Studiously Avoiding The Warning Notices....

[MIflyer]

An F4U Corsair was among the aircraft in a huge traffic pattern at a USN training base, the pilot practicing night touch and goes. Some of the aircraft were pretty slow and there were quite a number of them, so it took several minutes to make it around the pattern.

Flying with the landing gear down caused uncomfortable buffeting, so the pilot pulled the gear up. They were slow enough that the gear warning horn was sounding continuously, so he turned it off. But the gear warning light was shining, and that interfered with his night vision, so he put his glove over it. He left the canopy open and loosened his harness so he could better look for traffic and see past the long nose. Thus configured, he flew the airplane onto the runway with the gear up.

The impact catapulted him out of the cockpit; he landed directly in front of the airplane. The situation was embarrassing enough, but the R-2800 engine broke loose and chased him down the runway..

 

[Gnomey]

Whooops...

 

[maxmwill]

An F4U Corsair was among the aircraft in a huge traffic pattern at a USN training base, the pilot practicing night touch and goes. Some of the aircraft were pretty slow and there were quite a number of them, so it took several minutes to make it around the pattern.

Flying with the landing gear down caused uncomfortable buffeting, so the pilot pulled the gear up. They were slow enough that the gear warning horn was sounding continuously, so he turned it off. But the gear warning light was shining, and that interfered with his night vision, so he put his glove over it. He left the canopy open and loosened his harness so he could better look for traffic and see past the long nose. Thus configured, he flew the airplane onto the runway with the gear up.

The impact catapulted him out of the cockpit; he landed directly in front of the airplane. The situation was embarrassing enough, but the R-2800 engine broke loose and chased him down the runway..

Was this a Marine trainee pilot?

 

[MiTasol]

In the 70s in Australia there was an identical accident with an HS125 at Avalon and in the mid 80s a similar thing happened to a shiny new Gulfstream G690 in Tasmania. The Gulfstream rep at the time said the cause of that one was the airframe driver pulled the lever with the round knob to the up position instead of the lever with the airfoil shape.

In both cases the pilots were examiners of airmen, employed directly by, not contracted to, the regulator, with other regulator pilots in the other seat.

 

[MIflyer]

One day at our airport an instructor decided to pull the Left throttle back on a twin a few seconds after the student pilot had pushed both throttles full forward for takeoff and released the brakes.

And that's how we got new VASI lights for that runway.

 

[special ed]

Although, not an accident, but involving a Corsair, this may be a spot for an experience the late Bill Fornof told a friend and I. He had decided to stay in the Naval Reserve as long as he could fly single seat, round engine recips. The last unit flying Corsairs was in San Diego, so that was where he did his summer drill. One day, approaching the field, he selected gear down and felt the familiar feel of down and locked, but no green lights. After cycling the L/G. still no green lights. He called the tower again and requested to fly over and have them see if the gear was down and locked. The reply from the tower was "Yes sir, it's down, seems locked and the fire is out, too."