Spitfire "crash": pilot pulled wrong lever

They break, metal ones bend.

Hard to say if the pitch forward energy is all that different.

 

Definitely not.

 

It is the furthest forward of the CG of any obstruction with the ground.

If the gear would cause a pitch over moment, then so would the prop.

But anyway - we are kind of off the subject - does anybody still think that there was ever a pilot directive to deliberately dump the gear (after you had landed super-hot) to assist you in slowing down?

I repeat - I have never heard of such a thing.

 

I think that the landing gear would produce far more drag and a greater pitching moment than a bendable prop.

 

The first ~530 Beech Bonanza model 35 came with controllable/variable pitch wood props. The hub was aluminum and steel bearings and gears but the blades were wood. Starting in early 1947, they switched to alum blades, and the wood blades were discontinued. However, Beech(Roby) would supply replacement wood blades up through about 1949 when they switched over to alum completely.

 

OK, fine. If I ever land so hot that I am running off the end of the runway in a retractable, I will be sure to put the gear switch in the "up" position.

Now, can somebody tell me more about the engines and props of the Twin Mustangs under restoration?

 

Well, from what I remember, it has two engines and two props. Joking aside, I do recall that the fuselages aren't P-51 things and the engines might be different, too.

 

The prop will break long before it will flip you over. Plenty of unintentional gear up landings have proven that point.

 

The book I have on them says that the engines are counter-rotating Allisons, (like a P-38) not the Rolls-Royce Merlins of the P-51D Mustang. I was just wondering why they needed to make wooden propeller blades for the restoration projects going on.

Perhaps my skepticism on the "dumping the gear to get stopped" theory is a natural aversion to deliberately doing such a thing in any circumstances. Does anybody know if Sully put the gear down when he ditched the jetliner in the Hudson?

 

Yes. I think I actually read it in a T-28 or T-6 manual, or some NAA pub. Probably a T-6, as you would probably go whoopsie doodle on your back if you did not pull the gear up. Ask me how I know.

My dear ol' SNJ-5: N3771M. After the canopy, rudder, engine and prop repair -
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Or, run out of runway on T/O...

 

He did not lower gear.

If he had there would have been injuries, maybe fatalities, I'm guessing.

 

Sully landed wheels up. You never want to put the gear down in a water landing. The airplane becomes the head of a hammer and gets slammed into the water. There was a story down where I worked in Florida about a guy who bought one of the first Seabees and landed wheels up on the runway after shooting water landings in the bay. After the repairs he went out to shoot some more water landings and dutifully lowered the landing gear and got killed when the airplane flipped. The airport manager who was a Type A personality ran the airport with an iron fist. He flew a Widgeon and returned one day from shooting water landings and put it down on the hull at the airport. Sure enough when we got to the airplane , the gear switch was in the down position but when it was jacked up and the switch was cycled, the gear operated just fine. We always heard that after a wheels up landing, the switch will always be in the down position. The exception to this old saw was at Abottsford when the P-51 " Miss America" landed wheels up. When we got to the airplane and asked Howie Keef if he had a hydraulic failure or something , he weakly answered, " No. I forgot to lower the wheels."

 

What the heck powers the propellers? Is there a driveshaft running up between the pilots legs or something?

Pete

 

Yes. Two.
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Can you imagine the terror of the following situation: You have just landed (with the gear down) on a runway. However, you landed so hot that you are running past the end of the runway.

Thinking quickly, you realize that you do not have a wooden propeller. However, you quickly remember the advice on FChat Aviation that you will probably not nose over as your metal propeller will bend - so you select "gear up" to slow down your crash past the end of the runway.

And then - horror of horrors - YOUR GEAR WILL NOT RETRACT (perhaps you have a protection switch, or it just does not have the power to retract on the ground) - and you rush on to certain destruction.

Of course - this could have been avoided by not landing so hot in the first place.

Now, can anyone tell me more about the F-82 restoration project?

 

It was 1987, and during a descent from 2500 feet to land, the "Reliable" Pratt 1340 blew the supercharger impeller bearing, losing all power as it pumped oil in the cylinders. Too far from the airport, I could make a SOD FARM. Four Hundred Acres of FLAT FIELDS OF GRASS. Ok, set up, decide to try it with wheels down on the grass. Perfect 3 point touch down and rollout. Just right before I stopped, I was like at 5 mph, we found the only tiny (you couldn't see it) 1' ditch in the whole 400 acres. Whoopsie doodle.

 

Old Chinese proverb: On running off the runway, it is better to retract the gear and rebuild the engine and prop than to tear the gear off the bottom of the airframe.

 

This thing aerodynamically simply does not look right! Tail volume is way too low for the short coupled aft fuselage layout. I'll betcha' that there will be some directional control issues if and when they fly it. An interesting and creative project but it doesn't look comfortable.

 

I wondered about overheating ...

 

Would you guys go up in a plane powered by Bugatti engines? ... I wouldn't. Hardly the most reliable race car engines. Over heating plugs, etc.

An Alfa 8c engine I'd think about it as they are tough, but I'd be cr@pping myself with that period Bugatti engines.
Pete

 

Yes, I was wondering about that, too, especially on the ground at idle.