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Try being a low time guy looking for Model 12 coverage.

Looks like I'll be self insuring...

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What does a ride normally cost?

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Do you know of many Airshows where US fighters pretend to shoot down US bombers?

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Valid.

Note: Mishap P-63 pilot was the Exec Officer for the Tora group.
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/470117/92DB8FCD-0F99-45C3-B562-6D39EA26B827_jpe-2598911.JPG

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Depends on which airplane and which seat you want.

Anything from $500 up to $1500.

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These incidents with warbirds that are either not maintained correctly or piloted into the ground are far too common to ignore the trend.

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That's fucking retarded. Most all of them have been rebuilt and all are subject to regular inspections.

Collision with the ground is going to happen every flight, most of the time it is called landing.

Air to air Collision were every day occurrences during the war. Thousands of aircraft forming up in normal English fog was more dangerous than many missions.

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Yes, B-17 B-24, and B-25 in trail formation.  The B-29 was supposed to be in there, too, but in the videos you can see Fifi holding short waiting to take off.

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I was at the show on Saturday as one of the living history volunteers.

We were eating at the hangar where FiFi was waiting on the taxiway to takeoff.  We heard an explosion and felt the building shake.  We all got up and ran outside to see the fireball and part of the B17 tail at the end of the runway. It only took a few minutes for us to figure out what aircraft were involved.

The hardest part of this crash for me was that we were eating with the CAF ground crew and pilots who were taking a break during the bomber portion of the show.  The reactions they had made the crash much worse for me than if I had been in the crowd on our weapons carrier as were during the Tora, Tora, Tora part of the show. A few of them were absolutely inconsolable.  As I said this left me gutted for some reason, even though I did not personally know any of the people involved.

The B17 had been flying most of the day giving rides and being part of the Tora, Tora, Tora show.  I do have a few pictures and video from the show earlier in the day.

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Would there have been a guy in the tail gunner seat acting as an observer or is that unlikely?

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I knew somebody that was on the B17.

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A ton of stuff to parse out here. Retired fighter guy and current warbird pilot here, too.

No, the P-63 pilot was not former military.  He was, however, a long-time warbird pilot who has been FAST qualified for years. The FAA requires everyone flying warbirds inside waivered airspace (that FAA Order 8900 that I've posted about in this thread) at an airshow has to be formation qualified.  FAST, just like the military, has a syllabus to check pilots out as a wingman, and separate syllabus to check pilots out as flight leads. These syllabi look very similar to undergraduate training wingman and lead qual courses. NATA (North American Trainer Association) is the primary sanctioning body for the warbird fighters and most of the US-trainers (T-6, T-28, etc). The training materials and syllabus are available for you to check out on the internet if you desire, I think you'll see a lot of similarities to the training military pilots get. Guys with FAST quals are perfectly aware of the potential dangers, dangerous positions, dangerous maneuvers, and all of the "musts" like keeping sight, keeping wingtip clearance, keeping nose-to-tail clearance, etc.  These are not newbies playing adult games without training or experience.

That being said, the P-63 and the B-17 were not "in formation" together.

In these shows, the bomber flight is a separate flight from the fighters.  They are operating in two, separate, deconflicted circuits along the show line: either altitude deconfliction, or lateral deconfliction with a be-no line. It appears that this show was altitude deconflicted, so generally that's going to mean the bombers are at or below 500' (min alt 250'), and the fighters are up at 1000'. They're both flying the same basic general ground track entering and exiting the show line, but at very different speeds and at different lateral spacings on the downwind leg.

When using this deconfliction plan, the airboss reserves the right to allow the fighters to descend into the bomber airspace block. This is usually when the bombers have completed their passes, and because they're slow, it takes them much longer to either make it around the pattern for the next pass, or perform the dogbone course reversal to return back for an opposite-direction pass. This allows the fighters to temporarily get lower and closer to the show line when there is a lull in the activity for the spectators.

Based on the reports I'm hearing today (again, unconfirmed and secondhand), the air boss cleared the fighters down into the bomber altitude block down the show line just before the bombers entered the show line in their block....but seemingly the timing of that call by the airboss was errant and given when the P-63 was too close to the lead bomber, the B-17. Because the P-63 was the only fighter behind the B-17, reports say that he cleared the P-63 to "overtake" the 17 in the low altitude block.

Don't get me wrong: it is everyone's responsibility to clear their flight path, and the P-63 pilot was obviously responsible for that, too. But, if the airboss clears the fighters down into the bomber altitude block, there's an implication that goes with that call that the bombers aren't currently occupying that block. Thus, the fighters aren't expecting to see anyone there, and have their attention at avoiding the rocks and keeping their fellow formation members in sight.  Right now we have no idea what altitude the B-17 and P-63 were at when the collision occurred, so we can't even say if it was in the low block or the high block.

That being said, the air boss has a reasonable expectation that guys in the circuit are doing their part to clear their flight path and keep their own formation members in sight. I'm certain that, if this is indeed what occurred, he had a reasonable expectation that the P-63 pilot had the lead bomber in sight...which we can assume based on all the evidence we currently have, he did not.

So, lots of potential swiss-cheese compound errors here, and too little information to place blame anywhere yet.

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A ton of stuff to parse out here. Retired fighter guy and current warbird pilot here, too.

No, the P-63 pilot was not former military.  He was, however, a long-time warbird pilot who has been FAST qualified for years. The FAA requires everyone flying warbirds inside waivered airspace (that FAA Order 8900 that I've posted about in this thread) at an airshow has to be formation qualified.  FAST, just like the military, has a syllabus to check pilots out as a wingman, and separate syllabus to check pilots out as flight leads. These syllabi look very similar to undergraduate training wingman and lead qual courses. NATA (North American Trainer Association) is the primary sanctioning body for the warbird fighters and most of the US-trainers (T-6, T-28, etc). The training materials and syllabus are available for you to check out on the internet if you desire, I think you'll see a lot of similarities to the training military pilots get. Guys with FAST quals are perfectly aware of the potential dangers, dangerous positions, dangerous maneuvers, and all of the "musts" like keeping sight, keeping wingtip clearance, keeping nose-to-tail clearance, etc.  These are not newbies playing adult games without training or experience.

That being said, the P-63 and the B-17 were not "in formation" together.

In these shows, the bomber flight is a separate flight from the fighters.  They are operating in two, separate, deconflicted circuits along the show line: either altitude deconfliction, or lateral deconfliction with a be-no line. It appears that this show was altitude deconflicted, so generally that's going to mean the bombers are at or below 500' (min alt 250'), and the fighters are up at 1000'. They're both flying the same basic general ground track entering and exiting the show line, but at very different speeds and at different lateral spacings on the downwind leg.

When using this deconfliction plan, the airboss reserves the right to allow the fighters to descend into the bomber airspace block. This is usually when the bombers have completed their passes, and because they're slow, it takes them much longer to either make it around the pattern for the next pass, or perform the dogbone course reversal to return back for an opposite-direction pass. This allows the fighters to temporarily get lower and closer to the show line when there is a lull in the activity for the spectators.

Based on the reports I'm hearing today (again, unconfirmed and secondhand), the air boss cleared the fighters down into the bomber altitude block down the show line just before the bombers entered the show line in their block....but seemingly the timing of that call by the airboss was errant and given when the P-63 was too close to the lead bomber, the B-17. Because the P-63 was the only fighter behind the B-17, reports say that he cleared the P-63 to "overtake" the 17 in the low altitude block.

Don't get me wrong: it is everyone's responsibility to clear their flight path, and the P-63 pilot was obviously responsible for that, too. But, if the airboss clears the fighters down into the bomber altitude block, there's an implication that goes with that call that the bombers aren't currently occupying that block. Thus, the fighters aren't expecting to see anyone there, and have their attention at avoiding the rocks and keeping their fellow formation members in sight.  Right now we have no idea what altitude the B-17 and P-63 were at when the collision occurred, so we can't even say if it was in the low block or the high block.

That being said, the air boss has a reasonable expectation that guys in the circuit are doing their part to clear their flight path and keep their own formation members in sight. I'm certain that, if this is indeed what occurred, he had a reasonable expectation that the P-63 pilot had the lead bomber in sight...which we can assume based on all the evidence we currently have, he did not.

So, lots of potential swiss-cheese compound errors here, and too little information to place blame anywhere yet.

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Friends identify retired American Airlines Capt. Terry Barker as a jovial man.

He always had a smile on his face, even if he had a bad day. Terry recently became a grandfather.

Terry is 1 of the 6 victims who died in the DallasAirShow yesterday. @wfaa pic.twitter.com/544TbpdLcd

— Malini Basu (@MaliniBasu_) November 13, 2022

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/327183/40D293D3-E59F-41BD-B4F9-96998E0BFFC2_jpe-2599031.JPG

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Fore me if this has already been posted. I've been out all day. Have any other names of the victims been released? I've met or have done work for a bunch of CAF guys over the years.

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Prop will be here from MT and Memphis Prop around the middle of January. Paperwork for repairman certificate and registration sent in to OKC last week. I hear they are backlogged 6 months. The DAR can't do anything without the hard copy of the registration.

I'm headed back to Huntsville the first of February and it'll be assholes and elbows getting it completed. I'm also still waiting on quite a few parts from Don at 92ND West Aviation.
Almost ready to start covering...I'm hiring a friends wife to help. She has covered a few aircraft for others. All my Dynon stuff for both cockpits showed up a few weeks ago. It's going to be a fun spring !!!

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/203499/Model12wingpic2_jpg-2598910.JPG

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/203499/Model12wingpic1_jpg-2598905.JPG

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/203499/Model12fuselage1_jpg-2598908.JPG


BTW...I have 3 guys that have all flown competitive aerobatics that are going to help me fly the 40 hours off and transition me into the airplane. I really had to twist their arms.

Also...the guy who fixed the Stearman purchased two former German BO105's so we will be working on those.

I'm very sorry about the loss of your friends....

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I didn't see one in the tail in the roll out video posted.  

I saw on in the nose gunner position and the flight crew.  Might have been one or two in the waist position.  hard to tell.  But the tail gunner position looked empty.

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These incidents with warbirds that are either not maintained correctly or piloted into the ground are far too common to ignore the trend.

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Was the B-17 the lead plane in the bomber flight? Was the P-63 the trailer in the fighter group?

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It appears that was true for the bomber flight.

Don't know about the composition of the fighter flight.

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Go watch a single year's worth of GA arrivals and departures into OSH, and see if that's still a "trend".

These WWII airplanes are lovingly cared for, and maintained better than the ones I fly for work (and which you might ride on) at a 121 airline. Crews for the LHFE ride flights are trained to Part 135 standards, and most of the pilots are 121, 135, or 91 professional pilots in their "day jobs". They are highly qualified, highly trained, and highly motivated.

This isn't the 1960s anymore when anyone can go down and buy a surplus P-51, and when people were planting them into fields with regularity.  *That* was a trend.

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Initially, I thought that the left wing of the P-63 sliced the tail off the B-17, but now it appears that P-63 hit the fuselage dead-center just behind the wing box.  Is this correct?

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He hit just ahead of the waist position and buried into the wing root and a couple pictures of the hit show pretty clearly that the prop and gearbox gutted the B-17 all the way to the flight deck in addition to severing the tail section.  




I know 5 on that list.   What a shit sandwich.

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If someone was in the waist position?  Maybe he knew what was coming.  I doubt anyone else on the aircraft knew.  They may have never knew what hit them.  As for the P-63?  He may have seen some of the 17 wing at the last second.