Warbird Information Exchange

Breaking news, two seat Spitfire MH367 ZK-WDQ suffered an accident today at Masterton Airport while preparing for this weekends "Wings over Wairarapa" airshow.

All involved are okay, this is a breaking story so details are a bit sketchy, it has either overrun the runway or has bellied in gear up, more info as it develops.

Seen here at the NZ Warbirds open day 7 Dec. '08.


The best place for info is probably here.............
http://rnzaf.proboards43.com/index.cgi? ... hread=8327

Short write-up and photo here..................

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=10552052

Looks like the prop's totally toasted. Also that landing gear doesn't look good.

Ryan

OUCH! Thank God nobody was hurt!

Aren't the wooden prop blades intended to frag in such situation to spare damage to the engine?

SN

groundloop? Hopefully the wooden prop saved the engine.

Ouch. Glad to hear no-one's hurt.

I understand that the shock-loading to the engine is less or not significant, but it's not an intended benefit, just an incidental one. They're still meant to be landed with the wheels down. I've not seen that much damage myself on a preserved Spitfire before. My unqualified guess is the engine will need work.

The pic in the Herald shows a wheel forward of the wing - to get there the aircraft's got to have turned on the ground with the undercarriage lowered (collapsing it fwd). Not good for the attachment points, so more than panel damage and a prop.

Going to be expensive.

Engine failure I believe. Hasn't had a good run in trying to make it to air shows here, stuck in US Customs for Wanaka and now this. Hopefully will be okay to join Brendon's Spit at Classic Fighters over Easter at Omaka.

Dave

TV news coverage here.............................

http://www.3news.co.nz/Spitfire-crashes ... aspx#video

Ironically, while writing this, the clip above was run again in the late news on TV.

Regarding missing airshows there was also the Whitianga show which was cancelled due to bad weather and then more recently the fuel system breaking due to the heat just before it was to display at the December 7th flying day at Ardmore. Very bad run of luck.

link removed

Man talk about ground down

Doug Brooker walked away unhurt after after his Spitfire crash landed at Masterton Aerodrome. Photo Wairarapa Times-Age

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I didnt get any popup this morning when I was on that link?

I am not a mechanic or aircraft engineer so take this with a grain of salt. A few years ago when the Vintage Wings Spitfire suffered a prop strike at Geneseo there was concern about engine damage as well. As it turns out there was no damage to the engine. The prop itself had dissipated the energy in is destruction. Vintage Wings learned at the time that the drive system to the prop has a weak point designed into it so that the prop will shear away if before any damage to the engine will be done. Again I am not a mechanic, so my understanding of the design and damage dynamics may be off. I suspect in the picture of the NZ Spit the damage is to the prop and mounts (obviously) and underside metal/paint. Likely the biggest delay they will experience in returning this one to the air will be getting a replacement prop.

Mike

Don't know what the problem was, but my computer went crazy when I clicked on the link. There's a lot of stuff out there these days...