Warbird Information Exchange

What do you know about flying a Bearcat? From your posts it looks like all you have done is ride in a T-34 a few times and bucked some rivets on a B-25. For those who are going to ask. No I do not have any experience with a bearcat either. But I do know that lots of THE BEST have crashed planes.

As a caf member I do not like that several people have called the performance of one of the pilots and planes into question. But with this many asking about it then it looks like something was unsafe about it. Even if it was safe, it least it was ragged enough for people to ask about. I would call that enough reason to worry.

BTW...Wilson didn't critque thing one. All be did was share some photos he took and described what he saw...........

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Don't touch my junk!!

I am not familiar with this particular incident so I can't make any comment on it whatsoever.

As a CAF Life Member, however, I have to admit I have qualms about CAF airplanes being used for low-level aerobatic displays. If an individual owner wants to put his aircraft at risk for performances that is their own prerogative. When it is part of the CAF fleet I personally feel that the overriding goal of the CAF collection should be making sure they around to be flown at all for the future generation. (And yes, I know flying them at all is a risk, a risk I am willing to accept, but IMHO less of a risk than low level acro.).

I am sure opinions vary, so flame suit on

Jack, I just gave Dan a pat on the back on that post about the Hellcat, & F-18, that was a cool deal, but I gotta go with ya here!

My Dad had described an event to me, where he was "Tail End Charlie" in a follow the leader deal.
He was a low time 51 pilot following these guy's in front of him, &
got in one of those "low energy, high power situations''. What he described to me--- he called a "Tumble Stall".

I was not there, I did not see the Bearcat routine, so I do not know what went on there, however, whatever happened got a lot of attention.
I got a feeling something got close to being a big "Dookie Sandwich".
Last guy I knew of that could "Hammer Head" an aircraft like that, was the late Rob Satterfield, in a Mustang.

Standing by for any corrections or view's on this, but I will say, the part about "My OLd Man" describing his experience, was one that he never wanted to experience again. (he flew 111 combat missions WW2)

Might be nothing to this deal, might be an F-Up, might be "AirshowIdus", I don't know.
I just want a "Display Pilot" to be safe, their life is more important, than how the routine looks.
Regards, Respect To All
Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

Newcomb wrote: "The pilot is one of THE BEST in the business."

Who's the pilot?

Thx,
VL

Well it wasn't Vlado and it wasn't Hacker... Hmmmm..... \










The guy reported what he saw, and posted a handful of pictures. Calm down, Mr. ThinSkin.

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"There are two types of people here; airshow whores and airshow prostitutes. The whores, like you and I, do airshow stuff for free, whereas the prostitutes are paid" - Reg Urschler

maybe or maybe not

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Don't touch my junk!!

No, because Hacker is off perfecting his Hammerhead routine in the MC-12 'out of state'...but watch out for it on the circuit next year.

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

Dan,

In far too many instances on WIX, I would agree with this kind of analysis. However, you've got some serious warbird guys talking here who are undeserving of your ire, and they are apparently also concerned. Even the best in the business can make errors in judgment, and we've lost a number of warbirds over the years because someone tried to push the limits a little bit further than they should have. It is not wrong for someone to mention a concern, especially when they aren't accusing the pilot of intentional wrongdoing. Your pilot obviously survived the maneuver, and perhaps he is "that" good. I don't think that makes it wrong for posters to voice their concerns.

WIXMOD-ALPHA

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WIX Moderator

I just wanted to say something about the wingwalker who lost his life- How are the two pilots involved doing? Is either one blaming himself for the loss? I was just wondering because, as a pilot, I know I'd most likely be upset if something like this happened, and I'm sure they could use some moral support, etc...

Scott

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1942 Dodge WC-51 Weapons Carrier
I am a reenactor, have been since the early 1980s, and I am an aviation enthusiast, PILOT, A&P mechanic, and military vehicle owner. I have restored cars, trucks, and antique radios. These are MY hobbies- What are YOURS?.

As food for thought-

Like many here I've attended many shows and like some here I maintain A/C used for performing at these shows along with working with the pilots that fly the shows.

That said, they are performers (they are more than just an aerobatic or warbird pilot) and one thing that some performers overlook at times is who are they performing for? What is a good performance for that audience. You might fly differently at Oshkosh then in Iowa.

I've seen those that fly to impress only the elite pilots in the industry. They would flew extremely close in formation and maybe run their maneuvers close to the edge of the safety envelope than they needed to just to try to impress a few elite pilots who were also performers.

There is also the Snort factor of flying extremely low. Last week at the Thunder over the Boardwalk show in Atlantic City NJ he was flying a Mig 17 making a pass at maybe 20 feet and also banking with a wingtip 10 feet from the water. He can do it and so far safely but where I was 100 feet back on the beach from the water I couldn't see much of him as only the people standing in the water had a clear view. Everyone else only caught glimpses between other bodies and umbrellas. I'm not saying the entire performance was that low, just he had some low passes. It was neat to see the rear end in AB heading away from the crowd at 100 feet or so. Not the loudest but the yellow round glow was very visible for quite a ways.

What is a part of any routine should be done taking in the size of the performance box, keeping it in front of the audience as much as possible, having maneuvers that use height and keeps energy high and keeping as large a safety envelope as possible for each maneuver. Energy is referenced to the aircraft not the audience (thats what the music and announcer think they are for).

90+ percent of a typical airshow audience have little or no flying knowledge. The remainder is split between regular pilots, people who work in aviation, airshow groupies and the people who frequent WIX or some other related board.

So in the case of the hammer head probably no one would have noticed if the maneuver hadn't been performed and less than 10 percent knew what the maneuver was and a few percent knew how hard it was to perform and the skill needed to pull it off in the Bearcat.

So that is why we are having the discussion. When maneuvers that dramatically decrease the safety envelope are performed one can wonder whether it is needed in the routine. Thats all.

One question I have is what is the CAF policy regarding use of their aircraft in solo aerobatic demonstrations? Is there a list of maneuvers that aren't allowed? If there is a list does it vary depending on the type and rarity? Just wondering on this.

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Rich Palmer

Remember an Injured Youth
benstear.org
#64- Stay Strong and Keep the Faith

BOOM BOOM, ROUND ROUND, PROPELLER GO

Don't Be A Dilbert!

When my dad bought his Mustang back in the 70's, the local corporate pilots that had flown them in WWII, Korea, and ANG. were taking bets on whether he would make it 6 months or not before killing himself. Of course, only making high speed passes, everyone kept asking him "why don't you roll it, too?" SO he put together an airshow routine.
At one of the airshows, a fellow airshow pilot took him aside and said "John, I want to talk to you about your routine" Knowing my dad's ego back then, I'm sure he said something like, "Yeah, I'm pretty awesome, aren't I." The old man suggested he take the vertical stuff out of his routine, and that 99.99% percent of the people just want to see and hear a P-51 ,its mighty engine and get a sense of the speed, etc. He also told him he wouldn't be around long and that he too had scaled back his routine. So he toned it down considerably, took out the hammerheads, Immelmans and loops. He still did just as many paying airshows.
He wouldn't listen to the combat vet P-51 pilots around BNA back then, and laughed when the FBO gave him T-Hangar 13, his lucky number. He kept his Mustang, N2251D for thirteen years and never put a scratch on it, thanks to the old man that turned out to be Bob Hoover.

Sounds like Papa Hoover was also looking out for his old mount, eh?

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

At the time dad bought Hoover's old plane there were only about 32 P-51's flying. Many more wrecks, basketcases, and in foreign service. That was in 1977. Hoover thought my dad was a nice guy and said "so many times, guys get these things, and they are gone before they even knew how to fly the airplane."
WHen I got my P-51 checkout at Stallion 51 , Lee gave me some NTSB reports to read from 1963 . At that time 1/3 of the flying civilian P-51 population were being wiped out annually!

Marine air: yeah but, both Hoover and your dad spoke the same language - middle
"Tennesseean".
VL