Warbird Information Exchange

As the speed of the airplane increased in the pilotless dive the fire was actually pulled away and somewhat extinguished.

Fire requires three things to result in ignition - fuel, heat and oxygen. In the dive you can assume that one part was removed from the triangle.

But, if he would have slowed down the fire more than likely would have re-ignited and one of three things would have happened.
1) He could have had a structural failure from the intense heat
2) The hopper fuel tank could have ignited
3) Once he got on the ground and slowed down the flames could have ingulfed the airplane and cockpit burning him to death.

That's a really good article.

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There was no fire at the first sign of smoke. That is when it should have been stopped.
Anyway the lesson learned from this is all race planes should have the oil supply not near the engine. And have a manual shut off valve or valves for the supply. I suppose that wouldn't help if scavenge pump/s didn't work and filled the crankcase though. I think he was very lucky getting out. He could have been knocked out doing it then no alttude or anyone to open the chute. I think the gamble was less to land it.
Was it still running when it was burning????????? Can anyone answer this?????

First off these guys are 50 foot of the ground at high power and speed. When they have a mayday the trade airspeed/energy for altitude and get as high as they can, while still trying to make the key for a easy approach back to the runway.

Kevin got a vibration and pulled off the course as his crew also told him he had smoke. Before he even gained much alitude, he was on fire. These guys want to get as much power from these engines as possible while trying to return to land, not just shut them down, at least not until they have the runway made.

Kevin pulled off and began burning pretty good and the safety pilot and his own crew were telling him to bail out. He did the right thing getting out when he did.

His ankle was stuck in the floor area and the wind eventually pulled him out where he hit the horizontal stab and aside from breaking his neck he was also knocked unconscious for a little bit. He did not pull the rip cord knowingly, but somehow it got pulled thankfully.

He was knocked out upon exiting the aircraft and didn't know how the chute had deployed. He woke up on the way down and reached for the D-ring and couldn't find it. It is now theorized that the D-ring caught on something as he was exiting and the chute pulled him out of the aircraft. They never did find his helmet which was knocked off of his head presumably by the horizontal stabilizer. The chute was aslo burned as I recall and some of the stitching had failed due to the high speed deployment.

The pilot suffered a concussion, a broken arm, leg and neck.

WOW, exact same time of posting with almost the same information.

To add to it, Kevin did what was right in this instance. Shutting down the engine at first sign of trouble and he would have probably crashed in the desert with him still in the cockpit. And probably a bad outcome.

Trying to land while still on fire like that was a death sentance for sure.

He must have had an angel watching him that day.

Now that is one of the funniest things I have ever read engguy.
Kevin was right to get out. As far as angels go, he did have to wear a halo for quite some time due to the broken neck. It sure didn't keep him away from POF though.

Les

Anyway, I saw more smoke after the pilot bailed and no flame. So it's possible the fire was out after he got out.

Not to add fuel to the fire, or smoke, but maybe he couldv'e dove the plane, then see if the fire was out. If not, climb again and then bail out. Kind of a strategy, but maybe there was no time to come up with one..

The fire triangle my friend......think about it......the airplane dove at VERY high speed......and removed one of the three

slow it down and the fire comes back

Kevin did the right thing in bailing

how about everyone who does not understand aircraft, in-flight fire and pilot thought processes quit being an armchair pilot

Yes the fire triangle: Heat, fuel and oxygen. He removed the heat by diving, and the heat was gone.





Right, so just read the post, and let me talk.

I am a pilot, haven't done it in awhile though.

IMHO, with the Corsair that has that large bag of fuel between you and the source of the flames the best and least risky course of action in this situation was to get out.

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I have to say that this whole post is rather amusing, with all the Monday-morning quarterbacking.

In any warbird, and particularly in a race situation, that develops an emergency, the pilot is hopefully going to follow the (carefully thought out and agreed upon) SOP for the situation.

If the engine fails, unlimited racers are thoroughly briefed to get altitude while they can. Even if the recovery goes swimmingly, those guys have 30-40 seconds, tops to make the runway before they are eating desert. The engine stays running as long as it safely can be operated. If it catches on fire, either the pilot or the ground crew can call for bailout. There is no second guessing. There is no "dive and hope the fire goes out, and if it doesn't work zoom for bailout" in 400gph, 160-octane racers with a glide ratio of a brick.

About ten years ago, I was pax in a T-28 that lost a jug, and while the PIC had the aircraft fully under control, we would have left the airplane if it had caught on fire. This was pre-briefed, and during the incident the procedure was emphatically restated. Fortunately, we got on the ground before the oil supply was exhausted.