http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrziTee4b2c&feature=player_embedded#!
Have to agree. Doing knife-edge turns at low altitudes in large airplanes can be dangerous stuff. Reminds me of the tragic 1994 airshow crash of the B-52. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFOXnfhBq7c[/ame]
BTW, I appreciate the original post. It is a thrilling airshow performance and it's nice to know everything worked out fine while watching it. The pilot is obviously highly skilled and braver than most. The inverted roll at low altitude was a thriller (at 2:23 in the video). Did you see the rate of descent afterward?! .
Reminds me of Clay Lacy and "Fish" Salmon racing (or almost racing) a DC-7 and a Super Connie in the 1000-mile air races in California in 1970-71......
Yes, it's neat to watch, and the general non-flying public just eat this low level stuff up. In fact, they demand low level to maintain their interest. However, and don't beat me up for saying this, but in my most humble opinion after a life-time around aircraft , I believe this super low level stuff is a foolish mistake. I've personally seen 3 aircraft fatalities at low level [ as in flown straight into the ground - two of these were at Oshkosh ], and been around at least a dozen , no, make that two dozen, human losses of people I knew from when my father used to own a couple small FBO's . The one that really sticks out was the local fellow that used to love to scare the farmers off their tractors and chase trains-head-on ! One day he didn't pull up fast enough and that 'ol Ercoupe flew right into the front of that train. Fortunately for us [ sad for him ] it wasn't one of the FBO's planes this time. Future 328 driver sums it up well when he says " zero margin for eror ". I love airplanes, more than cars, but I hate to see what some people do with them. Do the acro [ I do ], just use a little more altitude. It's the air below you that we need, more than the air above you !
Hey guys. I thought it was a beautiful aerial ballet displaying grace and energy management. To me the most dangerous part was when he feathered numbers 3 and 4 with the gear down. Bob hoover committed himself in his maneuvers. This guy did not box himself in if you watch closely. No knife edge here just lazy eights. Even the apparent roll was actually an overly aggressive eight. Dave
Bob Hoover managed energy in his routine. He traded altitude for speed and speed for altitude, DEAD STICK. At any time in his routine he had either speed or altitude in the bank, which allowed him a margin of safety to abort his maneuver and recover to land safely. There were points in the DC-4 routine where he didn't have the altitude or speed banked in the event of a major malfunction. I doubt the glide slope of a DC-4 at 100 kts and 500 feet altitude (or what looked like less) would get him very far or allow any room to maneuver. And yes, it was great to watch and I enjoyed it very much.
I mentioned Bob Hoover because he is the gold standard in energy management and low altitude acro in aircraft not normally seen doing acro. Bob does much more aggressive maneuvers that leave very little margin for pilot error (if the average pilot attempted them it would be extremely dangerous). The guy in the 4 could abort most of these simply by limiting bank and rolling out early. It appeared that he made no attempt to keep lines so he could adjust his turns based on energy. I agree if he used up everything he had he was boxed in but we really cant tell from the ground. Probably the most dangerous maneuver this DC-4 has made in its lifetime is a takeoff on a short runway fully loaded with passengers and crew. Dave
Henry Tenby has a DVD showing C-130 operations to a gravel strip servicing a diamond mine in the Northwest Territories. Sounds like a C-130 kind of place, but there was also a DC-4/C-54 routinely flying in and out of the same strip! I always found it interesting that the DC-4/C-54 was the only production aircraft to use the P&W R-2000 engine, which is basically just a larger version of the R-1830.
This guy did an excellent job of energy management and knew his airplane. He entered all of his maneuvers with a FULL HEAD OF STEAM and plenty of airspeed which gave him the altitude to do his stuff. He then traded his altitude for more airspeed to do his next maneuver. He wasn't anywhere near the disaster point that Bud Collins was with the B-52 in Spokane. Collins only had 140 knots when he pulled the B-52 up into a steep climbing turn and had the airplane with wings near vertical to the ground. Then he added the lack of lift to the lack of speed. The C-17 incident in Alaska was the same, loss of energy with a steep pull up on take off followed by two steep turns that bled off more energy and again with wings near vertical, stalled and went in. I thought that the DC -4 display was well done.
The guy flying the 4 is a pretty good stick. Great display of skill. Better be careful...lots of good sticks stuck into the ground. Caca happens....
agreed. he sure can handle the bird ... but don't think the dc4 was designed to be chucked around like this ...
It would interesting to have an accelerometer on that bird during those maneuvers. Anybody care to guess how many G he was pulling?
Hello, early in the video coming out of a turn his two right side outer engines were feathered or off (1.12 mark). What was the reason for that? Made me cringe, thinking of the B-52 doing something similiar.
To show it could be done. Note that it was the two engines on the "high" side of the turn, a safe maneuver with enough speed. Also, he had his gear down which, if anything went wrong, would be one less thing to worry about. From what I have been told, it would not be wise to make that turn with two engines shut down on the "low" side.
You are correct, " Never turn into dead engines." BUT, my late friend and B-24 pilot, Lew Morse, had to do just that when he had to make a go- around in his shot up B-24 to land on the island of Vis. Number one and two were out and number three was on fire. He was successful in getting the airplane around and on the ground but it was a total wreck and was left there with 50 or 60 others. He said that they hit so hard on landing that it knocked the ball turret out of the airplane. None of us can imagine what our aircrews went through to persist on continuing mission after mission and somehow to survive it all.
The P-40 fighter pilots leaving OTU for over seas units at Sarasota Air Base in 1943 had something like 300 hours or less. Try that when you were facing Germans who had three times those hours and probably most of it in combat. How the hell did they do it?
