Warbird Abuse?

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I will refrain from opinion but I will say he slid an F-86 in a couple years ago cause he forgot to put the gear down. As we pilots age our skills and reflexes slow down...there is nobody on the planet immune to that. Dale holds a zero altitude airshow ticket and has been "spoken to" before. Whether the image is photoshopped or not there are other similar photos out there. The only thing that will eventually stop Dale from doing this is the ground.

jim

PS the speed at which he does his low passes would allow for quite a bit of time to make a runway if there is an engine issue. A couple years ago V Lenoch lost an engine on top of a loop in his P-51 and landed with no issues
 
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I does not look like he is flying very fast. His left aileron appears to be deflected down and the rudder is deflected up. If so, he is cross controlling and nose looks high creating a large angle of attack, needed to maintain altitude at that angle of bank. He looks fast because a Mustang just looks fast. Still, bird strike, flinch, smoke.

jimh said:
PS the speed at which he does his low passes would allow for quite a bit of time to make a runway if there is an engine issue. A couple years ago V Lenoch lost an engine on top of a loop in his P-51 and landed with no issues
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I think I would rather lose an engine at the top of a loop rather than at the bottom, especially if I am doing a low altitude loop over a runway. At the top you have some maneuvering altitude, at the bottom you have speed but you are pretty well stuck going straight ahead.

I can think of a lot of expert pilots who are expertly dead.
 
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Edgar Brooks said:
Why? When an engine stops, aircraft don't come to a juddering halt, and fall out of the sky, they can normally fly on, at least for some distance, while the pilot looks for somewhere soft to put it down.
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The keyword here is "normally" and I can post plenty of accidents where the "normal" did not occur. They might not happen as often, but the fact is they do. These planes are artifacts from 70 years ago and only a handfull are left from the 1,000s and 1,000's made. Why put them and other people's lives in needless danger because somebody wants to hotdog or grandstand? I gotta agree with Dave on this one.
 
At the top of loop in Mustang you can be anywhere around 100 to 150mph depending on how hard you pull. At the bottom you are going to be at a minimum 200 and accelerating pretty quickly. Either case leaves you with both energy or altitude to make critical decisions. At the angle of bank in the subject photo he is hauling the mail...whether it is photoshopped or not. At or above 200...down low with that much pull even at cruise power will produce 200mph indicated. I AM NOT justifying this type of flying at all and it pains me to look at this photo, or any other photo of Snort "doing his thing"...one because I'd hate to see him become a statistic and two because it puts a black eye on warbird ops when something does happen, and three...what kind of example he is setting to pilots who might be alittle more proned to do something reckless at a much lower skill level. Ok...off my soapbox.

jim
 
I am not questioning the pilots abilities or skill at all. If the picture is legit, then I'm sorry, but with all due respect, I DO have to question his judgement.

Here's my take on this. If the pilot is doing this down the middle of a runway, and the aircraft's owner is OK with it, then he's putting nothing but himself and the plane "at risk." Knock yourself out. Good show.

So let's get past the "warbird at risk" part of it and talk about what I think the true issue should be.

If this picture is legitimate (And no one here has yet confirmed it is.) then, to me, it's a whole 'nother story. Down the middle of a ramp containing aircraft and people??? Seriously?? Now, he's not only risking himself and the Mustang, he's putting that other aircraft and the people in the golf cart at risk IMHO. So, If this pic IS legit, then yeah, I'm sorry, but I do have a real problem with what I see.
 
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Yes, the photograph is 100% authentic and can be seen at Sierra Hotel Aeronautic's Facebook page which has a number of people commenting who were there at the time (including the owner of the aircraft tied down, bottom right of the photo)
 
There are tons of P51's out there , if it was something rare like a Zero , P26 or something like that it would concern me a bunch more
 
I'd feel confortable if Dale were dioing it in my Mustang. The one he is flying is private property, not a national treasure (not just my opinion, it's the law in the U.S.A.), and the owner is comfortable with the flying.

What you seem to want to do is to dictate to others what they can and cannot do. Thanks heavens we have different laws and regulations in the U.S.A. and Dale can fly that pass. He has an unlimited low altitude waiver, as does Sean Tucker, Steve Hinton, and quite a few other excellent pilots, maybe even some in this forum. At 180 knots, trimmed nose up, the pass is not dangerous. If he has a moment of inattention, the nose-up trim makes the Mustang climb, not descend. The only people I know of who fly low passes with nose-down trim are the Military jets teams. Everyone esle does the opposite, and for good reason.

Let's just say we disagree totally on this subject and let's hope that the regulations don't change to eliminate low passes at airshows or only people like me who get to see it at private airstrips will see it. The FAA has absolutely no interest in what happens at private airstrips, and the people who can afford these planes usually have one or have a friend who has one. I've see civilian and other warbirds doing a pass that low at about 10 private airstrips, sometimes at very high speed instead of a sedate 180 - 200 mph like Dale is doing.

So, if you think this is wrong, we are in complete disagreement, and I'll stop if you will.

Last, if you don't like this pass, why go to airshows? Not trying to start or continue an argument, trying to understand the issue which, to date, I suppose I don't (I printed and framed the high-res version of the pic). All maneuvers are cleared with the Air Boss before and during practice; there are no unexpected maneuvers in a typical U.S. airshow ... everyone has seen the maneuvers several times, including the FAA and the warbird owner, well before the public airshow. The only exception to that at Chino was, coincidentally, me. We restored a WWII pulsejet from a US JB-2 Loon (very similar to a German V-1) and pushed my pickup down the runway with it ... without practice on the runway. Instead, we practiced on a taxiway. But at least we practiced, and the taxiway was just a straight and just as long. No surprises, as expected.
 
1) I still would like to be in the golf cart.
2) Or better yet, in the Mustang!
3) But I still don't want to see a more rare bird, Glacier Girl or the like doing this.
4) I generally agree with Greg, that airplane is private property.
 
I sometimes think that a lot of pilots watch others and think they can duplicate what they what witnessed, after sitting for about 10years in the tower it became clear to me . You'd have a fighter depart with a civvy 737 holding , the 737 would almost invariably take off hold it level for a bit build up speed and yank it back for a steeper then normal departure . It didn't matter whether it was a pa28 or a 130 following the fighter departure it was "oh yeah watch this " for the most part all the aircraft were operated within parameters but I'm quite sure the folks in the back were popeyed
 
jimh said:
At the top of loop in Mustang you can be anywhere around 100 to 150mph depending on how hard you pull.
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A few thousand feet over the end of the runway, low airspeed, no power, this almost sounds like an ideal initial point for a teardrop dead stick landing, something all light plane pilots should practice.

At the bottom you are going to be at a minimum 200 and accelerating pretty quickly. Either case leaves you with both energy or altitude to make critical decisions.
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200 mph and 500 ft over the end of the runway and the engine quits. This sounds like the situation of an engine failure on take off. What is the number one rule on engine failure on take off, NEVER TRY TO TURN BACK TO THE RUNWAY! Your options are limited. You could try to turn downwind and land normally or you could try to make a tear drop and land in the opposite direction, both are a dead mans choice, you most likely will not have the energy to do either. Your option is only to go straight ahead with maybe a make a bit of a maneuver. I'll take the engine failure at the top of a loop any time. I've been there with no airspeed, but that is a different story.
 
Good evening, the picture is legit. His wing was actually that low. I was standing next to the building when I took that picture. I will post a couple of the other pics here.

image.jpg
model299 said:
The perspective MUST be off in that picture, because he looks REALLY close to that red twin. Also that golf cart.

I did what you suggested Greg.

Wowzers. :shock:
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Btlmike said:
Good evening, the picture is legit. His wing was actually that low. I was standing next to the building when I took that picture. I will post a couple of the other pics here.

View attachment 258679
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I think the editing makes the plane look slightly lower than it actually was. In any case arnt pilots supposed to be able to fly close to the ground in order to land. The airfield looks huge, a P51 can land on concrete or grass, if the engine fails land it on the wheels or the belly, or am I missing something. Being close to the ground doesnt make an engine fail, I would say he has a better chance of getting down in one piece there than over a forest city or stretch of water.
 
Thanks for the video posts above. The F-86 crash was Steve Schneider ... the same Steve Schneider who started the new-build Me 262 effort that resulted in the Stormbirds units that fly today.

The other videos make a real statement about people who do airshow aerobatics without practice. The video that doesn't work anymore was of a Bell P-63 that crashed doing a loop. The Spifire was doing EXACTLY the same thing.

The engines are good for so much power, and both the pilots of the Spitfire and the P-63 were attempting low-altitude loops at very reduced power. That is they pulled up into a normal loop, but were flying at half or so power. They got the pull-up they wanted because both had approached the loop from a shallow dive, but didn't use the power required to give them altitude for the pull out.

There is a video of a P-38 crash in the UK where the pilot is doing a fast low pass, starts a roll, and hits the ground.

If you come to see the Chino airshow (first weekend of May, May 3 - 4) you will see a great airshow with safety first as the attitude. For warbirds, we don't allow rolls from other than a climbing attitude unless the aircraft has first completed a vertical half loop. That is, a downward roll from the top of a Cuban eight is allowed since there is sufficient altitude, but a flat roll in a low pass is not allowed. Birds start arriving on Thursday and we fly the practice show on Friday. If the air boss (usually Jim Dale) sees anything he doesn't like, he makes a change and they fly it again until he thinks it is safe. That happens before Saturday.

Most of the above accidents in the videos were caused by people who didn't practice the show in front of the air boss, did rolling or looping maneuvers at reduced power to "conserve" the engine, rolled from a level pass without a pull-up, and were flat out of practice at aerobatics. In Steve Schneider's case, I was not there, but have many friend who were. They said he flew the loop at greatly reduced power. Steve's Sabre had solid leading edges (no slats) and had no extra lift capacity left when he tried to pull up at the last second. In fact, at almost looks like it stalled at the last second as Steve pulled harder.

All these can be easily corrected by having the air boss ask in a pilot's meeting what power settings you will be using before practice. A wrong answer means you get some counsel. If it doesn't look like you are actually USING the adjusted power settings, you don't get to fly the weekend show. You also must acknowledge in the pilot's meeting that all rolling maneuvers below the hard deck altitude will be initiated from a climbing attitude, with at least a 15° climb before the roll starts. These "rules" are NOT for everyone, but apply to warbirds, specifically because warbords are NOT aerobatic planes. They are planes that CAN do aerobatics of the positive type and maybe some mild negative ones, but they are not intended as aerobatic aircraft.

So there IS a safe way to do it and we only wish everyone would take the safe route.

Here is a short video of Steve Hinton at the Hemet-Ryan airshow doing aerobatics in the P-38.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYNhWSt-GXU

Notice there are no rolling maneuvers that are on a down line unless he just completed a half loop and is well above the hard deck. When he initiates a roll from a low pass, he has already pulled up to allow for a safe roll. When he loops notice he flies a considerable vertical up line before pulling back to get to the top of the loop, and he does it at enough power to ensure a safe altitude gain in the first half of the loop.

Warbird aerobatics CAN be safe and still look very good. There is no need to push the envelope as there might be in something like the Paris airshow when millions of dollars of sales hang on the display. The warbirds doing airshows are already owned and there is not a large sales population of them hanging in the balance.

Might was well do it safe and practice enough to do it right before the public sees the airshow in the first place. Good airshows MAKE it happen that way (at least the air bosses do) or you don't get to fly in them.
 
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GregP said:
There is a video of a P-38 crash in the UK where the pilot is doing a fast low pass, starts a roll, and hits the ground.

Most of the above accidents in the videos were caused by people who didn't practice the show in front of the air boss, did rolling or looping maneuvers at reduced power to "conserve" the engine, rolled from a level pass without a pull-up, and were flat out of practice at aerobatics. In Steve Schneider's case, I was not there, but have many friend who were. They said he flew the loop at greatly reduced power. Steve's Sabre had solid leading edges (no slats) and had no extra lift capacity left when he tried to pull up at the last second. In fact, at almost looks like it stalled at the last second as Steve pulled harder.

Warbird aerobatics CAN be safe and still look very good. There is no need to push the envelope as there might be in something like the Paris airshow when millions of dollars of sales hang on the display. The warbirds doing airshows are already owned and there is not a large sales population of them hanging in the balance.

Might was well do it safe and practice enough to do it right before the public sees the airshow in the first place. Good airshows MAKE it happen that way (at least the air bosses do) or you don't get to fly in them.
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Great info thanks, Ive seen both crashes on youtube and I agree. But as you are a pilot I imagine a top display pilot to be like an F1 driver knowing how far his plane is from the ground almost to the inch.
 
The good ones who practice their airshow routines regularly are very in touch with their situational awareness. The people who don't practice aerobatics are the ones in danger. Usually the air bosses know which are which by the way they fly practice.

Recall the British airshow where the Douglas Skyraider pulled up and hit the Mustang, Big Beautiful Doll after a 3-plane low pass? That was a case of the Mustang pilot not performing his pull up like the Skyraider pilot did. Either the Sjyraider pilot was wrong in his expectations as briefed or the Mustang pilot didn't pull up and bank as the Skyraider pilot expected. Maybe both events occurred simultaneously.

I don't know the reality since I wasn't there and don't know where to look for British accident reports, but it LOOKS like nobody practiced this at all before the show ... it looks spontaneous simply because it was so sloppy in execution. If that is wrong, then something needs to be done immediately to make this a thing that can't happen again. When the accident happened, thank heaven the Mustang pilot was quick enough to get out and thank heaven the Skyraider pilot was good enough to get around and down on one piece. Once in a bad situation, the pilots responded in kind. Practicing this at least 5 times before the show would have ironed out any kinks in the event.

Much the same is usually apparent when there is a warbird accident. Not always since occasionally the aircraft or engine fails, but it is usually the pilot of the warbird or another one in close formation who is sloppy and does it wrong.

Here is the Kingcobra accident. He isn't even using enough power to climb vertically and complete a pull over to reach the top of a loop! Wonder what was going on? The P-63 wasn't developing enough power to fly level, much less climb and do aerobatics. Probably had another 850 HP or so on tap that could have made this maneuver a no brainer. He stalls at the top of the so-called "loop" and enters a power-on spin from which there is not enough altitude to recover. Tragic and VERY avoidable.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhbcxqKPXR4

Believe me, the P-63 is a climbing fool at high power. Makes me really wonder if this had EVER been practiced at altitude. If so, he would have entered the spin, recovered, and stepped up his power level before trying that again after cleaning off the pilot's seat and washing his flight suit.
 
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