An airshow story about a Canadian

[JW Scud]

Maybe the Colonel knows some of these people in the story,

https://www.buzzfeed.com/suzannecope/up ... -wingwalke

[Colonel]

Thanks.  I’ve known Carole for years - she wanted me
to fly her Stearman.

MarcusP and BillyG are dead now of course,
as well as Charlie Schwenker and Jane Wicker
and of course Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin
at Moose Jaw, and Amanda Franklin.

Scares the shit out of me, when pilots far better
than I die.  Not much hope for the rest of us, so
we might as well enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.

[JW Scud]

What mistake did Marcus make that we can learn from?



Found out on this video. Didn't account for the higher density altitude. But wasn't it too risky even if the conditions were as they were the previous day?

[Colonel]

Top Gate.

http://www.pittspecials.com/articles/aerobatics_low.htm

[JW Scud]

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=9554.msg27266#msg27266 date=1553204348]
Top Gate.

http://www.pittspecials.com/articles/aerobatics_low.htm
[/quote]

The question is, how much do you adjust your top gate for different density altitudes. Lets say you accept an airshow out in Denver. Now what? Do you figure this out yourself over the years and make notes. Make a guess if you have an airshow in Denver but have always done airshows in the east?

[Colonel]

That’s what Friday practice days are for :)

Try the routine at 2000 AGL and see how your
new numbers work - if you blow your exit altitude,
you don't hit the ground and you know what change
to make.

You start with top gate, then after a while, you learn
about entry gates, to make the top gate.

[JW Scud]

Good info. The only thing is, the weather on Friday may be poor. I suppose one just has to fly more conservatively if they don't get a practice flight in. It seemed like Marcus had done the same thing the day before in this case.

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=9554.msg27263#msg27263 date=1553199000]
MarcusP and BillyG are dead now of course,
as well as Charlie Schwenker and Jane Wicker
and of course Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin
at Moose Jaw, and Amanda Franklin..
[/quote]

I said to myself a long time ago that Jimmy Franklin was going to kill himself based on what I saw. He ended up in a midair collision in Saskatoon and I figured that it was something different than what I expected. But in the interviwew with Carole Pilon, I discovered that she was married to him. The article stated [u][b]" she and Jimmy Franklin divorced, in part because she was not comfortable with the routine they were doing. Franklin died in a midair collision with longtime friend and collaborator Bobby Younkin during an air show in 2005 while performing his act “Masters of Disaster,” which included jet-propelled trucks and pyrotechnics. "I tried very hard to convince him to abandon it," Pilon said. "And I’m glad that I did. Because that routine we were doing eventually killed him.”"[/b][/u] So I guess it was overly risky. I think you mentioned that once in the past.

Who is Billy G and what happened to him?

[Colonel]

Billy Gordon was my friend.  I met him through Freddy, who was one of my best
friends and one of the most incredible people you could ever meet.

[img width=500 height=373][/img]

BillyG and the other Billy flew a couple of six cylinder Eagles in a long-running
formation aerobatic airshow act.  BillyG was lead, BillyS was wing.  They were
really good, until BillyS's wife shut his flying down.

http://www.aero-pix.com/civilian/iepage.htm

He was kind of a scary looking guy, but he was really nice to me.  We flew together,
and fixed airplanes together.  We both loved biplanes - both of our grandfathers
flew in War One.  I would fly wing on him anywhere.  Once, with no radio and one
magneto, but that's a story for later.

http://airshowstuff.com/v4/2016/pilot-b ... son-river/

Very, very good pilot and even better mechanic.  Better than me, in both regards.

That old P-47 fucked him.  Very high level of risk, that he assumed, flying that antique
but he was no stranger to antiques.  He was Chief Pilot and Chief Mechanic at Old
Rhinebeck.

[img width=500 height=392][/img]

BillyG and GaryW flying formation on me in the S-2C.  Both great sticks.  What GaryW
routinely does would scare the shit out of you.  I remember once, many years ago, he
was flying his G-202 and he would point it at the ground, throttle wide open, and he
would pull incredible G to the vertical upline, and his tailwheel would drag through
the weeds.  Do you have any idea what skill that requires?

[Colonel]

Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin were both incredible pilots.  Especially
Bobby - he was a supernaturally good stick & rudder pilot.  It was humbling
to watch him fly.  Anything.

However, they routinely accepted a level of risk so incredibly high, it would
send any normal person screaming for the door.

What killed them at Moose Jaw was that they were flying two biplanes in
out of visual formation.

Lessons are written in blood.  Youngsters today refuse to learn from that
extremely expensive lesson.  You do NOT fly out of visual formation.  Ever.

That level of risk is simply insanely high.  I don't care how good you are,
you cannot survive repeated exposure to that ridiculously high level of risk.

One of the best wingmen I ever saw fly - in some really shitty CAP 10B's
died in a "belly to belly" hammerhead, and that was the end of the "French
Connection".



Again, the lesson is paid for and written in blood:

[u]NO OUT OF VISUAL FORMATION[/u]



And that, children, is what death looks like.  A repeat of Pax River.

Wing always, always has lead in sight.  If wing loses sight of the lead, he
calls "blind blind blind" and separates as per protocol which covers every
instant of the sequence.

I have my own rules, that I live and fly by.  I know these rules, because they
have been written in the blood of better pilots than I during the last century.

Youngsters these days are insistent upon ignoring the lessons of history
and relearning them, because they don't give a shit about safety.

BTW, are you writing a book or something?  Because no one gives a shit
about this ancient history of old, dead men.

[Colonel]

Food for thought:  why is Skip Stewart still alive, and Jim Leroy is not?

Both exceptionally skilled pilots.  Fearless.  Again, they routinely accept
levels of risk that no normal person would ever accept once.



Do you realize what Jim just did there?

All the good guys die, because sooner or later, the repeated exposure to
insanely high levels of risk, catches up.