The CAF was in eastern Tennessee in 2019,they bought Fifi that day,just awesome.$1600 to fly in the cockpit.
I almost paid the $225 to go up in their Stearman but was worried about getting sick
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Agreed. And to the whole âfly them vs museumâ debateâwhy not both? There are far more of all types sitting in museums than flying. Something like 45 B-17s still around, but only 4-5 flyable. It gets better with birds like the P-51!
If you get the chance again, do it. Thereâs nothing like a Stearman and they can always tailor the flight to your stomach. Plus, the open cockpit helps with nausea.
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I should probably have said grounded to public tours flying in them. Hell fly them all you want as long as the regs are in place for when they come tumbling down not into the crowd.
When I lived and went to school at Ramstein I last saw the 83 airshow. years later this happened. If the planes had not done a crossing pattern over the crowd, this would not have happened. I remember a German f104 buzzing us at a very low altitude near the tower going 90 degress across the runway over the tower while in afterburner in 83.
The other big one was the reno crash. crossing spectators. https://www.youtube.com
Im guessing all of the passengers thought everything was being followed also. Point is there are many crash investigations were warning signs where ignored.
https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/20210413b.aspx
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But hey, what would guys like these know to have an opinion?
If the pilot commenting is an expert why did he call the P 63 a Spitfire ?
Is it possible that an attorney benefits from finding
( or coloring some â facts â ) something wrong ?
Just food for thought âŚ
I would let it pass, the f the spitfire wansnt the most iconic aircraft shape the Second World War
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Yep - both single engined low wing monoplanes - but that is as far as it goes âŚ
Keep in mind that there are still C-47s flying around the world. Where to you draw the line? Should old 727s be grounded? What about all the Tiger Moths?
You simply canât stop human error. Otherwise, there wouldnât have been an issue with the 767 Max.
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Zero to do with the accident.
More to back up the my claim of a good old boys club. The FAA has always been cozy with the aviation industry. That's why we need to empower the NTSB
https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20220510.aspx
Itâs not about the age of the plane (although routine maintenance will eventually replace all the main components, removing originality) - itâs about the historical importance and rarity of each example aircraft. There are lots of C47s in museums, and plenty still flying for a living, so they are not so precious. But there are precious few B17s left, and less than a handful that are air-worthy. Risking them in some idiotic wacky races in the sky means we will rob future generations of the chance to see these panes, whether on the ground or in the air. Sure, continue to hold generally safe passenger flights or âmemorialâ fly-pasts like the Battle of Britain flight does, but for goodness sake clear the sky of other yahoos and restrict the aerobatics! If folk want to do crazy things like tail-chase rodeos they can stump up for a replica to crash. After all we do have a thriving replica-creation industry that can feed that marketâŚ
And let us not forget the human cost of each accident - both in the planes and on the ground. Even if we restrict âhistoricâ craft and only risk replicas or modern planes, we still need better safety enforcement of these shows to keep everyone alive.
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I agree 100% about the safety issues - especially for the audience. While all of us would rather stay alive than die , some are more willing to take risks than others and only they should make value judgement regarding the risk taking. Becoming a pilot at any level is risky - factor in aerobatics in historic aircraft and the risk increases many fold .
While it would be wrong for me to speak for people I donât know , I would bet that everyone flying in aircraft in these Warbird organizations recognizes the risks and makes the choice to have the experience. That should be their choice , not the governmentâs. I also think that the choice of whether to keep an aircraft safe on the ground in a museum or fly it belongs solely to the person or persons owning and paying the bills for said aircraft regardless of how many there may be in the world .
This of course providing they have met stringent airworthiness standards.
When I was a boy my father designed , built and raced powerboats. It must have been a source of anxiety for my mother - expensive and risky . The chance of my father being killed was very real and she would have been left alone to raise three children but I recall her cheering him on .
We were fortunate by skill or luck ( maybe a little of each) my dad survived and lived to 91 . Perhaps if we were not so lucky I would feel differently regarding risk taking.
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Tell that to the folks driving by the south perimeter of the Shoreham air crash here in the UK a few years back when a pilot decided to fly off-script in a Hunter jet and bottomed his loop a foot below the road surface! His freedom to make a value judgement cost several lives of people who did NOT decide to risk being the audience in an airshow that day, and somehow he survived relatively unscathed. They foolishly assumed their only risk was driving in trafficâŚ
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Right, and he should be held accountable for his actions. One person making a bad decision should not dictate what everyone is regulated to do or not do. That is why there are punitive laws that should be upheld when someone makes a bad decision.
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That is unfortunate to be sure and I recognize that it is easy for me to say this but if he was performing aerobatics where not approved to do so then he should be held accountable. If the area was approved for aerobatics then those who approved it should be held accountable. He is no different than a reckless driver who kills people and sadly this happens all the time but the answer is not banning driving automobiles.
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Ah, but we do ban racing and other irresponsible stunts on public roadsâŚ
The pilot I mentioned may have been irresponsible, but the showâs flight path still included that highway, without the consent of the drivers who had a reasonable expectation of safety. There are limits to personal freedom because some acts of judgement create results that cannot be repaired no matter how big the punishment.
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To be clear, there were no âaerobaticsâ involved last weekend. A âtail chaseâ airshow just refers to the fact that there are multiple aircraft airborne at the same time, generally following each other. Itâs done because audiences prefer it to a solo aircraft that appears for a few seconds, and then disappears to reposition for another pass. I understand there are high feelings here, but lets avoid the empty rhetoric.
More generally, Iâm struggling to figure out what exactly is being argued here. Itâs gone from âthese planes are too valuable to risk in flightâ to a generalized dislike forâŚIâm not sure what. Airshows in general? Airplanes in general?
Weâre reminded of Ramstein, a personal experience of a German aircraft âbuzzingâ the crowd, and the Reno Galloping Ghost crash. (The Ukraine Mig crash isnât mentioned, but Iâm sure is part of the argument.) Ramstein wasnât a US airshow, and the Reno crash was a highly-modified racer airframe, not a warbird like we see in Texas. Ramstein and Ukraine prompted changes in how airshows are run in the US, despite not happening here. That seems to be how things are supposed to work, no?
The goalposts seem to be moving with each riposteâŚnow it seems like a generalized anger toward aviation in general that gets more fevered the more facts are put forward in rebuttal. Everything Iâve said earlier still holdsâŚthere are regulations but there are still people flying these things. You canât regulate your way to absolute safetyâjust look at our roads.
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Drivers licences get taken away for âbad behaviourâ and/or drunk driving.
Here in Sweden it has been debated whether old age should be a reason for tests at license renewal.
We build and rebuild roads to make them less dangerous. Seat belts, air cushions et.c. et.c but there is no foolproof way (at least not yet) to prevent fools from making mistakes.
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Exactly. And all of that is done for aviation as well. All of it.
Which is why it is so galling to see people basically say the FAA needs to get even more obnoxious with enforcement. It shows a lack of real-world understanding, and a value judgment that comity and real relationships with a regulated group is not as good as a hostile and destructive approach, more in line with other federal agencies that often take their mission statement to be âdestroy the entities you regulate.â
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