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Air Show Crash
- Thread starter Urblock
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Obviously a terrible tragedy.
Maybe stop flying B-17s from WW2.
Just an idea.
Maybe stop flying B-17s from WW2.
Just an idea.
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My brother was there and flies a b-17. His plane was up next. I have always told him it doesn’t matter how good a pilot he is, it doesn’t matter if someone up there flying near him isn’t a good pilot
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Or just old planes that don't handle unstable airflows as well as modern/smaller aircraft.
Seems like an order of magnitude more dangerous than flying contemporary craft.
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Uh, most planes won't survive another plane landing on them.
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Yeah, I was quite obviously not referencing this crash, but the general dangers of flying a B-17 compared to modern aircraft.
You okay?
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It wasn't as obvious to me, so sorry. I thought you were implying this plane crashed due to it being a B-17 and not because another plane landed on it.
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a lot of pilots like my brother do this when off duty, and it helped him and them a lot when they were furloughed during the pandemic and not even sure if they would be laid off depending on their seniority/years of service at their main jobs. Yeah, shit happens, but it is sad. My brother knew the b-17 crew and the p-63 pilot; it’s a small community. I still tell him not to do air shows any more now that he has a kid
cameronkrazie86
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My favorite teams
Sorry for his losses!! Very sad to hear.
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Thanks. He’s lucky (and fine) but spent most of the weekend with the family of the b-17’s pilot helping out. He knows the risks but it still sucks
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Me and Maggie Raptor have been thinking about plane crashes and we decided that we're AGAINST them.
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I took private pilot lessons at a local podunk airport and I was stunned at the amount of ancient planes in daily use and on the sale board.
My instructor chuckled and said most people are fairly shocked at the age of the average plane.
Then he pointed out that it isnt just small planes- he said check for ashtrays on your next commercial flight- it has been over 30 years since smoking has been allowed on planes, but most planes still have ashtrays- that tells you how long planes stay in service.
..and those are ones in daily rotation.
I would guess those planes have tens of thousands of hours more wear and tear than the old classic show planes.
I think the safety issues on old planes are more maintenance standards than design.
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I would simply argue, as I have, they are an order of magnitude more risky to fly because of their age/design.
The larger the plane, the bigger/more engines it has, the more difficult it is to control.
Older plane, older instruments, older controls, older engines.
I am not saying ban flying them, just advocating for some risk aversion on the part of the pilots.
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They rehearse and choreograph these bomber parades, and when you have 6-8 planes flying in formation, things can go wrong.
Flying old planes has been a passion in my family and this community since we had relatives who flew, b-25s, b-17s, and b-24s, in world war 2 and they take very fucking good care of their planes before they go up there. A plane has to be rated before it is airworthy and A&P rated.
You can't chalk this up to old planes, but pilot error. **** you if you think otherwise after flying a Cessna
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Yeah, gonna ask you yo stay in your lane on this one. As in, you don't know the meaning of 'restored'. Like people like my brother just air-drop into Dresden or something and fly these planes off for air shows. They spend fucking years restoring these planes and making them airworthy.
what happened this weekend was tragic pilot error.
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Tragic indeed.
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A small airfield here did many shows of old aircraft. Cool place. Rudy Frasca owned it and the company that was a very large manufacturer of flight simulators. WW2 pilot. I was lucky enough to provide security for the company and airfield for 28 years. Place had old military planes everywhere and a shop to restore/ repair them. I had full access to all of it. Loved doing work there.
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my brother and others do get paid to restore them, but my point is that none of them would be airborne without having been rated to be so. It's not just like you find an old Chrysler LeBaron and decide to drive it.
Are there shitty A&P mechanics out there who rate things incorrectly? Of course, just like you can't trust the stranger who just did your oil change and tries to upsell you. This is a sore point for me and my brother has no qualms about expressing disdain for people he knows he can't trust to rate people he's flying with, but this wasn't one of those cases.
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Always love it at the airshows when they have the “history of flight” flyby. They’ll have an old WW2 fighter just buzzing along and then they’ll have an F-15 or something similar roaring up next to it. Wish I could see the shit they’ll be flying 75 years from now.