Fabulous Flying

[hum]

We had an outstanding instance of airmanship yesterday in Ireland....

During an air display at Foynes something - as yet unknown - happened to the top wing of the aerobatic biplane Dave Bruton was flying and it started to disintegrate.

Onlookers at first thought it was part of the act, then gasped as they heard Dave's 'Mayday' call over the radio.... He had lost over 2/3 of the top fabric surface of the wing along with his pitot and most of the port side aluminium leading edge. ATC responded immediately clearing him to land at Shannon, a few miles to the East, 'Negative... I'm going down' was the reply... Dave had marginal control, buffeting ailerons, major lift loss and massive drag... He considered bailing out but realised he was too low.. a field was his only hope. He found probably the only suitable piece of ground in the area and pulled off what can only be described as a miraculous landing using full power and every ounce of his considerable skill...

Dave B foynes.jpg (100.23 KiB) Viewed 3310 times

The emergency services reacted superbly and were with him in minutes. Fortunately the only assistance he needed was laundry...

Well done Dave... if ever they gave out medals you deserve one for that!

Latest flying cow production here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ZzPrUuE6A

[Trigger]

The epilogue of the video is classic....all's well that ends well. Well done Dave, great result.

[kilo delta]

Wow! Glad to hear that Dave made it down safely.

[wolfie]

One word for that - Respect. Good to see that you got down safe Dave. Thanks for the video Hum.

[willo]

Only Colonel Crackshot could have managed it!
Well done Dave

[Balkanhawk]

Well done on a safe landing.

[StrikeCommand]

Report on this one now out:
http://www.aaiu.ie/sites/default/files/ ... 12_016.pdf

[hum]

Good job!

[aviatorsguide]

Dave's famous "zero g short field technique" seems to have played a big part here. I must figure that one out sometime... In house IP!

[hum]

Nothing new there

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cf ... G-AWAR.pdf

[Cullen]

Neil Williams ,in a league of his own was Williams.

http://www.aerobatics.org.uk/repeats/zl ... ailure.htm

[hugoj_air]

Well done Dave, a brillient piece of precision flying whilst under severe stress.

I witnessed Neil Williams on his aeroibatic display at Biggin Hill 15.05.1965 when he attempted one loop too many in Stampe G-AROZ and impacted with the ground behind the Air Couriers hangar. I amoung hundreds of others attending the Air Fair charged across the 300m of open ground to get a closer look. We were relived to see Neil walking around the mangled remains of the Stampe, apparently uninjured. I managed to get a quick snap of the wreck, but sadly it was slightly out of focus as I had the manual camera set for close shots and in my rush forgot to refocus.

Hugo.

[hum]

Wow Hugo, you saw that! Did you hear John Blake, the Commentator remark "... and Neil Williams has taken it behind the hangar.... and left it there!"

He was very lucky that day.. He wrote a very good article about it afterwards - published in his book 'airborne'

I saw him perform once at Shuttleworth, I was standing on the corner by the little control tower where the 2 runways intersect; he came along the display line from my right in a Bucker Jungmeister, flying knife edge at around 70 ft. He then did 1 and a half flick rolls and turned through 90 degrees to fly away along the other display axis to my left still in Knife edge, still at 70 ft... amazing.

Some of his excellent writings are online here:

http://steemrok.com/steemroknwlistv4

The DH Humming bird article is particularly poignant, a very good guy I worked with died in that aircraft recently.

[hugoj_air]

As he disappeared behind the hangar I guessed he was about 40dgs nose down and I remember thinking "he's cutting that fine". Then the cloud of dust and smoke rose up. Where I was standing the tannoy wasn't very clear. There was commentry going on but I was concentrating on the Stampe so didnt hear exactly what was said. Probably by that time I was running hard anyway.
Another five foot of air would have made all the difference. The fuselage was doubled in halve with one set of wings wraped round it and the other set sticking up in the air. Neil was extreamly lucky there was no fire and that the impact was only slightly nose down.
I'll have to dig out the photo and send you a copy.

Hugo.