Posted on 04/22/2019 2:20:18 PM PDT by hattend
Authorities are responding to a plane crash in the prison yard of a facility in Riverside County, according to preliminary information from the Federal Aviation Administration.
About 12:10 p.m., the Riverside County Sheriff's Department received reports of an "air emergency" along the 1900 block of 4th Street in Norco.
Only the pilot was in the Northrop N9M when it crashed, the FAA said in an email to KTLA, citing local authorities.
No injuries were reported on the ground, but the aircraft "sustained substantial damage," the FAA said.
Aerial video from Sky5 showed charred ground where the plane appears to have crashed. Remnants of a wheel could be seen.
No further details about the incident were released, but the Sheriff's Department tweeted that the National Transportation Safety Board will be investigating.
Now with 3D metal printing it should be possible to build replica aircraft with modern improvements for safety’s sake.
Efficient design. . .and many decades ago some thought went into designing such and aircraft for airline use.
Problem was, after they discussed and thought about it, it dawned on them that unless you are sitting near the center-line of the aircraft, when the aircraft turned, people sitting farthest from the center-line would ride up-and-down like a roller coaster. Yuck.
The problem is that it is very CG sensitive; making it very pitch unstable. Scaling up helps. A fancy computer helps more.
You annie and the original Tards seen that one one fly
I’m certain that this is the very plane that I saw at Chino Field. Theres got to be only a handful still flying.
There was only 1 left. It crashed today.
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Charles Grodin in Midnight Run:
https://youtu.be/sBxPJe1nk-0?t=91
Oh no.
That is (was) the coolest plane at the Norco Air Museum.
Nice story.
https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2019/apr/22/two-del-norte-county-residents-named-victims-fatal/
I guess you’ll have to copy and paste
Thanks, but just not the same as being there.
From your link In #52, look at the size of that first class movie set. Lol. You could hold a ballroom dance in there. I imagine the size was exaggerated for the movie, because I flew first class in the 70s and it was never THAT large on a 747. But what’s really funny is to compare that to the room you have on an airliner today.
The USAF/Northrop YB-49 heavy bomber prototype first flew in October of 1947. The aircraft was a jet-powered derivative of the propeller-driven XB-35. Both of these legendary aircraft were flying wing designs pioneered by visionary aircraft designer Jack Northrop.
Traditionally, interest in a flying wing aircraft stems from its inherently-high lift, low drag and hence high lift-to-drag ratio characteristics. These attributes make a flying wing ideal for the strategic bombing mission where large payloads must be carried long distances to the target. In addition, the type’s low profile and swept wings contributed to its low radar cross-section.
The same configurational features that give flying wing aircraft favorable performance also present stability and control issues and adverse handling qualities. The lack of a traditional empenage requires that all flight controls be placed on the wing itself. This leads to significant aerodynamic coupling that affects aircraft pitch, yaw and roll motion.
The YB-49 had a wing span of 172 feet, a length of 53 feet and a height of 15 feet. Gross take-off weight was approximately 194,000 lbs. Fuel accounted for roughly 106,000 lbs of that total. Power was supplied by eight (8) Allison/General Electric J35-A-5 turbojets. Each of these early-generation powerplants was rated at a mere 4,000 lbs of sea level thrust.
The YB-49 design performance included a maximum speed of 495 mph, a service ceiling of 45,700 feet and a maximum range of 8,668 nautical miles. The aircraft was designed to carry a maximum bomb load of 32,000 lbs. The strategic bombing mission would be flown by a crew of seven (7) including pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier and gunners.
A pair of XB-35 airframes were modified to the YB-49 configuration. Ship No. 1 (S/N 42-102367) first took to the air on Tuesday, 21 October 1947. The maiden flight of Ship No. 2 (S/N 42-102368) occurred on Tuesday, 13 January 1948. Both flights originated from Hawthorne Airport and recovered at Muroc Air Force Base.
Flight testing of the YB-49 quickly confirmed the type’s performance promise. Demonstrated performance included a top speed of 520 mph and a maximum altitude of 42,000 feet. On Monday, April 26, 1948. On that date, the aircraft remained aloft for 9.5 hours, of which 6.5 hours were flown at an altitude of 40,000 feet.
The low point in YB-49 flight testing came on Saturday, 05 June 1948. On that fateful day, YB-49 Ship No. 2 crashed to destruction in the Mojave Desert northwest of Muroc Air Force Base. The entire crew of five (5) perished in the mishap. These crew members included Major Daniel N. Forbes (pilot), Captain Glen W. Edwards (co-pilot), Lt. Edward L. Swindell (flight engineer), Clare E. Lesser (observer) and Charles H. LaFountain (observer).
The cause of the YB-49 mishap was never fully determined. In descending from 40,000 feet following a test mission, the aircraft somehow exceeded its structural limit. The outer wing panels failed and the rest of the aircraft tumbled out of control, struck the ground inverted and immediately fireballed. Whether the incident was related to wing stall, spin or some such other flight control issue will never be definitively known.
YB-49 Ship No. 1 continued to fly after the loss of its stable mate. However, it too met an unkind fate. On Wednesday, 15 March 1950, the aircraft was declared a total loss following a non-fatal high-speed taxiing mishap. Several months later, all of Northrop’s flying wing contracts with the government were unexpectedly cancelled. Incredibly, the Wizards of the Beltway ultimately ordered that all Northrop-produced flying wing variants be cut-up for scrap.
Despite its performance, the YB-49 was too far ahead of its time. The aircraft did not exhibit good handling qualities and thus was not a good bombing platform. It needed the type of computer-based, multiply-redundant autopilot that is standard equipment on today’s aircraft.
Happily, the performance merits of the flying wing concept would be fully exploited with the introduction of the USAF/Northrop B-2 Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB). This aircraft first flew on Monday, 17 July 1989. Its subsequent success is now history. A host of new technologies converged to finally made the flying wing concept viable. Not the least of which is the aircraft’s multiply-redundant flight control system.
Finally, we note that 30-year old Captain Glen W. Edwards was a rising star in military flight test circles at the time of his death. In tribute to his aviation skills and in memory of a life cut short, Muroc Air Force Base was officially renamed on Tuesday, 05 December 1950. Since that day, it has been known as Edwards Air Force Base.
Blackbird Down
Normally SR-71 pilots weren’t a chatty bunch, but I could hear the anxiety in the voice of this one.
In 1972, more than 50,000 troops were stationed throughout 32 U.S. military bases in Okinawa, Japan. Kadena Air Base, with two 12,100-foot runways, was their gateway to Southeast Asia.
In the wake of the Quang Tri massacre, which occurred when North Vietnamese forces captured that South Vietnamese provincial capital, Kadena’s activity level was balls to the wall. As an aircraft maintenance technician there, you did as much as you could as fast as you could for as long as you could. And sleep? You got it when and where you could.
Kadena’s parallel runways divided the base. My outfit, Military Airlift Command, was on one side. The other side was used by Tactical Air Command and Strategic Air Command. MAC “turned”—refueled and, if needed, repaired—the C-141s and C-5s that were hauling supplies into and out of the Vietnam theater. Lots of ammo went in. Lots of bodies came out. Most returning flights carried a few. Randomly an aircraft would have just one, or none. But I saw airplanes full of caskets, and you never forget that.
On the other side of the runways, SAC launched tankers in support of the B-52s en route from Guam to Vietnam. In those days the tankers still had loud turbojet engines that produced gobs of smoke, made worse by the 630-gallon water injections each KC-135 used on takeoff, creating a two-mile cloud of black fog trailing each flight. During the 1972-1973 “Christmas bombing” of Hanoi, the tankers would take off from Kadena in four flights of four: Sixteen KC-135s at a time, packed tight. You’d have to have seen it to believe it.
Amid all that activity, occasionally a quiet would descend on the base: An SR-71 Blackbird was about to appear. Kadena and the airspace around it had to be secure. The spyplanes were housed in four hangars in the SAC area and never parked outside for the rest of the world to see.
To launch, the SR-71 would start its engines inside the hangar and, flanked by an entourage of trucks, creep its way to the end of the runway. After final prep and checks at the runway’s threshold, the trucks would back off. Then this quiet, purring monster would let out a roar that seemed to drown out the world, then shoot down the runway as if it were fired from a gun. Lifting its nose to a 45-degree angle, it would disappear from view in less than 10 seconds. I witnessed dozens of launches, every one of them as spellbinding as the first.
An SR-71 coming in to land was another show entirely. Upon touchdown the nose would stay pointed in the air for a long time. Eventually, a giant orange drag chute would emerge and, at least 25 yards behind the airplane, fill out with dreamlike languor. Only then would the nose gear descend gently to the surface.
On the afternoon of July 20, 1972, I was in my maintenance truck, eavesdropping on the tower frequency. Word had gotten around that an SR-71 would be landing soon. Normally the Blackbird pilots weren’t a chatty bunch, but I could hear the anxiety in the voice of this one.
I heard the tower warn him of a 90-degrees-to-the-runway crosswind of 35 knots gusting to 50 knots—a typhoon was on its way. I could’ve sworn I heard the tower advise him to consider an alternate airport. But landing anywhere else was out of the question. The SR-71 wouldn’t have had the fuel, and everyone understood without discussion that the brass wanted that airplane on the ground and out of sight as quickly as possible.
I sought out a good vantage point to observe the landing: a small concrete building, which housed fuel pumps, about 50 yards from the runway the SR-71 was headed for. I climbed to the roof and settled in. I could see the landing lights before I could make out the airplane, perfectly lined up with the runway, three or four miles out. I couldn’t have been more focused if I were landing the damn thing myself.
The main landing gear touched down, and despite the hellish crosswinds, the fuselage was aligned perfectly with the runway’s centerline. It looked like the pilot was going to pull off a picture-perfect landing. But as soon as he deployed his drag chute, a wind gust blew it to port. I watched the nose shift to starboard.
Then one of the left main landing gear tires exploded.
The pilot jettisoned the chute, poured the coals to the burner, and rotated away from the runway, climbing back into the sky to circle around.
I remember thinking, What the hell is he gonna do now? No drag chute. Blown tire. And a monster crosswind, increasing by the minute. Fortunately, an incoming or outgoing SR-71 had the entire base to itself.
The pilot made a second approach, dumping fuel the entire length of the runway, then came back around for his final.
As he touched down, a fireball engulfed the left landing gear. The airplane kept rolling, nose still high in the air, and then the right gear tires blew. The Blackbird skidded past me like that, nose up and tires on fire, for four or five seconds. When the left gear collapsed and the wing struck the runway, the left engine exploded and debris flew high into the air. The entire airframe began to spin, still traveling down the runway at probably 150 mph, and finally the right gear buckled.
The flaming wreck continued sliding down the runway, still on the centerline, until it finally drifted off to the left, into the grass. It came to rest about two-thirds of the way down the runway, about 4,000 feet from where I stood watching, jaw agape.
I watched the pilot and reconnaissance system operator in their bright orange flight suits leap from the remnants of their aircraft and run from it as fast as they could. I jumped down from the building and several of us started running toward them, but a fire truck and a base security car cut us off. The officer in the car ordered us to stay back. (The pilot, Captain Dennis K. Bush, and the reconnaissance systems officer, Captain James W. Fagg, escaped without injury.)
Five hours later, the typhoon was upon us. Nothing moved at Kadena for three days. Once the weather returned to normal, a recovery crew began trying to lift the top-secret wreckage onto the back of a flatbed truck with a giant crane. The earth was so saturated that instead of the airplane coming up, the crane sank into the mud.
About a month later, I saw the fuselage being loaded into a C-5 headed Stateside. Forty-three years later, I still don’t understand why getting that SR-71 inside while a typhoon was bearing down on us was so important. But those decisions were made far above my rank.
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