AVIATION - Fact or Fiction??

p thompson

Paul Thompson 'Hooligan'

Admin
Right, following Frank's posting yesterday re 'happy landings' - it got me thinking about all things Aviation related.

I served an apprenticeship (many moons ago) at what was then a leading player in the UKs defence/aviation industry, the 'ROYAL AIRCRAFT ESTABLISHMENT' or RAE Farnborough as it was then known.. It subsequently became I think DRA and DERA or similar. Anyway, during my apprenticeship and subsequent work/development there and at other detached UK locations, I had a lot of fun and also enjoyed hearing many tales of flight related incidents, both on the ground and in the air and also enjoyed reading an RAF related journal, Flight or Flypast I think which always had an 'incidents' section that detailed happenings that might be of interest to other pilots/crew etc.... HAPPY DAYS....:)

SO - as there are clearly a lot of experienced individuals on here, I thought an on-going thread for Avaition related incidents might be fun and of interest to others - I know I'd like to read a few more tales...

Please don't post anything that might be considered confidential in any way, or likely to upset readers (gore etc) - that can be found elsewhere on the web BUT if you have an interesting tale to tell, long or short, please tell all.....:)

It can be FACT or FICTION, but if you are unsure, follow the statement with ???? so others might be able to confirm or refute accordingly.

One to kick it off:


FACT ???
This one I'm sure I read about in one of the magazines that I came across at a UK base, RAE West Freuth I think...

The story went along the lines of a ground test crew doing either tie-down tests, or taxiing tests of a Lightning at an airfield in UK, during which they managed to engage the afterburner but could not disengage it. Something to do with the latching mechanism that prevented 'accidental' disengagement of the burner during acceleration. Bottom line is they found themselves belting down a runway with nowhere to go but UP.

Then with some basic flight experience they managed to get the plane back on the ground after a brief but un-planned flight...

It sounds bunkum to me but the thought of an un-expected flight of a lifetime does somewhat amuse me...

END.
 
D

Doug Clark

This is true, there was an article written on the event which I read whilst I was at BAE Kingston (when it still existed). He was a Techie and only supposed to be doing some taxiing the ejector seat was disabled and there was no canopy on the thing.

sorry can't remember more, it probably happened at Warton as they never that clever there.
 
MikeP

Mike Pass

Supporter
There is a story in these pics somewhere..........
Cheers
Mike
 

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J

Joey Dean

I work for the Federal Aviation Administartion (FAA) and was in Frankfurt from '90 to '94. While there we had some great contract mechanics from the UK. One used to work for BAe. We were having a nice conversation over a few beers one evening and he related the following story.

He and a new employee (hereafter called the SAB, stupid @ss bugger) were out doing engine runs on a BAe 800. He was in the back (outside the airplane, on a workstand, head up in the hell hole) adjusting the dekes and the SAB was doing the throttle duties. They were on opposite ends of wired headset.

The engine runs had been going for quite some time and they didn't have a lot of fuel on board to begin with. The plane was getting so light that the SAB was having to put the brakes on very hard to keep the plane from jumping the chaulks. With the throttles all the way to the firewall the mechanic suddenly heard screaming and the words "cramp, cramp, cramp" being shouted into the cockpit end of the headset.

It was at the same time he noticed that the workstand was rapidly losing contact with the bottoms of his feet. He quickly pulled his feet up inside the hell hole and saw the ramp starting to move rapidly underneath him. The part that was greatly puzzling him was the fact that the engines were still roaring along at full throttle.

It suddenly became very dark as the tarmac rose, as if by magic, and slammed up tight against the bottom of the plane, all the time with the engines roaring along. He also noticed the other end of the headset was very quiet.

It seems that during a full power run the SAB had gotten a very bad leg cramp. Enough so that it was quite a few seconds before he noticed the airplane had jumped the chaulks and was accelerating rapidly toward the sound abatement berm around the run-up area. He froze. The nose of the AC hit the berm, the nose gear folded up, and the AC slid up the side of the grassy little hill. As the nose went up? Well, the tail went down.

During the final few seconds the SAB had departed the plane, ran screaming across the ramp, gotten to the hangar, and told everyone that there was a bit of a problem on the run-up. By the time they got to the AC, pulled back the throttles (he had neglected to do that), shut down the engines, tied a strap or two to the the AC, and pulled it off the berm my mechanic friend had been inside that very cramped hell hole for about an hour. He came out, grabbed the biggest blunt instrument he could find at hand, and went hunting, All he found was an empty locker. The SAB was never seen around there again.
 
IanAnderson

Ian Anderson

Lifetime Supporter
I was employed by Air Rhodesia around the time that Prince Charles gave away Rhodesia to Bob Mugabe and I can confirn these 2 things happened - saw them both from the engineering area.

1) A pilot was out doing touch and goes in a Viscount under instruction and everything went well for a number of circuits - switches were turned off to see how he handled things and all went well.

so he was told to land for the final time and he says OK we have a problem on the landing gear - expecting to be told - no I hit the switch - the examiner said What are yiou talking about - checked the light and confirmed the warning was real

They requested a tower flypast that was agreed and the tower confirmed nose and 1 main down only.

They tried manual pump to try and lower but nothing

So burnt off as much fuel as they could and landed it on the 2 legs with only the engines running on the "good" side

He held it to about 25 mph before droping the wing

He got his wings to work the Viscounts after doing tha!

It was found thatin order to stop the planes being shot down by Surface to Air missiles they were fited with "anti Astrella" pipes that created a hot spot aft of the engine and wing thereby giving a target for the missile.

With all the touch and goes the mountings of the "anti astrella" had moved and slid to stop the undercarriage door opening - without the door opening (almost under gravity) the wheel would not deploy.

Next day all the planes were rechecked to ensure the anti astrella parts were not slipping.


Then when all the pomp and ceremony of the arrival of Charles they decided to give him a fly by of the military might (3 Hawker hunters if memory serves correct) that went up the runway at about 300 feet.
Big cheer from the crowd

Then out of the blue as Charlie turned around Geoff Mallick (of Affretair)(Spelling?) flew up the road from Salisbury, hopped over the main terminal and did a victory roll over Charles and the rest assembled on the tar. He was in his Spitfire that he had managed to get airworthy about 3 weeks earlier and traversed the airport at 90 degrees to the rest of the planes (at about 50 feet)

He was arrested when he landed 10 minutes later.

Charles was impressed so they (Ian Smith and co) decided to release him without charge. A few months later he flew the Spitfire into a cloud and was dumped out the bottom and killed.

Memories!

Ian
 
p thompson

Paul Thompson 'Hooligan'

Admin
I still remember well climbing up into the rear avionics bay of XV344 (Buccanneer) to probe some circuits that fed the powered the Inertial Navigation unit. All the power was off which was just as well as the bay is a somewhat cramped space, especially as we had a lot of additional kit we were developing in there too, so I was doubled up around things with a little battery torch for illumination.

With all that in mind, you can imagine how impressed I was when some bright spark, not seing any legs protruding from the bay, decided to attach the ground power lead and power everything up! -NOT!!!. All those pieces of kit started their cooling fans screaming and me, wrapped around the internal framework still with test probes in-hand against the 115v bus fuse board.:eek:

Fortunately, the 'person' responsible for my sudden discomfort also wondered why the I.N. had not booted up and powered ventured back to my location to investigate...

Trust me - he was VERY thankful that I had soft-soled Doc Martins on that day when he stuck his head up into the rear bay to have a look!:mad:

Keep em coming chaps.....

(I like the pic of the van roof on the wingtip.. F111? and the Stunt Pilot? - lucky or deceased?)
 
G

Geoff Hurrell

The guys name was Jack Malloch. Never knew him but I flew DC8s for Affretair for a few years.

There was a second Viscount incident a couple of years later. The guys were doing a training sortie which involved flying the plane close to the stall and to prevent nuisance warnings they disabled the stall warning horn which unfortunately is the also the undercarriage warning horn. Needless to say when they made the approach and the gear was not lowered by mistake, the good old horn did not go off. The first they knew of it was when there was a strange noise on touch down and the tarmac was a bit closer than usual.
The pilot has been known a "Three Greens Grimes" ever since.
(for those who dont know most planes have three green lights on the instrument panel showing the position of the undercarriage - lights on = gear down)
 
T

John Fitzpatrick

While I was going through pilot training we had a solo student in the T-38 phase loose an engine during take-off. At first he thought he should abort so he throttled back, then thought better of it and went to afterburner to continue the take-off. When he saw he wasn't accelerating, he jerked the throttle back and stood on the brakes. If he had stuck with either decision, he would have been okay, but the old saw “running out of runway and ideas at the same time” came to pass, and the aircraft slid off the end of the runway, and into the weeds, shearing off the gear in the process. It continued for some distance and the ejection mechanism-damaged by debris - caused the canopy to blow and the "butt-kicker" to fire. This threw the student out of the cockpit and out in front of the aircraft which slid over his legs as it came to a stop.
Now the kid is laying there, trapped under the wing, the engine is still running and fuel spilling onto the ground all around him. He said he was crossing himself expecting to die when he felt someone grab him under the arms and pull him free.
It turns out a Mexican grounds maintenance worker was mowing the grass beside the perimeter road, and when he saw the huge cloud of dust the crash threw up, he jumped off the mower and ran over to see if he could help. The aircraft exploded a few minutes after they got clear. The next day the Wing Commander escorted the man on a tour around the flight line and it was kind of touching-- as word of who it was got around, people stopped what they were doing, turned around, and applauded. You’ve never seen somebody look so proud!
 
G

Mike Mooney

I'm glad that we have some aviators in the group. I have a tale...not much of a powerful aircraft but still a personal experience wherein I converted a Cessna 172 SkyHawk into a very wet SeaHawk.
Following an uneventful trip from Long Island, New York to Bader Field at Atlantic City, New Jersey (ACY) I landed and tied the a/c down to go and find my fortune on the tables and games with three friends.
We had a good flight west and south along the Jersey Shore and landed in some nice clear and warm weather. The 2nd of August of 1983 was to be a memorable date in my logbook.
After a few hours in the casinos I lost about $30 and was back at Bader airfield. For anyone who remembers the now-shuttered airport, Bader was actually more like an aircraft carrier in the middle of downtown ACY. Twenty-seven hundred feet long bordered at both ends by swamp and the intracoastal waterway, it was a facility that had outgrown it usefulness as the city grew.
I was preflighting the 172 when my three friends left the taxi cab bragging of the several hundred dollars that they had won but, what the heck, they were paying the way for their trip and I was getting a couple of hours of flight time for free.
Did my run-up and got a glitch on one of the magnetos, dropping more than the suggested 75-100 RPM drop on the mag check. One mag was sputtering but I charged that off to the recently change-over from leaded fuel to the 100LL (one hundred octane low lead) fuel and the related plug fouling. So I did the required leaning out of the mixture to burn off any fouling agents on the plugs, got a clean mag check and went into runway position for a good trip home.
First attempt was not too good. I was up to about 50 kph and the mag started to misfire again so I aborted the TO. Taxied back to the "hold short" line and did the runup again, once again experiencing the mag sputter and then a clean check.
Took to the active and began my takeoff run to the east, towering casinos and hotels filling my windscreen.
At about 100 ft. skyward the power reduced itself from the very mighty 2500 rpm to an anemic 2100 and my mental emergency check list went into full speed. Shoe jammed in the door (to prevent a water-locked situation in the cabin), check all possibly-forgotten switches, avigate, navigate, communicate, all belts on all passengers and touch down on the remaining portion of this extremely-short runway.
Got 'er down trying to balance the precarious scale between lift and full-braking drag, skidding my way to the REILs (Runway End Identification Lights). Still too fast and lifted slightly over these $800-apiece electric flares and back onto the dirt runway extension, which was approaching its end way too fast.
As the plane lofted off the end of the peninsula I tried to keep some lift in the wings to slow the soon-to-be "float plane sans floats" prior to the very unceremonial landing in the Intracoastal waterway, the prop still at a 700 rpm idle speed waiting to become a boat screw.
When we hit the water I remember seeing the prop immediately stop, the plane nosing over into the green water of the waterway, the windshield caving in, shouting commands to the passengers to exit quickly (y'know, the captain always goes down with the ship, and all that poo!) and trying to get out.
Yeah! Get out, Mike!... but I couldn't move! I saw a slim triangle of air out of the top side window, frantically thinking that "I'm not supposed to die like this!"
Taking my last gulp of a breath from that pocket of fresh air at the top of the cabin I asked myself... "Why can't I get out?"
I went under water and went through another quick check list. "Dammit, I forgot to loosen my seat belt."
I reached down, pulled the latch and got our kicking my way to daylight and fresh air... and sirens. Sirens! Everywhere!
A kind soul in a dory puttered over and plucked us all out of the water, bringing us all safely to shore and the unforgiving interviews by the newspaper reporters. I stayed clear of them all and let my passengers revel in their own "fifteen minutes."
Anyone who has faced an investigation by the "kind" souls in the FAA can appreciate what I went through for the next four months, but I survived the ordeal and I have logged many safe hours since.
Now for the bottom line. I stayed married to the aircraft for the following two weeks of disassembly to find that one of the mags had a bad set of corroded points and I felt educated. Having driven many fast and very-fast cars and aircraft for so many years I will probably remember that swim until I can still remember anything.
A few years later I had related the story to a passenger and he said something that I will never forget. "I'd rather go flying with a pilot who has crashed and walked (or swam) away than with someone who never did."
So much for my fun...
Mike
 
Last edited:
Ron Earp

Ron Earp

Admin
Interesting video there Randy, and that is a heck of a story Mike and I hope I don't have the pleasure of doing that myself!
 
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