Warbird Information Exchange

Howard Cook had a very nasty accident in the VWoC Tiger Moth some years back.

Speedy recovery......metal can always be re-fabricated.....

I for one applaud the effort of VWoC in Canada remembering the Canadian angle of our passion for warbirds.

As a philanthropist, Michael Potter is putting his own money in this for us all to enjoy!

Flying in old planes will always be inherently dangerous....

Safe flying to all!

Sincerely.

There have been 5 major accidents alone and lots of other non accident aircraft issues as well .
At this point the Mike Potter Collection(formally VWC) has pretty much no airshow appearances scheduled , still a review of their Ops/Maint. procedures would not be a bad idea.
Further , I suspect that this latest incident will prompt a review of what Mike wants to do moving forward.

T-Moth - crash
Cornell - crash
Stearman -crash
Spitfire - gears collapse
Spitfire -nose over
Corsair - crash

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...it was a plane adrift beneath the moon moving serenely thru beams like an angel of the night .....fair as a song ........aloof from mortal dreams

Unfortunately there have been a number of incidents and expensive bills from running this collection. There are and were, lots of lessons to be learned and some have come the hard way

I did witness the VWoC (Potter Collection) Corsair experience in September 2017 ,two significant backfires on two consecutive take offs, as it attempted to return to Gatineau PQ from the Greenwood , NS airshow. The pilot , Paul Kissman, wisely elected to leave the Corsair for further investigation, after I am sure a couple of interesting take-offs . The Corsair would remain at Greenwood, until the following Spring of 2018, when it finally returned to Gatineau. Tracking the problem, required a lot of time and effort. I don't think that the airplane has flown much time since then.

I wouldn't want to speculate or add anything further, than these facts . It is(was) a great airplane and I am sure that it will fly again, but not in the immediate future.

mrp

Fleet16b, I’m terribly sorry for calling you out, I had absolutely no memory of any of those other incidents happening.

No need to apologize John , I didn't take it as an attack

Thanks

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...it was a plane adrift beneath the moon moving serenely thru beams like an angel of the night .....fair as a song ........aloof from mortal dreams

The Mk XVI Spitfire had a mishap at Geneseo in (I think) 2007.
The aircraft taxied across a filled in trench that had not been suitably compacted or marked. It nosed over.
The gear did not collapse, the aircraft partially settled in the trench and I don't think it is fair to fault the pilot.
I helped to extract the Spit from its predicament and placed it in safe store.

The Stearman shed a prop blade immediately after takeoff. The imbalance ripped the engine from the mount.
The aircraft fell tail first and it was so fortunate that no one was killed. I think the cause was corrosion that led to a crack propagating.

The Tiger Moth had the engine quit. Pretty sure this was due to fuel starvation.
This biplane is very draggy and from the look of it, it impacted the ground in a stalled condition.
If the fan quits in a Tiger you have to shove the stick forward aggressively to avoid getting behind the energy curve.
At circuit height it happens quick.
The remains of this Tiger are in the collection of myself and friends.

I can't comment with any knowledge on the other mishaps. I wish all at VWoC the best in a difficult time like this.
I'm so thankful John A. was not hurt more seriously.

The landing gear collapsed was a different incident

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...it was a plane adrift beneath the moon moving serenely thru beams like an angel of the night .....fair as a song ........aloof from mortal dreams

Believe it or not, it’s possible to operate aircraft, even antique ,less safe aircraft without accidents and incidents. The accidents referenced hint at lack of flight proficiency and oversight. Safety and a commitment to excellence have to be a part of the culture.

Believe it or not, it’s possible to operate aircraft, even antique ,less safe aircraft without accidents and incidents. The accidents referenced hint at lack of flight proficiency and oversight. Safety and a commitment to excellence have to be a part of the culture.

Not sure I'd classify that as a crash so much as a possible ground loop into the shrubbery.

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Those who possess real knowledge are rare.

Those who can set that knowledge into motion in the physical world are rarer still.

The few who possess real knowledge and can set it into motion of their own hands are the rarest of all.

Here is my views on this

T-Moth- fuel starvation, attempted to turn back to airport at low altitude pilot error
Cornell- engine failure, possibly unavoidable
Stearman- prop blade separated due to a crack. Issue with outside NDT testing. Unavoidable
Spitfire- nosed over due to hitting un marked divot on grass felid. Unavoidable
Corsair- no word what cause was

The spitfire happened back in 2001 before Vintage Wings was even thought of. You cannot include that with the vintage wings organization

Every incident happened with a different pilot at the controls, and only the tiger moth incident can be tracked back to pilot/human error. The rest were unavoidable failures or events.

Every organization like this has issues over time.

Sean

As a small aside to this, shortly before the VWOC Stearman threw a blade, I took mine and met up with it and it's two pilots who were hopping rides about twenty miles south of me in Red Deer, and spent a very pleasant afternoon talking shop with them and taking pictures. I had just installed a new prop on my Stearman and was interested to see that the VWOC machine sported a nearly identical one and as such I had a fairly close look at it and noticed it's good overall appearance. After hearing about that Stearman's accident and what caused it a couple of months later, I pulled my prop and sent it off to the overhaul shop for inspection, and after stripping it down completely and having a good look at it they advised me to go buy a lottery ticket as my prop was just about to do the very same thing.

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Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.

McCauley prop or?



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http://www.biplanerides1.com/

delete

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Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.