crash at duxford today [2011]

[Viper2000]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger

Flying Legends has been under the CAA radar for years cos of it's previous accidents,this might well be the last year of it,cos it's a mixture of pilot's error (one French pilot has been grounded on Sat,the other one will be as well probably) and inadequate preparation/briefing.

The closest thing to a warbird crash I've ever seen was a Martlet conducting a barrel roll at Duxford from an inadvisable altitude, bottoming out so low that I couldn't help but close my eyes (<10 feet; it was very "barrelled", the peak being perhaps 80 feet, and it seemed pretty obvious that the pilot had just underestimated how much it would drop during the rest of the manoeuvre - perhaps he was used to flying something which rolled faster?). That was probably 15 years ago or more.

The funny thing is that almost nobody else seemed to take any notice. Only about half were even watching (it wasn't a big airshow day), and I suppose most of the people who were assumed that it was deliberate. Perhaps it was, but I doubt it, and if it was then the pilot was rather too bold for my taste.

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger

Anyway,on a funny/gossip note: the plane had just been sold to a new German owner,who was watching the show,so there must have been the French pilot going "*****!",the English pilot going "****!" and the German owner going "********!" all at the same time

All of which would probably have been as nothing when compared with the tirade coming from the insurer's office...