Aircraft pics

[427TJ]

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Sam - what's a flat-hatter?

Nuch

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Sorry Nuch, it is a show off. In the military it is a loose cannon, a non professional aviator.

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More specifically, a show-off who flies his aircraft so low over the assembled brass and dignitaries at the change-of-command parade that their hats get flattened.

[Ngtflyr]

His squadron commander chose not to ground the guy, he decided to fly with him to ensure nothing like this happened and died as a result of his decision. The really sad part is that the Sq CC's wife and kids witnessed the crash.

[427TJ]

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His squadron commander chose not to ground the guy

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Because the mishap pilot had friends in high places and was close to retirement. The squadron commander could not ground him without suffering a career setback himself so he chose to go along and get along. It was all wink-and-nod stuff and career political BS and it got three good men and one idiot killed.

[nuch_ss396]

You know Bill, no one ever thinks that playing politics can
cost someone the ultimate sacrifice. Hell of a price to pay.

Nuch

[427TJ]

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You know Bill, no one ever thinks that playing politics can
cost someone the ultimate sacrifice. Hell of a price to pay.

Nuch

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You can bet your last dollar that there was one hell of an ass-covering scramble as the investigators discovered all the cover-ups by higher-ups that kept that hot-dogging B-52 pilot on flight status. More than one career was terminated over this crash because of all the buddy-buddy back-slapping by the mishap pilot's higher-ranking pals. About the only consolation that came out of the B-52 crash was that a few of those officers, the ones who over-ruled the squadron commander's desire to ground the mishap pilot, had their own careers ended.

[Belair62]

how did the pilot screw up in that crash?

[sixbrl440]

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how did the pilot screw up in that crash?

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Ran out of altitude and airspeed at the same time.

[Ngtflyr]

One other good thing to come out of it was that thru the use of this example it was beaten into the rest of us that "hotdogging" would not be tolerated, no matter how good or how many friends you had in high places.

Just goes to show you, there are bold pilots and there are old pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.

[47Hammer]

He thought he was Sierra Hotel.

[427TJ]

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Just goes to show you, there are bold pilots and there are old pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.

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Dave: Fuc*in'-A Bubba! (As the Gus Grissom character said in the movie "The Right Stuff.")

Belair: The B-52 pilot flew the airplane far too aggressively, as you might have already realized. His last pass down the runway was to be flown as a fighter-type pitch-up maneuver of the kind flown by the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels as they approach the field for landing. The B-52 can do that but not nearly as aggressively. So the B-52 guy wracked the airplane into a very aggressive climbing u-turn (the pitch-up maneuver) putting enough G on the airframe to bleed-off almost all of the airspeed but for a few knots. When he rolled-out on downwind--the opposite direction--and at about 1500 feet, the airplane was all out of airspeed. He had used his energy (the airspeed) in the aggressive pitch-up and it was then too slow to maintain level flight upon completion of the maneuver. He rolled wings-level and pulled back on the control yoke to hold the nose (the whole airplane, that is) level but there wasn't enough forward airspeed for the airplane to maintain level flight. He kept holding the nose up and it quickly entered a basic stall condition. Stalls often develop into spins as one or the other wing loses lift and drops, and that's why the B-52 rolls left (it could have gone right just as easily) in the video. Not enough airspeed means not enough lift being made by the wing which means the B-52 became a huge dead weight at the end of that pitch-up maneuver and just fell out of the sky.

So as Dave pointed out, there really are no old, bold pilots. ("Bold" in these cases means stupid, not brave or appropriately aggressive as in wartime or in a Thunderbirds or Blue Angels display.)