How about because members here, including myself, personally knew those killed in this and considered them friends? Is that a good enough reason for you? Somehow, I doubt it. Fuck off.

Interesting close-up.

The drive shaft on the P-63 looks like it was probably sheared upon impact, so blades stayed intact somewhat on the nose section.

The engine of the -63 forced upwards; canopy remains to the upper left corner of the picture?

Don't see anything that looks like the intact center section of the -63.

The right wing of the B-17 looks like it's a few degrees twisted up from normal, maybe from impact and/or loss of structural integrity?

Elevators on the severed tail section in full down deflection.

The B-17 was flying straight and level.  The P-63 came in from eight oclock high.  My bet is he intended to just shoot past the nose  of the B-17 for a big laugh and misjudged the closing speed.

Not even a slight chance that was his intention.  

I couldn't even get these guys to have a little fun in the SNJ-5 while I was riding with them without another plane anywhere nearby.  They take safety seriously.

One of the golden rules of flying:  Never show your belly in a formation.

He did not intend that.  They don't do that at these demonstrations.  He isn't free to fly around and do whatever stunt he wants.  Procedures are briefed before the flight.

He couldn’t have done that if he wanted to. Jesus what bad luck.

I said I was going to back out of this thread earlier, but I just found this when not even looking for it and it hit me like a truck.

In April 2018, I had a really strange experience.  As I said earlier in the thread, my grandfather was PIC on a B-17 late in the war.  He passed away in 2013.  In April 2018, I decided to spend a few days at his beach house here while it wasn’t being rented.

For some reason one afternoon, I decided to walk outside onto the back patio which was facing east and to my complete and utter astonishment, what was flying over the house was a B-17.  I stood there absolutely dumbstruck over it.  I mean, what are the odds that the day I would decide to stay at my late grandfather’s house, I would walk out the back door and find a B-17 directly overhead?  Even today, it blows my mind.

I managed to snap a picture before she headed off.  I looked it up just now, and the date of the photo matches the few days that “Texas Raiders” was in St. Augustine that year.  This is her.

And now I feel even more sad about all this.

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Pretty much been my observation since I saw the first video, not so much whos at fault just unbelievably bad luck. Like Randy Johnson hitting that pigeon fraction of a second difference and it's just a close call.

Quit digging and leave the thread.
There is no justifying what you said.

Came here to say this exact thing.

Saw a decent analysis on YouTube.  Basically it was saying that the P-63 was flying a circuit with two P-15's.  In short he was going way faster then he should have and also was probably looking at the P-51 he was supposed to be behind which would explain a lot.

Let’s Talk About Airshow Safety, Formation Flying, Warbird Rides and FAA Rules
https://theaviationist.com/2022/11/15/airshow-safety/

Thank you for sharing that.

Saw that one.  Made sense to me.  Obviously all speculation, and the guy doing the video said so over and over.  But his explanation made sense.

Good piece.

I flew the author of that piece, Tom, for a ride on FIFI earlier this summer in Saginaw, MI. His dad was a B-29 draftsman at Boeing.

https://theaviationist.com/2022/08/19/flying-on-fifi/

That's a really cool vidio.  Thanks for sharing it.

And thanks to all the people who have shared their knowledge here.

Its sad all around. The B17 has always been my favorite war plane. I hate to see one lost but the loss of life trumps iconic relics. I feel like flying is dangerous. Even more so with antiquated machinery without all the modern belle and whistles while doing acrobatics.

They were NOT doing acrobatics

Maybe wrong term. But I mean flying in some kind of formations with other planes in close proximity while flying low. Im no pilot but it seems there is a lot of inherent danger that could happen.

Flying is not "dangerous". It can be terribly unforgiving of errors though.

NTSB Media Briefing: NTSB Board Member Graham Dallas, Texas Mid Air Collision (11/14/22)

You brief, practice and surround yourself with people better than you. I learned from a Red Baron pilot. I felt safer in formation than on the freeway surrounded by idiots.

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interesting analysis

Cool formation.

How is the ol' Combat Duck to fly in formation?

I just read that Craig Hutain had 34,000 hours of flight time.

He's been an airline pilot since the early 80s.

For my ARFCOM airline bros, FWIW, he appears on the jumpseat protection list.

Considering I was the slowest, in that group it is a stable solid platform. The T-6 on my wing was flown by my formation instruction and Red Baron Sterman pilot.  
Interesting briefing for a formation dissimilar and high and low wings.


I was also able to fly left wing on a B-17 for a funeral. I had a bit more trouble keeping up as the aircraft is a bit slow and underpowered but I was able to hold my line and position

Came here to share that.  The guy doing this analysis (McSpadden) was Flight Lead for the Thunderbirds so he probably knows something about air show requirements and safety.  

His explanation of a 500ft lateral separation between the slower planes and faster planes, along the show line, as an FAA requirement makes sense and nobody here has addressed that.  

In one of the video sequences he has, you can see the 2 P51s that the P63 was in formation with, were flying a track a couple hundred feet to the inside of the turn, which is also a couple hundred feet further away from the show line.  So it appears the lateral separation was inadequate to start with.  He also stated the same thing one of the posters above did, "you do not ever show your belly in a formation flight" because of the blind spot it creates in your flight path.  He also points out that the longer period of time the P63 driver stayed in a bank due to the increased power substantially increased the risk.  

Another point, he says that "everyone understands that pilots make mistakes and so there are techniques to recover from something like this.....for example, "if you find yourself violating the lateral separation, immediately roll wings level for visibility and go for vertical separation", aiming for the biggest hole in the sky, then circle around to rejoin at a safe speed and altitude.  If you are headed over the crowd you climb to an altitude of 1000ft which is apparently the minimum FAA separation requirement.

Also as much as I dislike him, Dan Gryder said essentially the same thing I did earlier, that mixing up slow and fast airplanes and funneling them all into that show line like that, and the airboss directing the P63 to overtake the bomber or "take the lead", created this shit show.  

Providing McSpadden is correct that show aircraft operating at different speeds are required to have 500ft of a lateral separation in their track from the show line, the fighter flight was only 200-300ft in track from the B17 to begin with and the P63 obviously violated that even more so.  It appears he was part of the 3 plane fighter flight and had fallen behind and outside their turn, and was attempting to catch up.  His speed carried him quickly even further from the fighter flight's track, and he was in the process of increasing his bank in response when he hit the B17.

I'm not gonna lie, I've been off track in an airplane in a position where I should have gone around or bailed out, but instead I stubbornly stuck to my guns and flew it out so to speak.  EVERY Pilot has.  Both times were me getting out of sorts during a landing.  You think "I can recover this".  And in those cases, I did.   Except.....sometimes you can't.  Now in the air, if I think things are going south, I don't hesitate to just head for the place in the sky where there aren't any other airplanes to let shit sort itself out.  I'm the first guy to abandon an approach when more than one guy are trying to claim the same piece of the sky in the pattern.      

I've also been nearly hit in mid air exactly like this B17 was, by a student approaching from 8 o clock high, who couldn't see me.  Luckily for me, when he gave the exact same position report I did to the tower, I started looking behind me, saw him coming, rolled away to the right about 15 degrees, and watched him fly past my left wingtip.......

Thinking about the McSpadden analysis, it's possible the P63 driver should have recognized that he was out of his lane, rolled wings level, and climbed out of the furball instead of staying belly up when it was clear he had left his required show line track.  But how much time did he even have to recognize this, think, and react?  I am 100% positive this was a sharp, competent, and qualified pilot.  

IMO that means that the overall flight situation was a set up for failure.    

Lastly, I noted that the airboss was "the son of renowned air boss so and so".  I've had.....experiences.......with competent professionals who use their reputation and standing to place their kids into their jobs.  That experience causes me to have a bias.

I know it's MMQing but that is how we learn.

It isn't separation between the aircraft, it is separation from the spectator area.  In other words, it is not a methodology of geographically de-conflicting the formations, but a methodology of ensuring safe separation of aircraft from crowd in the event of a crash/collision.

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Re: the rest of the discussion about both the Gryder and McSpadden videos, or Juan Browne's or anyone else's at this point. None of the guys producing videos were in the airboss briefing, or know what the planned/briefed deconfliction plan was. Don't let their lack of knowledge translate into thinking there wasn't a plan, that the plan wasn't sound, or that it wasn't understood by the people flying that plan.

Ergo, they are making an assumption that lateral deconfliction was the plan, and that is not a known fact currently.  Again, the differences in lat sep between the Category I and Category II performers is not used as deconfliction between the flights.


I didn't say that his father was the source of some sort of skill, nor that it made him somehow immune from making an error.

What I said was, "I've never flown at a show that Russ operated, but I don't have any reason to believe that he operates a circus rather than an airshow."

I'm refraining from making any comment or analysis of his airboss plan, and his execution of that plan, until we at least know what it actually was. As of yet, none of us do.

That was a nice eulogy, and it’s a great lesson to all of us:  34,000 hours doesn’t matter.   How the Flt Attendants felt, doesn’t matter.

What matters is your Next hour.    That’s it.   The guy screwed up big time.  It’s a sobering thought that we like to avoid, but It could happen to any of us, on any given day.

Amen.

Good stuff, very interesting.   Explains a lot about airshow procedures.

I've been following this thread, and I'm just gonna add my memories of the '17...

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I will say this.  Had a conversation a while back about "the hardest maneuver you had to learn in flight training".  Simple, realizing an approach looks like crap and going around.

However, nearly everyone that signs up for flight training is someone that is good at getting things done.  Mission first mindset.

Gryder is entertaining, but absolutely likes to say inflammatory things.  I purposely have not watched his video on this crash.

You are arguing semantics, why, I don't know.  Whether you measure the required separation from the crowd line, or between flight tracks of category I and II aircraft, the number is the same.  If Cat I aircraft are required to be 1500 feet from the crowd line, and Cat II aircraft are required to be 1000 feet from the crowd line, then the required separation between Cat I and Cat II aircraft is 500ft and there is nothing wrong with referencing the distance from one to another, they represent the same thing just with a different reference point.



So, McSpadden has that wrong?  He stated it as a FAA requirement.  

Also, if lateral deconfliction was not the plan, then vertical deconfliction must have been the plan, correct?  If you are looking at the altitudes and flight tracks and videos of the aircraft in the parade and can't tell which method of deconfliction is in effect, isn't it pretty clear that there was some sort of operational issue?  



You conveniently left out the last sentence of my last paragraph which was a key statement.  That sentence was the because of my experiences "I have a bias".  Because of that bias, I am not making a judgement.  So I don't understand why you went forward, clearly under the assumption that I am.  

Investigating such an incident has to turn over ALL the rocks before you can make an actual judgement, at this point, all we have are the things we can plainly observe, and the rules in black and white to hold our observations against.  And the conversations to go with it.  There will obviously be much more data available to the investigators which will get them closer to the entire picture.      

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Those are minimum distances from the crowd line, not proscribed flight paths for flybys. In other words, anyone can be further away from the spectators than that min distance (so long as you're still in the display area/aerobatic box).  Again, those distances are designed for minimum separation from the crowd to keep the crowd from getting hit if there is a crash or collision; they are not for use as a deconfliction tool between simultaneously-operating flights operating in different categories.

Quoted from FAA 8900 V3 Ch6
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Those min show lines could be used as geographic lateral deconfliction points in the specific instance where Cat I and Cat II flights are operating together, but they would have to be specifically briefed as such by the air boss.


He's not wrong about the requirement  for aircraft of different speeds having different minimum distances away from the spectators (as seen in the chart above), it just isn't a tool for inter-flight deconfliction without additional declarations by the air boss before the show. If McSpadden is describing the show lines as proscribed flight paths that cannot be deviated from (I didn't get that from what he was saying in the video, but maybe I missed that), then perhaps he is extrapolating from his experiences on the Thunderbirds, as aerobatic maneuvers for Cat I aircraft have to be centered on the Cat I show line.  


As previously discussed more than once in this thread, when using altitude block deconfliction with these combined bomber/fighter parades, the air boss may (when the lower block is not occupied down the show line) allow the high block temporarily into the low block. He has to clear the high block specifically to do this. When the bombers are in other portions of the pattern outside the show line, the fighters are cleared down into the low block for a pass, and then climb back up into the high block.

Due to this fact, the photos/video from WOD of the fighters at the same altitude as the bombers is not evidence that there was not an altitude deconfliction plan in place...just as lateral separation in the ground tracks isn't evidence that the air boss plan was lateral deconfliction.

Yes, it is evident there was an "operational issue", but we don't yet know what it was. If it was an altitude plan (again, currently not a known fact), and if the air boss cleared the fighters down for that pass (again, currently not a known fact), then the air boss misunderstood the relative positions of the two formations, and perhaps misunderstood if the P-63 pilot had visual on all three bombers. Maybe the P-63 pilot also lost track and thought he had the B-17 in sight but was looking at the B-24 instead.

Again, many many things that are possible explanations for what we saw, but without a couple of as-of-yet-publicly-unknown pieces of information we can't say.


Completely agree, and McSpadden (for whatever reason) and the others haven't turned some really, really relevant rocks over yet.  I'm floored that AOPA put out that video without knowing what the air boss' briefed plan was, as it is a keystone to understanding what should have happened compared to what actually did.

With all due respect, I believe it is disingenuous to say that flying is not dangerous.

By its very nature, it’s inherently dangerous, and even with complete diligence, it is uncaring, not just unforgiving.

Just because one can add controls, rules, and parameters, to an activity does not rule out that danger exist.

Just because an activity can be safe, does not mean it is free from danger.

I'm sure you must be getting tired of repeating yourself and the morbid rubbernecking in this thread, but thank you for sticking around. I find your insight very illuminating. I'm sticking around for further insight as more information comes out.

So is driving a car!

And anyone who says driving isn’t dangerous is a fool.

I’m not saying we should cower inside the basements, but downplaying dangers because things normally turn out okay is foolhardy and leads to complacency.

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- please knock off the trolling -  

So is walking down the sidewalk for that matter.

Everything in life has a risk.  Including doing nothing.

That looks like the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon