Plane lands on highway in TN....pilot killed

[erj-145mech]

There's a difference between seeing an aircraft fly and watching a movie of an airplane flying. Watching the fire and smoke breathing machine spring to life and feeling the vibrations in your torso is as much a part of flight as the visual image.

I love the smell of burnt sixty wieght in the morning. Nothing smells like an R-2800 firing up. You don't get that in a museum or a big screen.

I personally know 50-60 C A F pilots, and other vintage aircraft pilots, and each one has a job to go to, mortgage and car notes, and are just working stiffs. They consider themselves "rich" because of what they get to do on weekends. They fly airliners, fix airplanes, sell insurance, work in offices, are retired from some mundane everyday job, but they all look forward to the weekend when they can do something that they love.

Beleive it or not, aviation is more than showing up at an airport, taking your shoes off at a TSA checkpoint, throwing your travel pro into the bin and doing a walk-around. There is more to the joys of flight than moving 150 people to their destinations.

I'm glad that the Skylines in this country are few and far between. The romance of aviation is not dead in most aviators.

 

[NJA Capt]

I have never seen a Hellcat in person.

I have never seen an avenger either.

Usually the pilots are low time millionaires

Skyline

You must not go to too many air shows. I have seen plenty of TBMs and even seen a very nice Hellcat. There are approx 5 "flyable" P51s within 100nm of my house. Most are flown by former/current airline pilots. Nothing beats the sound of a P51 flying over....as it should be. Not collecting dust in some museum. What took the toll on the warbirds was not the "rich guys." It was the rich guys that thought it would be "cool" to take the Merlin engines and put them in the racing boats…which would be sunk in rivers and lakes around the world. Or the guys that butcher up perfectly good fighters so they can race around in the desert (something we never see on the east coast).

Or perhaps the years of using PBYs, B17s, TBMs A26s, T6s, PV2s, etc as fire bombers/spotters.

When compared to the risky behavior above, the "rich guy" maintaining a flyable example and flying it A to B so others can see it at a show is pretty "low risk."

Keep'em Flying!!!! But don't scud run through the mountains....(hopefully that is not what he was doing )

 

[USMCmech]

Usually the pilots are low time millionaires who can afford more plane than they can Handel.

Not true.

Getting an LOA for one of these warbirds is not an easy task. The CAF has VERY stringent rules about who gets to fly them. Most of the members of the CAF squadron that I visit sometimes are average working pilots and mechs.

The millionare part may be true, but if it wern't for them NOBODY would be able to see ANY of these classics. They would all be scrap metal by now. Running these machines is extreamly expensive, and it takes a lot of money and time to do.


Despite these ocasional crashes, the number of flyable warbirds has increased steadily over recent years.

 

[mtrv]

National Heratage

Usually the pilots are low time millionaires who can afford more plane than they can Handel.Skyline

Considering I actually know many pilots who fly WWII restored aircraft, as well as those who restore them

I can say as fact, that most are anything but low time! The majority are present/ex commercial, military, or perhaps spent a good part of their life crop dusting.

And, has already been said-----------------
NOTHING beats the sound of Merlin powered P-51 flying overhead!!!!!!!

 

[Skyline]

Well

Warbird

Low time or not they do have an impressive crash record. I mean two or three get destroyed every year. It is almost a given that within a few hundred hours of restoration it will end up as a pile of ashes. It is a crime. We are robbing future generations of what rightfully belongs to all of us. I don't need to see them fly to know they can. I also don't need to fly it myself and shoot down a zero just to have a WW2 experience. Twenty years from now after the CAF has crashed their last DC3 we will all realize what we have lost. It will be a shame to have to buy a fist full of airline tickets and cross the country a dozen times to view the last remaining example of whatever is left. I think it is a selfish waste and I hope it stops soon.

Skyline

 

[Spooky 1]

National Heratage

At the rate these things are getting stacked up it will only be a short time before they are all gone. I have never seen a Hellcat in person. It would a sad sad day if we were down to one. I have never seen an avenger either. Two years or so ago two guys crashed a one of a kind Hinkel in WY. Usually the pilots are low time millionaires who can afford more plane than they can Handel. To me it would be like burning down historical buildings because we wanted to see how the old fireplaces worked. I know they can fly. There is plenty of movie footage of that. I also know that they can crash and we are building up a growing inventory of movies of how well rare old planes can burn at airshows. We are past the point of having to save them from the scrap heap now we need to save then from their saviors. I think it would be a crime to let them all be destroyed one at a time. Even though they are privately owned these relics are a national treasure and should be protected like historical buildings.

Skyline

Ah Skyline, you are a piece of work. I really know squat about warbirds but my boss has an active program restoring any number of extremely rare machines, some of which I haven't even heard of before. What would you expect him to think if the goverment came in and said words to the effect, your grounded. None of these aircraft will ever fly again. I think in spite of his keen interest in the history of these aircraft, all future projects would come to a halt overnight and we would all miss out on this part of aviation history. In my bosses case, they restore aircraft to flting condition, not just static display. This is a big and very expensive program and I would say if it were not for the multi-millionaires or billionaires, nothing would be happening today in this field. the dollars are just to big.

As for the pilots who fly these aircraft, at least in the case of his P51, Upupaepops there are only two pilots who have ever flown the airplane other than the production pilot at NA when it was brand new. They are the pilot who flew in active duty (9 German aircraft destroyed) who by the way is still living and very active albeit no longer a pilot and now Steve Hinton, certainly not an amature or rich kid.

It is a tragedy when we lose one of the airplanes due to an accident, but they were losing everyday when they were brand new. Sadly nothing has changed.

 

[enigma]

Considering I actually know many pilots who fly WWII restored aircraft, as well as those who restore them

I can say as fact, that most are anything but low time! The majority are present/ex commercial, military, or perhaps spent a good part of their life crop dusting.

And, has already been said-----------------
NOTHING beats the sound of Merlin powered P-51 flying overhead!!!!!!!

WRONG, two merlins beats it!

I'll never forget walking the beach at Santa Monica one day in the late ninetys when a P51 flew over with a Spitfire in close trail. What a sound.

I love round motors, but I've got to admit that nothing sounds as fine as a Merlin, or two, or three

enigma

 

[Skyline]

Spooky 1

Spooky 1,

As mentioned in a previous post I don't care who flys them they still crash on a regular basis. If it were up to me they would be declared national monuments and grounded. The government does that kind of thing to houses, why not planes?

You to must admit that every time one of those irreplaceable pieces of history is reduced to ashes it is a sad loss. You probably would agree that they are not making anymore and therefore logic would dictate that in short order they will be all gone. I would prefer that we keep them safe myself. I think it is a selfish act for us to risk such a valuable historical relic.

Get upset if you wish but it is just my opinion. You are not at risk of loosing your airshow fun. Contrary to popular belief I don't have any real power.

Skyline

 

[Bryan D]

Not true.

Getting an LOA for one of these warbirds is not an easy task. The CAF has VERY stringent rules about who gets to fly them. Most of the members of the CAF squadron that I visit sometimes are average working pilots and mechs.

I was wondering about this so I did a little research on the F6F pilot that crashed day before yesterday in Tennessee. Art Vance, former airline pilot, ~12,000 hrs as I recall, was a regular at Reno air races as a pilot, owns a
P-51 "Speedball Alice", has been with "Planes of Fame" a number of years, several thousand hours in warbirds. You get the picture, this guy was an accomplished pilot. Scud running seems out of character for this type of pilot. Then again, it seems like every time one of these old war birds looses power it almost always results in a crash. They must glide like a brick.

 

[NookyBooky]

Spooky 1,

As mentioned in a previous post I don't care who flys them they still crash on a regular basis. If it were up to me they would be declared national monuments and grounded. The government does that kind of thing to houses, why not planes?

You to must admit that every time one of those irreplaceable pieces of history is reduced to ashes it is a sad loss. You probably would agree that they are not making anymore and therefore logic would dictate that in short order they will be all gone. I would prefer that we keep them safe myself. I think it is a selfish act for us to risk such a valuable historical relic.

Get upset if you wish but it is just my opinion. You are not at risk of loosing your airshow fun. Contrary to popular belief I don't have any real power.

Skyline

You’re missing the point completely. The warbird population has been increasing steadily since the sixties. Why? Because of the very people you are blaming for the demise of our national heritage. Warbird enthusiasts with strong financial resources have been spending millions upon millions to locate and recover absolute wrecks in the middle of jungles, on the bottom of lakes in Europe, under hundreds of feet of glacier ice in Greenland, and from junkyards in third world countries only to spend several more million to restore those planes which, at the very most, have a market value of one to two million. Like I said, you are missing the point completely. I’ve seen at least a dozen warbirds reborn over the last several years; many, if not most, were unrecognizable heaps of twisted metal when they arrived back on US soil after over half a century rotting somewhere far away from home.

There are many, many projects under way to restore even the rarest of birds. Expeditions to search for wrecks in far-off places have been increasing steadily as the readily available projects have become less common. As hard as it may be to believe, the warbird population will continue to grow for at least a couple more decades.

However, I would venture to guess that eventually you will get your wish. As all the spare parts are used up to create new warbirds, the only warbirds that will leave the ground are those owned by people with the money to produce their own replacement parts.

That being said, I think we have all missed the point when we were sidetracked into this argument about the fate of these beautiful hunks of aluminum. The fact is a great man, who was also a great pilot, is dead. And unlike planes, he can’t be patched up or rebuilt. When it comes down to it, planes are just hunks of metal.




NB

 

[NookyBooky]

I Art Vance, former airline pilot, ~12,000 hrs as I recall, was a regular at Reno air races as a pilot, owns a P-51 "Speedball Alice", has been with "Planes of Fame" a number of years, several thousand hours in warbirds.

Actually, he was the President of the Unlimited Class for the Reno Air Racing Association. You're right-he was no rookie.

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

Yes, keep'em flyin'. If anything, to help keep history alive.
F4 (Kentucky) Wildcat

 

[Fury220]

Spooky 1,

As mentioned in a previous post I don't care who flys them they still crash on a regular basis. If it were up to me they would be declared national monuments and grounded. The government does that kind of thing to houses, why not planes?

You to must admit that every time one of those irreplaceable pieces of history is reduced to ashes it is a sad loss. You probably would agree that they are not making anymore and therefore logic would dictate that in short order they will be all gone. I would prefer that we keep them safe myself. I think it is a selfish act for us to risk such a valuable historical relic.

Get upset if you wish but it is just my opinion. You are not at risk of loosing your airshow fun. Contrary to popular belief I don't have any real power.

Skyline

Warbirds should be flown. Seeing a warbird grounded makes me sad for the same reason that seeing a lion in a cage makes me sad. Neither is doing what it was meant to do.

 

[Skyline]

Warbirds

Warbirds were meant to kill and to be killed, so I guess they are fulfilling their mission.

Will no one acknowledge the fact that we are loosing them at an alarming rate? Once they are gone it's over.

How sad will you be when the last one augers in? It is short sighted and selfish to fly these things. We are bringing an end to the entire fleet one at a time. I think it is a selfish crime.

It makes me sad every time I read another article about a smoking hole that was a rare piece of history. You guys are like loggers. They are not happy until the last tree is down. They never stop to realize that they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Greedily killing the one thing they love most one at a time.

Skyline

 

[erj-145mech]

Warbirds were meant to kill and to be killed, so I guess they are fulfilling their mission.


Skyline

So, you're saying its the airplanes fault?