council of AirShows)
is already at work reviewing all safety concerns related to formation and or shared runway landings.

Bill Greenwood · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2008 8:12 am

I believe warbird safety reviews and suggestions are best done by the warbird groups rather than ICAS. Of course, other than having been a member and read the magazine, I am no expert on ICAS, but it seems their focus is more on the acro and specialty side of airshows, rather than warbirds. I don't know of a recent president who is a warbird guy. I went to their convention and safety briefing in Las Vegas, and don't recall much related to warbirds. It was attended by some of the major acro acts like Patty Wagstaff. I enjoyed meeting the man with the jet powered outhouse, now there's a kindred soul to some of our guys. The gist of the lecture seemed to be get lot's of practice, and talk of the different altitude limits on acro performance.
The folks at the ICAS office are very nice, I have dealt with them several times on renewing my acro card when our local FSDO office kept losing the paperwork. However the magazine focus seems to be mostly about publicity, personalities, and marketing acts, I don't see much about warbird safety. A recent article was about an accident at an airshow, but it was about how to deal with the media rather than prevention. It would be very interesting to see the issues following the loss of Charlie Hilliard sp? who was an acro world champion lost in a tragic warbird landing accident.
One acro guy wrote an article of how new show pilots were having the accidents. He had charts and data, but they showed just the opposite. It was not mostly new pilots who had the crashes, it was vets and experts. There were none better then Charlie Hilliard, and few more experienced than Art Scholl.
I think we need to focus much more on the attitudes as well as the procedures that affect safety. An article which claims it is mainly those with the higher altitude limits who crash is off target. My limit of 500' had nothing to do with this accident, in fact I could have moved it down to 200 or 300 if desired. This is only my opinion, I am no top acro pilot, I have never flown a Pitts or Extra. Many, if not most warbird, guys don't even hold an acro card, and many of our accidents are not at shows. Frankly It sometimes seems to me those who have flown the most warbird shows like perhaps Howard Pardue are not the ones doing the talking or writing the articles. Several years ago I offered to speak at NWOC, and was turned down. The reason given, was not enough experience. At that time I had flown shows for almost 20 years. The person speaking gave a nice talk, but is not someone who ever flies at the major shows, if any, nor does he fly tailwheel planes. The lecture on safety this year at NWOC was by a military jet guy, not a T-6 or fighter or even L-39 guy, as I recall.
As for formation, my accident was not from formation,not in the air nor on landing. I can't recall an accident from a formation landing, they are rarely if ever done in tailwheel planes. I have only done them on T-34s. I have done formation takeoffs in fighters and I don't consider them much more dangerous, if properly done, than single file. It is great to see a Mustang, Bearcat, P-40 etc, rising up next to you.

Randy Haskin · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2008 1:01 pm

Bill Greenwood wrote:

The lecture on safety this year at NWOC was by a military jet guy, not a T-6 or fighter or even L-39 guy, as I recall

To be fair, the military aviation community, regardless of service, has a robust flight safety program that is part of the culture. Flight Safety Officers go to be best safety school in the country and personally run a safety program for thousands of high-performance flying hours annually. They are well educated in what it takes to run a high performance flying operation safely, regardless of aircraft type.

The Flight Safety Officer in my current base of assignment is responsible for F-15s and HH-60 helicopters, two obviously widely differing airframes. He is an F-15 guy, and when he speaks the helo guys in the room don't stop listening or discount what he's saying because "his airplane has fixed wings, not rotary wings."

I wouldn't discount what they had to say simply because their airplane doesn't have pistons or a tailwheel.

Bill Greenwood · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2008 10:59 pm

Randy, we civilian warbird guys have "safety officers" also, one is Doug Rosendahl who has compiled statistics on warbird fatal accidents, and alerted us to the facts of these numbers. If you think your guy is better, why not paraphrase what he says and offer it on WIX for us, if that is possible? Or maybe they have some printed summary available for our type warbirds.
I am not unfamiliar with the idea of a safety officer. When I began flying at Osh 24 years ago we had one who was an ex mil safety officer. I recall his briefing and the threats, "Never fly west of the runway (where the military plane was holding) or you'll never fly in this airshow again". On takeoff at the last minute the airboss changed it all from east to west because the military plane (C5A ?) decide to hold on the other side. His briefing was useless at best and counter to safety at worst. I can't remember most of his other stuff, as he droned on and on the guys in the back row even snuck out. When he left in a few years I think most were glad to see him go. I hope I have learned a lot more from guys like Lefty Gardner over the years.

Bill Greenwood · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2008 11:43 pm

Randy, as far as "discounting"(your word not mine) what someone has to say by the plane they fly, I spent time and money to go the the NWOC. I listened to the speakers including the military guy. Much of what they said was about cockpit crew resource management. Humorous and interesting, but in an airshow there's only me in there. Not too many to share with, although when I go cross country with a co pilot, I do try to split and back up duties. In my humble opinion, and my experience as only a average civilian pilot, there are a couple of major causes of warbird fatalities, and I have never heard them mentioned by a military safety briefer. About 15 years ago I flew with a military group, at their invitation. After spending time and a lot of money to go cross county our program was cancelled by a safety review due to military helicopters crashing at sea a thousand miles away. Has the military had these safety programs all these years? As Dr. Phil says, "how's that working out? Any crashes since?
I hope we all can emphasize safety in flying. I have flown in my plane with several hot military jet pilots, including an F-18 instructor, an F-4/F-16 ace, etc. I cannot say they were as good jumping in a strange plane as our top warbird guys are. I can say that some, not all, of our top warbird pilots are guys who had the military training Before they came to civilian warbirds, guys like Howard Pardue and Bud Granley. Some, Kermit, or Steve Hinton never had the military part, yet are tops.

EDowning · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 12:20 am

Randy Haskin wrote:

Quote:

To be fair, the military aviation community, regardless of service, has a robust flight safety program that is part of the culture. Flight Safety Officers go to be best safety school in the country and personally run a safety program for thousands of high-performance flying hours annually. They are well educated in what it takes to run a high performance flying operation safely, regardless of aircraft type.

The Flight Safety Officer in my current base of assignment is responsible for F-15s and HH-60 helicopters, two obviously widely differing airframes. He is an F-15 guy, and when he speaks the helo guys in the room don't stop listening or discount what he's saying because "his airplane has fixed wings, not rotary wings."

Of course there are some of us who have done both. I have experienced both sides of the coin, and can say without reservation, that at any given time both sides are lacking and right on point depending on which aspect of the over all safety picture you want to examine.

Forgotten Field · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 6:43 am

Is there any standard operation/safety briefing/emergency procedure list out there for airshow performance or warbird operation? I made one for the L-5 which will be condensed to a short briefing for passengers, but am wondering if anybody has put one together and had it endorsed by any organization/entity? I have seen many different levels of competence regarding briefings and operations planning. Is there any way to standardize and make it simpler and better?

Bill Greenwood · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 8:20 am

I don't think there is any standard list, either in the plane, (except most pilot manuals have a list), or at briefing. In my plane the passenger is in a separate cockpit, so I give them a long briefing about the canopy crank, emergencies, chute, etc. I have placqards on the panel in both cockpits with takeoff and landing checklist. When I come in to land, I try to think about the gear before and above all else. The Spitfire is pretty simple, but if gear is not down, any other stuff is irrelevant. My other airshow self brief is not to run into anyone. I have dodged a few planes in the air, but one slipped by on the ground this time.
There are about 8 things a pilot needs at a briefing. One could have a preprinted form and fill out the blanks; ie Radio, time, order, etc. but I have not seen anyone do it except I have seen formation groups with a small briefing form. Over the years some more red tape has been added, at Osh they wanted your ins policy to specify "flyby" coverage. I haven't consistently seen much of substance added to briefings that really enhance safety. Lot's of talk about how to be on time and not delay the show.

n5151ts · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 1:17 pm

post is getting. bottom line Im glad everyone is ok Im sorry that Bills plane is bent, id be happy to contribute time or money to help...and our buddies in the FAA will have the final word no matter what!

Kevin G · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 4:17 pm

Bill Greenwood wrote:

As I wrote, I do greatly appreciate all the good wishes and offers of help and even money from guys who don't have a lot. It has been hard emotionaly...

Mr Bill

All the feelings you are describing are relatively typical of a traumatic event such as the one you experienced. (i.e. A greatly amplified version of your hands shaking after a near miss in ground bound traffic).

Take some time and make your decisions after calm reflection. And remember, this may have felt like the worst case scenario but no one was hurt. Precious as the birds are, they are "only" machines that can be rebuilt with the right resources.

Randy Haskin · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 10:23 pm

Bill Greenwood wrote:

Has the military had these safety programs all these years? As Dr. Phil says, "how's that working out? Any crashes since?

Given the thousands and thousands of hours of high performance flying that happen accident free every tear, I think pretty good.

Safety programs are about mitigating risk, not eliminating it. If we truly wanted to be safe, we wouldn't ever crank an engine and taxi out for takeoff. There is always inherent risk in the flying business, especially with the types of high performance flying that the military does.

Bill, sorry if the guy at NWOC and the guy at OSH weren't great. Ever think that the NWOC guy's speech topic that seemed irrelevant to you might have been exactly what the NWOC guys asked him to speak about?

Regarding safety programs in the warbird biz...seriously, the only person I've seen have any serious interest in the topic is Doug R. I've heard him speak several times on the topic, and I think he's very smart on the matter -- nothing but respect for his expertise and opinions on the subject. Unfortunately, he's pretty much one of a kind. If every single organization had someone of his caliber and enthusiasm on the subject, maybe things would be different.

oscardeuce · **Joined:** Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:34 am **Posts:** 1021

[quote="Randy Haskin]Regarding safety programs in the warbird biz...seriously, the only person I've seen have any serious interest in the topic is Doug R. I've heard him speak several times on the topic, and I think he's very smart on the matter -- nothing but respect for his expertise and opinions on the subject. Unfortunately, he's pretty much one of a kind. If every single organization had someone of his caliber and enthusiasm on the subject, maybe things would be different.[/quote]

I know safety is #1 in my cockpit. I was at an airshow were some others thought I was not pulling it in tight enough around the circuit. There idea of tight was 3-4 G turns. Who knows how many times my O2 was over G'd in Nam? I know some basics about metal fatigue and stresses, and the relationship between G and fatigue/failure is not linear, so I limit myself to 2 G turns. I respected their position, and offered to sit the next flight out as what they wanted was against my personal limitation.

Barring God as our copilots, safety should be next.

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