The TFF General Aviation Thread (those things with wings)

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Do keep us informed, please...and I agree, these aircraft were part of The Greatest Generation...they should never be forgotten, and continue to be shared
All the joy went out of me yesterday when I heard about that crash in Texas. We've had WWII aircraft visit my town many times and they are so great to see. There will never be anything like them ever again. Fully mechanical and just at the verge of modern. They really were primitive but at the zenith of primitiveness. A few years back a B-24 Liberator took off after leaving here and I was shocked at how slow it flew. They couldn't have been any match for Messerschmitt fighters. Just the sheer numbers in their formations and the fighter escort saved about half of them. Yes ! Half ! Unbelievable the guts of those crews.
They sold rides to the public. $425 for a half hour. A guy I went to high school with , his Dad was a gunner on a B-24 in the war. When the B-24 crew found out they took him up for free. There was a big article in the local paper about it . He passed away a couple months later. Still chokes me up.
 
All of the deceased have been identified....may they RIP

Very tragic loss to their families and friends.

I have watched the various footage several times now...there is alot of footage from varied angles which will be a great help to the investigation team.

I cannot help but think back to seeing footage of the B17 during wartime flight when returning from missions. They are built like brick outhouses, totally over engineered. They would come home to their UK bases with chunks of airframe missing...and I mean enormous chunks missing....one even came home without a crew. They saved alot of aircrew lives thanks to being built so tough.

When doing display flying, you always have it in the back of your mind when doing formation "what if so'n'so misses their mark"..."what if so'n'so times their close in wrong"

When the B17 was working and was damaged by enemy fire (and the occasional friendly fire/collision from other aircraft in the formation when on big wing missions) they were at a sufficient height that allowed the crew to bail out....the crew bailed out of the now famous "ghost" that made it back home without them.

Display flying is low level...very low level. Air temperature plays a part in how you fly your warbird. The warmer the air temperature, the higher the RPM. If anything goes wrong.....you have no height on your side. You have nothing on your side.

One moment all is going well....the next you go through a mental and emotional backflip.

I doubt that the gentleman in the P63 knew what happened. It would probably have been instantaneous, his last vision might have been the fuselage of the B17 in a blink of his eyes.

On the other hand, the gentlemen onboard the B17 will have initially had confusion as to why the aircraft was not behaving right........followed by determination to follow the display pilot's golden rule "GET AWAY FROM THE CROWD LINE!".......followed by the realisation that all was lost and there was nothing left to do.

Typed out it sounds like it would take several minutes......infact its just seconds. The B17 crew will have known that they would not be going home that day within seconds but they did everything in their power to avoid ground casualties...such as the Stearman on the taxiway and B29 that was awaiting take off clearance.

There are many online sources of transcripts and recordings from past accidents, the discussions tween crew and crew to ATC in the last minutes of a flight before the inevitable radio silence. When you listen to the transmissions, its very very rare that expletives or panic are heard. Even when the crew know all is lost, they remain calm and focussed on their job....(one of the most harrowing tapes is the JAL 123).

That B17 crew did their job and flew their mortally wounded warbird all the way to the end and they did everything they could to prevent more lives being lost in the process.

Just like thousands of pilots did during the war and like hundreds of display, commercial airliner and private pilots who are no longer with us.

Alot of things have to happen to cause any accident....putting the jigsaw of pieces together will take time and diligence by the investigators

The toll would have been significantly higher had the crew of the B17 just let her go to ground, she didn't just go to ground, they flew her out of harm's way, they manhandled her, wrestled her away from that Stearman and B29 and the crowd both at Redbird and those on the surrounding highways and buildings.

The crews on board the P63 and B17 did their job. They saved lives by sacrificing their own in a no-win situation for themselves. Within seconds of the collision they knew that they would not be going home, they did what all airmen do in that situation.

I hope that people realise and understand that those six gentlemen not only died doing something that they loved to do but that they did everything humanly possible to prevent further deaths on the ground. Their deaths are a tremendous loss to their loved ones but they also need to be remembered by everyone in some way at Redbird cos without their actions when all was lost for them, they made sure no-one else would be lost.
 
Received the email from CAF, as someone who used to work with warbirds here in the UK and who has lost many friends as a result of warbird tragedies such as this, I have sent what I am able to help the families and to share my sincere sympathy with everyone involved. Details of how others can help is in the link at the bottom of this post.

The air display family is a very large and diverse bunch of plane nuts who strive to keep alive the memories of those who fought for our freedom in all wars where warbirds took a leading or supportive role. When the family loses members in tragic accidents or illness or old age, we all grieve....we might not know each other personally but the loss of a fellow warbird crew will always be hard, moreso for the families of those who have left us.

 
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Received the email from CAF, as someone who used to work with warbirds here in the UK and who has lost many friends as a result of warbird tragedies such as this, I have sent what I am able to help the families and to share my sincere sympathy with everyone involved. Details of how others can help is in the link at the bottom of this post.

The air display family is a very large and diverse bunch of plane nuts who strive to keep alive the memories of those who fought for our freedom in all wars where warbirds took a leading or supportive role. When the family loses members in tragic accidents or illness or old age, we all grieve....we might not know each other personally but the loss of a fellow warbird crew will always be hard, moreso for the families of those who have left us.

Thank you very much for the eloquent words, and the link for contributions
 
We are hearing fighter planes travelling tonight. A very uneasy time for Europe.
 
We are hearing fighter planes travelling tonight. A very uneasy time for Europe.
The USAF and RAF use the city here...or rather its Minster....as a waypoint. Some days you literally cannot hear yourself think due to the afterburners at full tilt from the F15 and Typhoon flights overhead. The joys of having joint bases in the UK.

That said, during the first Cold War, there were about 100 more bases than there are now. Greenham, Chicksands, Bentwaters etc are all defunct, some have been returned to nature. I wondered at the time if it was foolhardy to "stand down" so many bases on this giant aircraft carrier made of rock.

With the recent Ukrainian issues. Methinks we should have kept all of them at the very least mothballed and able to be rejuvenated to service. Too late now.
 
One needs to be asking who misinterpreted or misheard their clearance instruction....the classic runway incursion

Did the pilot mishear or misinterpret "clear to take off"

Or did the driver of the fire engine mishear or misinterpret "hold on taxiway for aircraft departing"

English is the international language for a reason, it is essential to be able to speak, understand English perfectly when working at an airport.

Someone got it very wrong here and it cost lives.....just as it did with the infamous Pan Am/KLM runway collision at Tenerife in 1977 and just as it has too many times since then


Two firemen died in this latest incursion accident....everyone on board the airliner escaped (needs to be said that the flightcrew were flippin' amazing given the circumstances)

This one could have been significantly worse.
 
One needs to be asking who misinterpreted or misheard their clearance instruction....the classic runway incursion

Did the pilot mishear or misinterpret "clear to take off"

Or did the driver of the fire engine mishear or misinterpret "hold on taxiway for aircraft departing"

English is the international language for a reason, it is essential to be able to speak, understand English perfectly when working at an airport.

Someone got it very wrong here and it cost lives.....just as it did with the infamous Pan Am/KLM runway collision at Tenerife in 1977 and just as it has too many times since then


Two firemen died in this latest incursion accident....everyone on board the airliner escaped (needs to be said that the flightcrew were flippin' amazing given the circumstances)

This one could have been significantly worse.
Wow....it looked like another vehicle was very close behind the first fire truck?....what the heck were EITHER doing out there on the runways at that time?
 
Plane my dad flys for work:

3CBF3AE1-C78A-4D15-B563-AB71AE297A5F.jpeg
 
have you flown in that plane, PK?
do you want to get a pilot's license?
 
have you flown in that plane, PK?
do you want to get a pilot's license?
Haven’t flown that one, I flew a CJ3 at one of his previous jobs but he was in the right seat the whole time.

do you want to get a pilot's license?
Nah, that ain’t for me. I’ve flown Cessna C-172’s multiple times, but I didn’t really enjoy it enough to pursue it as a career.

this looks like that plane's specs
Yup I think that’s it. This is a custom 1 of 10 tho
585A0479-822C-40A5-A0C7-7424163A3FF5.jpeg

It came with a matching Porsche and watch that looks like the interior of the plane
 

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