Quote:
Originally Posted by BadAim
The Mustang in the video lost power as it was coming in (did you notice the puff of smoke?) and the pilot had to let her settle well short of the runway, the berm that the plane hit was supposed to be the edge of the field. I would say that considering the circumstances, that was an excellent landing.
|
yep, there was a failure with one of the camshaft gears if memory serves. The pilot could have put her down flawlessly had it not been for that stupid bank on the runway edge. With such a sudden power loss the pilot had pretty much little to do, all he could do was hanging on to the stick and hoping the Stang would keep its tail down. If it wasn't for that ramp it would have been just a rougher landing, but it's worth noting that even on such a hard hit only one landing gear leg bent slightly.
Here's Sally-B doing the same thing, although with all engines working all the pilot needed to do was give it a bit of throttle and help her down gently
Quote:
As for the speculation about landing versus parachuting, I can certainly see the reluctance to jump out of a perfectly land-able aircraft. Hartmann belly flopped some 17 or so aircraft before being forced to bail out of one that was literally falling apart. Parachutes were an unknown quantity, landing a plane was, even if it was damaged.
It will be interesting to find the real story. If it's indeed there to be found.
|
well belly landing per se is a risky business with such aircraft on a rough field, let alone on a rocky desert! Don't forget you're coming down at 90-100 mph! We don't usually wear parachutes on the T-6, because it has such a sturdy wing that you can easily put it down in a field, but on the Mustang we always wear a chute: belly landing can be catastrophic because if it flips you're dead, since there's no armour headrest or protection frame to save the canopy from crushing. That's how the late Paul Morgan died unfortunately, and it's definitely an ugly way to go.
04-30-2012, 02:07 PM
Hybrid Mode
