Warbird Information Exchange

Let the facts speak for themselves.

Chris: As far as letting the "facts" speak for themselves, all you know, and all that any of us know who didn't witness the accident is that the C-60 crashed. You probably don't know, but there are a myriad of reasons that they may have lost directional control. Anything from losing an engine, to a wind shift, or a blown tire..... If you aren't with the FAA, NTSB, or CAF ops, then why'nt you just sit back and wait for the final report to come out?

Quite frankly, posts like yours, from people who should know better, is the major reason I don't frequent this board much anymore. All the armchair quarterbacks who know so much, we never seem to see them until something happens, then y'all are all over the place "Well, you shoulda done this, ya shouldn't have done that". What airplanes operated by the CAF have you sponsored? What museum have you volunteered for? How many airshows have you worked, baking your mind out on a hot ramp hawking T-shirts and trinkets to earn a pitiful few dollars to keep an old warbird flying?

Judging by your username, as well as posts you've made to the T6 list, I imagine you're restoring a Harvard/-6. Great. Hopefully you don't hurt yourself when you start flying it, or else you can expect your friends and family to read people's opinions, on an anonymous BBS, who have never met you or have any idea of your skillset, that will be utterly contempuous of "what you did wrong".

The other thing that everyone oughta remember is that the media will read posts here and take stuff WAY out of context to "sell the story".

The only good thing I can see here is that all 5 of the crew on the Lodestar were unhurt.

Regards

Jase

I too noticed this right off from Chris; the above post was from the Bushmaster accident posted on the WIX board this past week. It would seem to me that "Chris' straight-out has a dislike for the CAF, considering that the Bushmaster had no connection to the CAF, nor was it in the warbird category to indicate so.

While there are quite a few planes registered with the CAF, there are a lot more members of the CAF that fly their own personal planes, and thus these planes don't get added to the actual total flown by the CAF membership. I'm sorry to see the recent accidents that have happened, but am glad everytime I see them at a show, and not parked forever in a museum somewhere.

Well ok,

I appreciate that the CAF is flying old planes, but they really shouldn't be crashing this often.. I have never even heard of the POF museum losing a warbird in the last 20 years. I've never heard of any incidents with most flying museum aircraft as well.

Chris

An F6F belonging to POF (I think, I am recovering from a root canal tonight so a little groggy) was involved in a midair with a Cessna a year or so ago. Whoever owned it, it was the Cessna's fault. They died, the 'Cat's pilot lived and is still flying warbirds (and for my money is one of the best pilots out there.)

Snodgrass had a gear problem with the Collings F4U just out of restoration and bellied it in. This was restored after it took a swim in the Atlantic due to fuel issues.

909 (Collings again) ran off the runway some years back in PA, and cost a helluva lot of $$ to fix.

Joe Tobul's F4U crashed just about 2 years ago, killing him (and he's still missed by ALL of his friends).

EAA's B-17 had a gear collapse on rollout just recently at Van Nuys.

Chuck Yeager, fer Gosh Sakes, ground looped a T-6 recently.

There are others, those are just the ones that pop to mind right now.

It is a fact of life that mechanical parts will fail, and humans can make errors. For your sake, I hope YOU never make an error, especially in a warbird, as that is most definitely a public event.

My point to you, PAL, is that running your yap without a bit of knowledge to go along with it makes you look a trifle foolish.

So, ya think the CAF has an issue with safety??????? OK, fine. Lemme tell ya what ya do. Join the CAF, run for a Staff position at the Unit level, then General Staff, and fix the problem. Oh, by the way, for your info, the CAF General Staff has been working damned hard (with FULL member support, I might add) to make SAFETY at all levels of the organization a priority. If you think you can add something to the dialogue, join up and talk to any of the General Staff folks with your ideas. I can tell you that Tiny Malm and Doug Rozendaal took time to listen to me, and my suggestions concerns and thoughts.

For my money, the CAF is a fine organization. I'm proud to be a member, and proud to be active in it, and I hope and pray that the organization will come through this. Unfortunately, since the CAF is the largest operator of WW2 aircraft, we are under a pretty big microscope, and any time an accident happens we all have to deal with you armchair quarterbackers and naysayers.

In closing, become part of the solution, or you are part of the problem.

Regards

Jase

Gentlemen:

Here are the planes they've cracked up or severely damaged, and a few the last of their kind flying:

A-20, B-26, FM2, P-51C, P-47N, C-60, He-111, and 2 P-38's (Scatterbrain Kid I, and II).

Chris

Oh yeah, forgot this that I witnessed:

At Reading WW2 Weekend, Yankee Air Force's DC-3 had a gear collapse while taxiing.

Regards

Jase

OK Chris:

Here's the story on some of these planes that you reference:

A-20: Marvin Gardner had a massive heart attack, and died while flying it.

P-51C: Mechanical engine failure, and darn good work by the pilot to avoid houses when a forced landing was inevitable.

P-47N: Engine fire on takeoff, post restoration test flight. Currently under restoration again.

C-60: Dunno yet.

B-26: This one hits close to home. Vern Thorp and Wally Wooten were probably the two pilots who had the most time in Carolyn of anyone. Tom Cloyd was one helluva good pilot as well. There had to have been a sudden, catastrophic failure of some sort. Unfortunately, we'll never know what exactly happened 28 Sept 1995.

He-111: Also too soon to tell, but I believe a mechanical failure perhaps.

Scatterbrain Kid I, as I remember, was a gear collapse on rollout.

Scatterbrain Kid II was pilot error.

FM2: Dunno yet.


What, exactly, are you attempting to accomplish with these posts?

Regards

Jase

Chris,

Sometime you'll need to ask Kevin Eldridge about his involvement with a certain POF Corsair over Phoenix back in 1995.

Here's a hint: It involved a parachute and a big hole in the ground. Thankfully the pilot is still with us.

_________________
It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

According to my history of the CAF (The Blue Book); Scatterbrain Kid I was a PRIVATELY owned bird, owned & flown by Col Revis Sirmon, and was lost in an accident in 1974~.

Regards

Jase

Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings that was not the intent. However, the facts speak for themselves. Whether we admit it or not, these things did happen. I don't see any problem talking about them in the open. Heck, we talk about it at the airport all the time. I want to see what people have to say about these incidents, and what the general attitude is about them.

People are killed sometimes in aviation, and it's good to talk about that too, so we know what to avoid. It's terribly unfortunate too, but why hide it?

Do we have something to hide here or what?

Chris

I want to weigh in here on that B-26 Marauder. The exact cause has never been determined why both engines quit. I do know the pilots, Vern Thorpe and Walter Wooten were very very experienced, responsible individuals, with lots of time in the airplane and I'm sure a lot of Marauder knowledge. Walt had worked on and flown that airplane since it was restored in 1984. They were trying to avoid a house or building when they ran out of flying speed. That one broke my heart. Edit: oops sorry I didn't read the other post that this one echoes.

John

Walt Wooten and Vern Thorpe were both very decent guys and I worked on the B-26 in Harlingen in the late 70's with Walt. I'm amazed however to see that the C-60 took off with a slightly quatering tailwind if you can believe the NTSB weather report at the time. Combine that with a bit of another problem and the boys would have a real handful to contend with. Downwind arrivals and departures are asking for trouble in taildraggers...

All,

I am the Chair of the CAF Flight Safety Board and the Chair of the Stand-Eval committee. Without responding to any specific posts, everyone needs to understand the the CAF is not satisified with the status quo. I would like to share with you what we have done recently to address safety and assure you that improving improving safety of the CAF is the NUMBER #1 objective of CAF flight operations.

Before the accidents last year we implemented a biennial flight review requirement for all CAF pilots. Previously, after initial checkout, a FAA biennial was all that was required, now all pilots must take a checkride from a CAF checkpilot in a Warbird type airplane. We also setup a biennial recertification process for all checkpilots.

After the FM-2 Crash last year we had a system wide safety stand-down. We held Unit level safety meetings that all pilots were required to complete. We will do that again this winter. We are aggressively working to ensure that CAF airplanes are operated inaccordance with our rules and the FARs.

We hired Dick Hanusa, a retired FAA inspector who ran the NDPER program to do a safety audit of our organization and we are working on implementation of those recommendations at this time.

We have a communication problem in the CAF. Collectively we have the largest body of warbird experience and knowledge, but we do not do a good job of learning from our mistakes made, and communicating lessons learned. We are working hard to do better at that, and we will.

I believe that the problem in the Warbird pilot community is a culture problem. We must change the culture of our organization and that is a tall order. Let's call it Green Flight Suit Syndrome. Perfectly good safe pilots who safely and successfully fly 757's Citations, and Bonanzas put on a pair of Green Coveralls, climb in a Warbird and put our brains in neutral. We seem to get some kind of target fixation on looking Sierra Hotel.

We also have a problem recruiting pilots with good basic airmanship. Cessna and Piper have designed idiot proof airplanes. Warbirds are not idiot proof, they require a skill set that is nearly a lost art. Several years ago the CAF established a basic training program in Midland. After running for a while, we then had 2 fatal accidents in 30 days. Needless to say that program went away. Anyone have any good suggestions?

The CAF is by far and away the largest operator of Warbirds and we get credit and fault for several things that we don't deserve. However, being the biggest does imply a responsibilty to lead the charge to do better and to that end, the CAF has made safety presentations at NWOC, EAA Airventure, and will speak at ICAS this December.

Everyone here can rest assured that no one is more concerned about the state of safety in the CAF and the Warbird community than the CAF. It is really easy to point fingers and assign blame, but from where I sit, it is very difficult to change culture and behavior, but the CAF is committed to that change.

We all understand that there is risk associated with what we do. Warbirds will never be as safe to operate as a Cessna 172. Those of us who fly these airplanes understand and accept that risk. However all of us need to look in the mirror and say to ourselves, "I can do better!" We are trying, the proof will be in the results.

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal

With regard to the C-60, we know the airplane lost directional control and we know that there was a right quartering tailwind. That may or may not be the reason. We do not know at this time.

Doug..

contact me off line and i'll give you an earfull of what i think of your recruiting process and the folks you have flying your stuff in many cases.. this all comes from a 10K + hour current mil flight safety guy with 30+ years experience in antiques and warbirds with an unlimited high perf piston LOA... what do you think brad and jack ??? should i give him one or both barrals????? doug you can contact me via e-mail at jeffrey.wright@portland.af.mil or 73004.223@copuserve.com. if you ask i will also pass on my phone numbers and would be most willing to talk to you in person... ask jack cook or brad pilgrim on this board if you want a background check on me