Warbird Rider Safety

[Jack Cook]

I was perusing the hyperscale site and came across a article by a fellow who took a ride in the YAF's B-25D "Yankee Warrier". OK story-beautiful airplane. But, (there's always a but!) I was surprised and alarmed at the fact that they allow riders in the nose on take-offs and landings! We have given lots of rides in our B-25J and will absolutely never allow any person in the nose for either evolution. Why? It's too darn dangerous. If the nose gear collasped due to any reason (ie shimmy dampner failure) the pax is DEAD! With liabilitity issues has they are for warbirds what's the outcome besides a needless death. Major lawsuits against the owner, pilots and whom ever else the attorneys want to stick it to. Remeber the CAF PBY disaster and it's aftermath?? I don't want that to happen to the YAF ever! Or anyone else. I want these aircraft in the air for years to come. But, for that to happen we must fly safe and smart. Opinions?
http://clubhyper.com/reference/b25flightse_1.htm

[RMAllnutt]

I agree with you. I've flown in B-25's several times, but never in the nose during take-off/landing. It doesn't make any sense... plus the fact that you have to be a midget/gymnast to get in/out of the thing. I swear I don't know how anyone got out of the nose in a wartime B-25 during an emergency with all of the flight-gear, and hypoxia to deal with. You really have to hand it to the guys who had to fly them for real.

To be honest, I have often thought that the seating arrangements in these aircraft is a little precarious. The seats, and seat-belts for passengers in any of the bigger warbirds (save the harnesses in pilots seats) do not exactly instill one with confidence, and there are so many really hard and sharp objects to whack yourself against. Still, I absolutely love it... and never let things like that hold me back.

Cheers,
Richard

[Tulio]

I have read somewhere -memory as usual, fails me- that during WWII the bomber / gunner was not riding his seat on the nose of the airplane, precisely because of fatal accidents. The same went for the gunner on the belly turret of B-17s and -24s.

I noticed recently that someone was riding in the front of a B-25 during take-off, but did not comment on it. Now that I have seen this thread, I realize that lives have been put at risk unnecessarily.

Could someone reach within their files, and find out if the S.O.P was for no one to ride in the nose of the B-25 during take-off and landing?

Saludos,


Tulio

[bdk]

OK, I've been up there before.

How many B-25 nose gear collapses have there been in the past 25 years? Off field, or on?

Never knew this was a problem, I'd be interested to hear the statistics.

Thanx,

BK

Never allowed pax in nose of my B-25 for takeoff/landing for the reasons given....only takes one...

[Jack Cook]

Has in the T-28, the nose gear is the weakest part of the airplane. It would be interesting to hear from YAF on their reasoning behind doing this.
It would take only one person to stop the practice. Thepilot, because his ticket is on the line (along with his house) every time he flies.

[Warbirdnerd]

For what it is worth, I have been intimately with 2 B-25's in the local area, and they never take off or land with anyone in the tail or the nose.
Ferd would not have allowed it...

[airnutz]

While we're looking up the stats on nosegear collapse at take-off, what
are the stats for engine(s)-out at take-off? Get the nose down, attempt to salvage airspeed, and get 'er down in "as single a piece" as possible.

Flat run-off area, trees, or structures in your path..are the cards one
draws in this "hand"....determining the probabilities of survival of those
involved.

As the late great Cecil Kimber(MG racing fame) once chanted....
"Safety Fast!"....

Last edited by airnutz on Sun Oct 17, 2004 9:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Ollie]

In the Aztec, we have the blue line, which is Vref.

If anything happens before we hit it, we put the bird down, doesn't matter where.

If anything happens after, we are go, we go up and come back to land.

On the Focke-Wulf, the nose gear is rather fragile, I tend not to go to a lot of grass strip. I only go to two :

1- Hawkesburry East near Lachute
2- Geneseo, NY.

[HarvardIV]

I was perusing the hyperscale site and came across a article by a fellow who took a ride in the YAF's B-25D "Yankee Warrier". OK story-beautiful airplane. But, (there's always a but!) I was surprised and alarmed at the fact that they allow riders in the nose on take-offs and landings!

Even in WW2 it was common practice to get out of the glass nose on t/o and landing. Nothing new.

[Jack Cook]

The fact that it's standard practice going back to Day One makes me wonder how they came up with this. Except you can charge for another rider. As mentioned in an earlier post we don't allow anyone in the tail of our 25 for T/O or landing either.

Single Engine Safety Speed in B-25 is 145 MPH...little bit lower at lower weights for normal civil ops...rule 1. always follow the numbers...even after 60 odd years Mr. Bernoulli rules...

[jcw]

-1 flight manual states that no occupants in the nose or tail for T/O or landing as these seats are not designed for crash-worthiness.. now that aside if you put a different seat in the nose then that concern gets covered but all the rest are still there. I will never allow anyone in either of these seats on the one i fly as i am way to close to retirement and have no intention of starting over.... as for blue line if you look at some of the early WWII flight manuals for the B25 you will see 140mph as the single engine min control speed but the post war "J" manuals use 145mph this is due to two factors.. one after the war as the acft was turned into a multi engine trainer (ie TB-25J) the gross wieght started going up with all the extra nav and radio gear they were putting on and two, as a trainer they increased the safety margin as a lot of low time pilots would be flying the acft... i played with it once at altitude and the 140 number is real close...it's actually still about 4-5 mph high but the acft becomes a real handfull ... reduce power on the good eng and drop the nose a bit and life is good again.. its always nice to know what an acft will really do