Posted on 11/12/2022 12:11:57 PM PST by janetjanet998
Joining you in those prayers.
The rate of closure of the smaller aircraft would indicate it needed to either an underrun or overrun due to an excessive rate of closure.
When conducting such a maneuver, the plane closing needs to either gain or lose altitude. (underrun is safer because the closing pilot can see the other aircraft at all times)
Judging by his bank angle, he most likely lost sight of the B-17 due to his bank angle.
Was that a P51 coming around to fly in formation?
I know.
I was out in AZ when they were still Confed and still HQ there. Very cool watching them prep a B17 up close.
The Confederate Air Force used to have paratroops and Field Marshal Montgomery became a member in I think, 1957 (I used to have a newspaper clipping).
Ah!
Very nice.
I used to work for a privately owned company that had an R&D department with a lot of cool machine tools. Owner allowed R&D guys to machine parts for the planes of the CAF. First I’d heard of the CAF.
It is very likely not suicide. It is much more likely:
1) GLOC with the P-51 pilot
2) Loss of situational awareness by the P-51 pilot losing visual on the B-17 during the pursuit curve.
3) A medical emergency with the P-51 pilot rendering him unable to control the plane.
In any case it is a tragedy on the personal level for families of all involved and the loss of a national treasure. We have lost two B-17s in recent years. Not that many flyables left.
I took my son up in one a few years back. There was little in the way of safety. A month later the same B-17 crashed in Hartford and killed everyone aboard. I’m a pilot and I own a 1943 T-6 SNJ… I think they should find another way to raise money besides selling seats. There were undoubtedly passengers on the B-17.
Tragic. Prayers up for all involved.
The shape of the fighter's wing looks like maybe a Spitfire rather than a P-51. Difficult to tell.
And there you have it, WWII fighter planes are as blurry as UFOs, even with modern video gear.
Confederate AF! LOL Sure wish it still was.
Someone else tagged it as some Texas thing.
——
The CAF used to have its home in Between Midland and Odessa Texas. The political correct folks decided to change “ Confederate” to “Commemorative”,.
The scumbags who started running the place ignored the deal they made with the powers that be (all kinds of perks given for them to be in Midland), and just had to move it to Dallas.
Unless you are familiar with airshows your opinion is totally out of line.
Hey, FM, the fighter was a Bell P-63. That looks like it should have really a good forward view, even downward. The nose is very slender ant the pilot is way ahead of the leading edge.
It turns out to be a Bell P-63.
Bad luck to change the name
There were only 4 left flying some 20 years ago when I toured the “909” which itself crashed and burned a while back.
“No, his nose was up to turn and it obscured his line of sight. He probably saw him earlier, but lost him or was looking for the other plane.”
I agree. Looks like he was starting a bank and lost his line of sight with a rapid closing speed. Some other comments about suicide don’t make sense at all. Why would the pilot take others with him?
Correction on fighter type, it was a P-63 Kingcobra. That plane has more restricted visibility than a P-51. There is a door for entry on the left side and both sides of the canopy have an arch frame directly to the pilot’s right and left.
I've flown on a B-17 several times (not this one) as a volunteer, and learned what I could not know from just photos and movies. The fuselage is so narrow that facing forward, you can touch both sides at once. The catwalk over the bomb bay is like an aluminum tightrope, you stabilize yourself with at least one hand. And, the bomb bay is not high capacity.
As for the observations above that the collision might have been intentional? Extremely unlikely. In a climbing turn, the engine cowling and the upward wing ( in a low wing aircraft) can be great maskers of potential collisions.
pointy wings, I thought it might be a spitfire, a P-51 has square tipped wing tips
It’s not hard to lose sight during a turning rejoin. This is a fundamental formation skill taught very early in military pilot training. You remain below the aircraft you are rejoining on so if you can’t control your rate of closure, you can roll wings level and pass below the airplane you are trying to rejoin on. If you roll into more bank to try to slow your closure, you lose sight of the airplane you are closing on. The P-63 pilot in this case most likely lost sight of the B-17. If he knew it was there, he should have rolled wings level and pushed his nose over. Instead, he kept his bank until impact.
I don’t know who was flying the P-63 or what his background was. But he screwed up. Flying high performance aircraft near each other takes professional skill. It’s awesome seeing classic aircraft in flight, but the warbird community needs to knock this stuff off. There aren’t enough airplanes left to lose them to stupid mistakes.
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