Pitts S-2B crashes at Austrian airshow, pilot killed

[fly_tornado]

https://www.rt.com/news/313845-plane-crash-airshow-austria/

 

this could have been so much worse, scary video

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7bRqX_o7MY

 

 

[Guest asmol]

I dont think there will be anymore airshows in the future. People running events wont get insurance anymore, I think we have seen the last Natfly

 

 

[facthunter]

I wouldn't go that far. Hardly anyone was watching that aircraft, as far as I could see. If you don't perform things at a safe height, it's not safe by definition. The sort of gut wrenching High "G" crankshaft snapping high gyroscopic forces has limited appeal for me. I'm not trying to offend and the competition aspect of it will go on. 4 Harvards can put on a nice display, and I reckon a Grumman Ag cat as well. I'm just wondering how the public view it. I must confess I don't know what the airshow public go there for. I'm not saying it's bad at all. I just don't know . Having fatalities doesn't make it anything positive. either.. At least he wouldn't feel much. Nev

 

 

[naremman]

Happy to go with you on the display qualities of the Harvard Nev. Had the good fortune to see Neil Williams give an aerobatic display with a Harvard at The Shuttleworth Collection in 1976 that I considered peerless in absolute grace, with one flowing manoeuvre seamlessly evolving into the next. Interestingly despite a few runs down the runway at zot feet, not once in the looping plane was the nose pointed at the ground. Whilst the whole display was spectacular, the safety element was a considered zenith of the whole exercise. Neil by that stage had enough frights and scrapes to value not only his own skin, but also those below him. How sad to loose him only a year later, and the aircraft was a long way from an aerobatic plane.

 

In contrast to Neil's display the Rothmans Aerobatic Team with four Pitts followed with a stream take off. The first three alighted in conventional fashion, but the fourth, with a teenage pilot rolled to the inverted pretty well as soon as the wheels left the ground. On achieving the inverted position came the realization that there was not enough rudder authority to maintain runway heading. The memory of that inverted, yawing Pitts clearing the crowd by a just few feet still makes me shudder nearly forty years on. That pilot did not live much longer than Neil, never to make old bones.

 

We all love to see aircraft being displayed well, sometimes to the limit of their capabilities, but we don't like losing our own kind. My flying instructor of old introduced me very early on to the saying: "safety is no accident".

 

 

[facthunter]

I've lost too many mates..... So I'm a bit over this, "everyone makes mistakes and she''ll be right stuff". Incidently the ones I lost were the careful ones. (who usually do much better than the other kind.) Nev

 

 

[Jaba-who]

I dont think there will be anymore airshows in the future. People running events wont get insurance anymore, I think we have seen the last Natfly

What you have to remember is that there is an airshow on somewhere in the world probably almost every day of the year. And in some places ( USA) the air shows have tens of thousands of aircraft flying either in or around. We only hear about the rare events and get this distorted idea that they happen at every air show.

 

Given that this has been how it's been happening for decades and the insurance industry hasn't stopped them yet I think the actuarial pressure can't be that bad.

 

 

[Robbo]

I've lost too many mates..... So I'm a bit over this, "everyone makes mistakes and she''ll be right stuff". Incidently the ones I lost were the careful ones. (who usually do much better than the other kind.) Nev

I was friends with Tom Moon and Pip Boorman and both sadly taken to soon, they were highly experienced to.

 

 

[dutchroll]

You'll probably always be able to get insurance. It's just a matter of by whom and how much.

 

I don't even do airshows, and there are only 2 companies in Australia who will insure my Pitts. The annual premium would make some people faint.

 

 

[Robbo]

Today we see another....

 

http://www.wdrb.com/story/30017291/thunder-over-louisville-pilot-reportedly-killed-in-air-show

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

I dont think there will be anymore airshows in the future. People running events wont get insurance anymore, I think we have seen the last Natfly

Not running Natfly this year had nothing to do with insurance coverage, but everything to do with lack of member attendance and support.