Warbird Information Exchange

To me this incident highlights the shear folly of the "We're gonna do a pristine restoration, FLY IT ONCE, then park it" mindset. IIRC this museum was one who had that plan in place. I don't understand this thought pattern and it illustrates an individual or group that does not understand or appreciate flight test. IF something is going to go wrong, there is a high probability it will happen on an initial flight, rather than one later on with a well tweaked machine and a crew with hours under their belt in the machine. This case is a prime example.

Why even consider flying it once if you are risk averse as far as the airframe is concerned? I'm not up on the certification regs but I'm sure more than one flight is required for a COA is it not? So why consider one flight, for bragging rights? To say it's "Airworthy"? IMHO if an airframe can't be rolled out of the hangar and flown after a preflight it is not airworthy but a static one. If the plane is going to be a centerpiece of a museum where you are charging admission, why risk a flight? By all means make it ground runable and slow taxi around the ramp. Otherwise donate it to a group with the experience and means to operate it on the circuit. Airplanes like to be flown but a choice has to be made.

From an operational point of view, one of the things we brief on every spring at VWoC is the difficulty of a high speed rejected takeoff in a high-performance taildragger.

In these aircraft you just don't want a swing to get started, ever. Yet for takeoff you nearly always have right rudder trim dialed-in (left in a Firefly, I imagine). That's great when you're planning to get airborne, but if you decide to reject, and yank the power off, the rudder trim is then completely wrong, the torque and assymetric and slipstream effects vanish, and it is very doubtful that anyone's feet are educated enough to keep it dead-straight through all that -- especially since we're nearly always on pavement these days, which makes it much worse.

Most of my WWII fighter time is in the P-40, and its ground handling is generally good, but the envelope within which you can recover from a swerve is narrow. Within -- it's good. Outside -- it's bad. There are many, many WWII photos of P-40s lying off the side of a runway with their gear crumpled up. (Although to be fair, many of those are due to Curtiss' unique gear locking system.)

The high-speed regime on the ground in a high-performance taildragger should be transited as quickly as possible, not deliberately extended.

If a reject is required, we teach a gradual power reduction so that one's feet can keep up with the changes.

Here is a slide from my P-40 Groundschool ppt, as we teach during the "Warbird U" series of courses every winter -- and which you can join if you like.



Dave

Anyone know if the weather was a factor? 'cause way down here in Texas it's getting kinda cold.

May I ask what it is currently?

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Brace yourself! It's Highs in the 40s and 31 tonight ! Hey! my Armor dillo wo'nt move!. .. He DEAD???

43 here in Houston, 35 forecast for tonight. I had to get my winter shorts out a few days ago...

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DBF

We have one poster that said he heard it was damaged, he did not see it and I can't find any confirmation of it happening. Everyone needs to step back and find out what if anything happened. Right now I look at this as a rumour.

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Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
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We have one guy who said he heard something happened to an airplane, then a general conversation starts about the pros and cons of high speed taxiing, along with a few Texas weather reports. What do we need to step back from? Seems like a fine conversation to me. I've learned a lot so far.

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Zero Surprise!!...

True, but I agree with Matt, what we have NOT really learned is whether anything happened to the Shearwater Firefly. I've googled and not found anything except for references to this conversation. It could be true, rumors posted to this forum often are, but I also want confirmation, details, pics.

The high-speed taxi discussion has been interesting and worthwhile, I agree. Whether or not something happened in Halifax, I would hope that first-time restorers or static museums doing the "fly-it-once" thing would read this thread and consider the wisdom before starting their test programs. If there is a pro-fast-taxi viewpoint where someone could explain what can be learned in that regime, I'd like to hear from that side as well.

August

My point! ... Perhaps if anything change the thread title away from the speculation as opposed to stepping back? But in all fairness I get his point. I've found no information either on the alleged firefly mishap.

2 cents

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Zero Surprise!!...

Only logic in fast taxi is for a pilot with out any experience in a particular type of A/C getting progressively up to speed in experience in a type.
But the negatives far outweigh the benefits IMHO.
Should find an appropriate pilot for a 1st flight who might have experience in the type, experience making 1st flights and/or many visits and conversations with those who have that type of experience.

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Rich Palmer

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Alot of rumors circulation right now. I recieved a reply back from the museum and they had some form of gear collapse during taxi with further details released after investigation..

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Peter

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Well had this sent to me today, just took sometime for it get out,since it is a active military base and few civilians around.heres the TSB report.
TSB Report#A13A0119: The Shearwater Aviation Museum's Fairey Firefly FR Mk I aircraft, registration C-GRCN, had undergone restoration to flying condition for inclusion in the museum collection. With winds directly down the inactive runway 34 at CFB Shearwater, taxi tests were conducted in preparation for an eventual test flight. Power was set to 2300 RPM for a high speed taxi test and when the nose began to drift right, left rudder input was added. A subsequent left yaw developed that could not be controlled with full right rudder input. The left yaw continued until the aircraft's nose was positioned 90 degrees relative to its direction of travel. The right main gear collapsed inboard and the left main gear failed to its outboard side during the ground loop, which resulting in substantial propeller and other aircraft damage.

Talk about deja vu. Same thing happened with the Canadian Warplane Heritage Firefly many years ago. Pilot lost it on take off and smoked a backhoe. Folded one gear in and the other out.

I would expect that the museum found a pilot with previous experience on type or a test pilot with experience on similar types. Can this be confirmed?