Crash at Shoreham Air show
Discussion
I don't wish to speculate on this, but it must be said given how the thread has turned that I don't think the pilot can be criticised for stalling given the situation he was in; just as in Max Torque's analogy you couldn't criticise a racing driver for understeering trying to avoid an accident. There are plenty of conceivable situations where a low altitude stall may bring a plane down, but do so in a slightly different position to where it was originally heading at it's maximum turn or climb rate without stalling, which is rather salient given where this particular plane was heading and how different the outcome would have been just 50 metres either side of where it crashed. Consequently, even if this pilot made a mistake initially, that doesn't say he wouldn't have done everything in his power and considerable experience to minimise loss of life, which could ("could") have included a stall just to eek the plane on another 50 metres into the trees. All wild speculation, but it needs to be said in the absence of evidence that many possibilities exist here, not just one simple one.
hman said:
would a full left deflection of the rudder make any difference to his flight path when he realised it was unlikely he would make it?
Did he realise he was not going to make it?
Not by nearly as much as rolling a bit to the left- but then he would be using some of his lift to accomplish the turn, rather than to slow the decent.Did he realise he was not going to make it?
oyster said:
A small world - he was my PPL CFI back in the early 90's. Another airshow loss sadly.
At Manston? I learned under Ted in the mid-late 70s at Dundee. They never did find out what caused that crash. He just fell off the top of a loop, straight into the sea... PM utterly inconclusive, no evidence gleaned from wreckage, same manoeuvre carried out faultlessly the previous day, and practiced several days before. As I'm sure you know, Ted was famed in the business as the most meticulous of pilots and instructors, and at Dundee wasn't afraid to sack an instructor who didn't meet his standards (and who later bought the farm in a borrowed Piper Aztec). At one time Ormond Haydon Baillie wanted Ted to join his operation at Duxford, but Ted told Ormond where to shove it, viewed the whole Duxford scene then as being a shower of cowboys - Ormond, Don Bullock and suchlike...
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