Low flying Stearman incident. October 4, 2023

[Pogmusic]

Was it the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels that lost an entire team when #1 flew them into the ground?

[Matt Gunsch]

Was it the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels that lost an entire team when #1 flew them into the ground?

Thunderbirds,
Lead had a elevator lock and was not able to pull out of a loop, and did not have time to tell the others to break away.

[Matt Gunsch]

Matt I know you flew GIB with Carl, but you are not one of the founders of FAST.

Did I ever say I was? I supplied the photos for the T-6 section in the revised T-34 manual.

[Matt Gunsch]

One of the founders of FAST and one of the authors of the manual, is who taught me to fly formation, I also supplied photos for the first update of the T-34 manual when the T-6 and other sections were added.

Just curious, how many hours of formation do you have as PIC? Have you ever been FAST certified?

over 300 in formation and formation acro, T-6, T-28, I was allowed by the FAA to fly at OSH in Carl's backseat due to my experience and knowing how to assemble and break apart the large formations that Carl was leading, before I had a pilots certificate, but before I could start adding time to go a for a card, Carl died in the crash of his T-6, (Carl saw my pilots certificate just before he left on his final flight) I have not flown formation in a warbird since, last Warbird I flew was the Phoenix C-119, I still fly formation when I can, I flew for a video for work in a Archer as no one at work knew how to fly formation. I fly formation in my Ercoupe when I can (it is a bitch when you do not have control over your rudder, (Ercoupes do not have rudder pedals) but doable).

[OD/NG]

One of the founders of FAST and one of the authors of the manual, is who taught me to fly formation, I also supplied photos for the first update of the T-34 manual when the T-6 and other sections were added.

Just curious, how many hours of formation do you have as PIC? Have you ever been FAST certified?

over 300 in formation and formation acro, T-6, T-28, I was allowed by the FAA to fly at OSH in Carl's backseat due to my experience and knowing how to assemble and break apart the large formations that Carl was leading, before I had a pilots certificate, but before I could start adding time to go a for a card, Carl died in the crash of his T-6, (Carl saw my pilots certificate just before he left on his final flight) I have not flown formation in a warbird since, last Warbird I flew was the Phoenix C-119, I still fly formation when I can, I flew for a video for work in a Archer as no one at work knew how to fly formation. I fly formation in my Ercoupe when I can (it is a bitch when you do not have control over your rudder, (Ercoupes do not have rudder pedals) but doable).

That's great! You should make it official and get your FAST certificate. With all of your formation experience, it would be very quick to do so. I'm guessing maybe 1 or 2 form rides and then your checkride, assuming you've been flying formation somewhat frequently. I can't imagine flying in formation with no rudder, that must be very challenging. In my opinion, having the ability to fly uncoordinated, especially in non-speedbrake equipped aircraft, can fix a lot of HCA/AO problems, especially in turning rejoins. Yes, I know it's cheating, but it works! It's advanced level technique, and probably not the best habit to have, so I never taught my students how to use it, but most people figure it out on their own eventually.

The reason I asked your experience are these statements which you posted earlier in this thread:

when you are flying wing, your entire focus is on keeping 2 points on the lead plane aligned, and nothing else. You do not look at your instruments, or radios, or anything else. I was #4 in a 4 ship. rt echelon, doing a low pass with a LT fan break, all I saw was my leader, and cactus and trees flashing by in my peripheral vision, but you cannot take your eyes off your lead.

When you are in formation, you NEVER take your eyes off your lead, PERIOD. When it comes time to do a frequency change, you open up the formation, change your radio, then move back into formation.

These statements in red are factually incorrect. I just looked at the latest FAST manual to see if anything had changed since the last time I referenced it and it hasn't. I got FAST certified many years ago and I don't remember anyone - instructors, evaluators or otherwise, saying to never take your eyes off of lead with no exceptions, as you have stated above. If you want chapter and verse, I can give you the references that back up what I say from the latest FAST manual (Version 2.0, Dec, 2016). If one were to "never take their eyes off of lead", consider the following (assuming single seat aircraft):

1) You would be placing yourself in danger by not being able to help clear for traffic conflicts in any sectors other than the one in which lead was occupying;

2) You would have to make radio changes without looking at your radios. In essence, you would be doing frequency changes "by feel" and not looking at your control head to see if the frequency is properly set;

3) You would never be able to accomplish an "ops check". How can one check in with fuel status by never looking inside the cockpit? In essence, you would be guessing your fuel.

Based on the above, I have no problem saying this philosophy is unsafe. If that is something you were taught, you were taught incorrectly. It's either that, or you misinterpreted an instruction you received in the past. This is all the more reason for you to get your FAST certification so you can clear up any misconceptions/misinterpretations or bad habits you may have picked up in the past.

Typically when in fingertip, formation/industry standard is to "kick out" your wingman to route or some other "looser" formation (tactical, wedge, chase, etc.) so they can do the above actions. This gives them the ability to go "heads down" in the cockpit, or scan for traffic, to accomplish those wingman administrative duties. The farther the distance from lead, the more time a wingman will be able to go "heads down" without fear of hitting lead. Once the above actions are complete, the formation can reform to fingertip, either automatically or upon lead's direction, depending on what is briefed or what signatories' standard they are following.

There is only one exception to the above scenario that I can think of, and it is really not practiced in the civilian world, or very rarely - that is nightime or IMC formation. Under those conditions, one will probably be forced to stay in fingertip and it will be difficult, but not impossible, to accomplish radio frequency changes and/or Ops Checks. One will have to have a nearly constant gaze at lead with only very, very short glances away. The closer one is to lead, the quicker the "heads down" periods must be, obviously.

BTW, I 100% agree with everything Randy has stated in this thread.

- Former Formation Instructor Pilot

[Randy Haskin]

Was it the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels that lost an entire team when #1 flew them into the ground?

Thunderbirds,
Lead had a elevator lock and was not able to pull out of a loop, and did not have time to tell the others to break away.

You're right, that's what the one publicly-released Report said. But there's a lot more to the story, some of it contained in the not-publicly-releasable Safety Board report. A bootleg copy of the Safety Report was posted to the internet several years ago, and contains some interesting stuff.

FWIW, it isn't that they didn't pull out...they almost made it...the Safety report concludes Thunderbird 1 needed 10 more feet to not impact the ground (that probably means 30 feet for the entire formation to make it, based on "the stack" when T-38s are in fingertip).

The Safety Report doesn't definiteively state what occurred: there were no electrical or mechanical deficiencies in Thunderbird 1's aircraft found by any of the various investigators on the Safety Board. That being said, the TAC Commander General Wilbur Creech, was widely known to have meddled in the report prior to its publication, famously saying to witnesses that "Thunderbirds don't make errors".

Side Note: Creech personally erased the video shot from the ground of the accident and the maneuver leading up to it -- completely in defiance of several regulations that require preservation of such accident evidence -- so it could not ever be released.

Creech demanded that the Investigation Board go back and find another cause. Thus, the Safety Report speculates blame on "a malfunctioning pitch trim system", even though there is no word about this malfunction in any of the component investigations contained in the report.

Below are the revised findings from the USAF-internal-only Safety Report.

Note that there's no mention of a "jammed stabilizer", which is indeed what was released to the general public in the Accident Investigation Report (a different board and a different report than the Safety Investigation Board, which is what I'm quoting here) and published in both Aviation Week and the NY Times.

Note this summary from one of the sub-inspections inside the Safety Report...which contradicts what I just posted above from the overall summary of the investigation. Creech was able to make the Investigation board change the summary, but not the sub-component inspection reports because those guys at Kelly AFB didn't work for Tactical Air Command or General Creech.

Screen Shot 2023-10-21 at 15.14.35.png (261.04 KiB) Viewed 2745 times

Ed Rasimus, who many WIXers will recognize as a well-known author, fighter pilot, Vietnam combat vet, was an AT-38 Instructor Pilot at the time of the accident. He wrote this on the old USEnet rec.aviation.military news group about the accident.

The accident report was very controversial. As the only TAC unit other than the 'Birds flying the T-38, the 479th TFW at Holloman was tasked to supply both the Flying Safety Officer member and Pilot member to the accident investigation board. Both pilots were out of my unit, the 435th TFTS.

The initial report of the board was a finding of pilot error. The lead aircraft had topped out on the loop at an altitude below the minimum required to insure a safe recovery. Failure to recognize the altitude
and continuation of the maneuver to the pull through meant that after reaching about 60 degrees nose low inverted, the formation was in a position from which recovery was no longer possible.

There was evidence reported that the control stick and linkages were deformed probably due to pilot effort to pull through at whatever G was available.

When the report was submitted, General Creech returned it and reconvened the board with the statement that "Thunderbirds do not commit pilot errors." Command guidance was to come up with another cause.

That was when the "shock absorber" was invented as the culprit. What made the report a laughingstock for T-38 pilots (although acceptable to Gen. Creech and the general public) was the fact that with 160 AT-38B aircraft on the ramp at Holloman, with at least 1000 maintainers and more than 200 Talon IPs on the base and with more than 20 years experience operating the airplane for the USAF, no one had ever before heard of the "shock absorber" and no one could find any reference to such a gadget in the control system schematics.

Source post: https://www.yarchive.net/mil/thunderbird_crash.html

The Safety Report itself is an interesting read, I'll email it to anyone who is interested. I don't have a copy of the Accident Board Report, but that was published by Aviation Week in 1982 if anyone wants to dig through their archives and count up the differences between the Safety Report (the one not releasable to the public) and the Accident Report.

[phixer]

Was it the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels that lost an entire team when #1 flew them into the ground?

Thunderbirds,
Lead had a elevator lock and was not able to pull out of a loop, and did not have time to tell the others to break away.

You're right, that's what the one publicly-released Report said. But there's a lot more to the story, some of it contained in the not-publicly-releasable Safety Board report. A bootleg copy of the Safety Report was posted to the internet several years ago, and contains some interesting stuff.

FWIW, it isn't that they didn't pull out...they almost made it...the Safety report concludes Thunderbird 1 needed 10 more feet to not impact the ground (that probably means 30 feet for the entire formation to make it, based on "the stack" when T-38s are in fingertip).

Screen Shot 2023-10-21 at 15.09.36.png

Screen Shot 2023-10-21 at 15.32.59.png

The Safety Report doesn't definiteively state what occurred: there were no electrical or mechanical deficiencies in Thunderbird 1's aircraft found by any of the various investigators on the Safety Board. That being said, the TAC Commander General Wilbur Creech, was widely known to have meddled in the report prior to its publication, famously saying to witnesses that "Thunderbirds don't make errors".

Side Note: Creech personally erased the video shot from the ground of the accident and the maneuver leading up to it -- completely in defiance of several regulations that require preservation of such accident evidence -- so it could not ever be released.

Creech demanded that the Investigation Board go back and find another cause. Thus, the Safety Report speculates blame on "a malfunctioning pitch trim system", even though there is no word about this malfunction in any of the component investigations contained in the report.

Below are the revised findings from the USAF-internal-only Safety Report.

Note that there's no mention of a "jammed stabilizer", which is indeed what was released to the general public in the Accident Investigation Report (a different board and a different report than the Safety Investigation Board, which is what I'm quoting here) and published in both Aviation Week and the NY Times.

Screen Shot 2023-10-21 at 15.17.55.png

Note this summary from one of the sub-inspections inside the Safety Report...which contradicts what I just posted above from the overall summary of the investigation. Creech was able to make the Investigation board change the summary, but not the sub-component inspection reports because those guys at Kelly AFB didn't work for Tactical Air Command or General Creech.

Screen Shot 2023-10-21 at 15.14.35.png

Ed Rasimus, who many WIXers will recognize as a well-known author, fighter pilot, Vietnam combat vet, was an AT-38 Instructor Pilot at the time of the accident. He wrote this on the old USEnet rec.aviation.military news group about the accident.

The accident report was very controversial. As the only TAC unit other than the 'Birds flying the T-38, the 479th TFW at Holloman was tasked to supply both the Flying Safety Officer member and Pilot member to the accident investigation board. Both pilots were out of my unit, the 435th TFTS.

The initial report of the board was a finding of pilot error. The lead aircraft had topped out on the loop at an altitude below the minimum required to insure a safe recovery. Failure to recognize the altitude
and continuation of the maneuver to the pull through meant that after reaching about 60 degrees nose low inverted, the formation was in a position from which recovery was no longer possible.

There was evidence reported that the control stick and linkages were deformed probably due to pilot effort to pull through at whatever G was available.

When the report was submitted, General Creech returned it and reconvened the board with the statement that "Thunderbirds do not commit pilot errors." Command guidance was to come up with another cause.

That was when the "shock absorber" was invented as the culprit. What made the report a laughingstock for T-38 pilots (although acceptable to Gen. Creech and the general public) was the fact that with 160 AT-38B aircraft on the ramp at Holloman, with at least 1000 maintainers and more than 200 Talon IPs on the base and with more than 20 years experience operating the airplane for the USAF, no one had ever before heard of the "shock absorber" and no one could find any reference to such a gadget in the control system schematics.

Source post: https://www.yarchive.net/mil/thunderbird_crash.html

The Safety Report itself is an interesting read, I'll email it to anyone who is interested. I don't have a copy of the Accident Board Report, but that was published by Aviation Week in 1982 if anyone wants to dig through their archives and count up the differences between the Safety Report (the one not releasable to the public) and the Accident Report.

I've always found that controversy interesting because of the statement by Ed Rasimus about the "shock absorber". Aviation week had a pretty good explanation and pictures of the overload cylinders of all four aircraft with the condition of the leads cylinder being the reason for the locked up stab theory. I wouldn't mind having a copy of the report.

[Matt Gunsch]

wonder how many regs Creech overlooked and broke to change and bury the actual cause. I did read where he had all copies of the video destroyed.
But it does show that the wingmen did not take their eyes off the lead plane. No matter what others say, and say that fast does not say that you must watch your leader at all times, this is proof that they never looked anywhere other than at their lead plane.

[phixer]

There does seem to be inconsistencies between the two Thunderbird reports but I still can't get past the condition of the overload cylinder in the leads aircraft that would indicate an anomaly in the stab system plus the falsifying of an official report.

[wendovertom]

I also find it interesting that there were TWO different cameras filming this - I mean seriously - how interesting can running a harvester through a field be?? This had to be planned and then the "oops" occurred.

Tom P.

[p51buff]

Some of y'all throwing rocks need to go back and reread (or read) some Tony Kern books.

What do you mean by throwing rocks?
...

If I do that someday, I HOPE people would keep me accountable. We're human, sometimes we do dumb things and those dumb things sometimes have consequences. Also, warranted criticism doesn't mean you don't like or respect someone.

Simple.

Do you fly formation? Do you have a FAST card or any training in it? If not, then what in your background gives you the ability to critique them? Formation flying is different than airline flying which is different than crop dusting which is different than instructing. Hay-ull, just look at the difference in opinions between formation pilots in this thread.

I don't fly formation so I don't throw rocks at formation pilots when they screw up. Even when someone screws up on my airplane, I get as much information as I can about what happened, the obvious cause is rarely the real one. Which is why I read everything I can about all kinds of flying and often think "There but for the grace of God..."

Safe trip, all.

[RyanShort1]

Some of y'all throwing rocks need to go back and reread (or read) some Tony Kern books.

What do you mean by throwing rocks?
...

If I do that someday, I HOPE people would keep me accountable. We're human, sometimes we do dumb things and those dumb things sometimes have consequences. Also, warranted criticism doesn't mean you don't like or respect someone.

Simple.

Do you fly formation? Do you have a FAST card or any training in it? If not, then what in your background gives you the ability to critique them? Formation flying is different than airline flying which is different than crop dusting which is different than instructing. Hay-ull, just look at the difference in opinions between formation pilots in this thread.

I don't fly formation so I don't throw rocks at formation pilots when they screw up. Even when someone screws up on my airplane, I get as much information as I can about what happened, the obvious cause is rarely the real one. Which is why I read everything I can about all kinds of flying and often think "There but for the grace of God..."

Safe trip, all.

Yes, I have flown formation. Not FAST, as the group I was with (Alamo Liaison Squadron) when I was more proficient used the Canadian Bushhawks Formation materials. I've also done formation with my aerial photography profession. My cameras weren't as good back then, but are some helmet cam shots from a flight back in the day. https://photos.app.goo.gl/iGaMSiHjNErwZGno7

[Randy Haskin]

Simple.

Do you fly formation? Do you have a FAST card or any training in it? If not, then what in your background gives you the ability to critique them? Formation flying is different than airline flying which is different than crop dusting which is different than instructing. Hay-ull, just look at the difference in opinions between formation pilots in this thread.

I don't fly formation so I don't throw rocks at formation pilots when they screw up. Even when someone screws up on my airplane, I get as much information as I can about what happened, the obvious cause is rarely the real one. Which is why I read everything I can about all kinds of flying and often think "There but for the grace of God..."

Safe trip, all.

What's that have to do with Tony Kern?

[Ken]

USAF trained. FAST carded. Randy's posts have been spot on.

Ken

[p51buff]

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