[video] Phoenix 500 races: Piloot springt uit super corsair
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Als je dit zo ziet dan is het idee achter de PondRacer zo gek nog niet.......
A
Acropilot
Guest
jezus 
je kunt je nu beter inbeelden hoe het moet geweest zijn in de tweede wereldoorlog in de pecific als een corsair werd neergehaald, idd erg zonde van de kist, weer eentje van de nog maar weinige die op de aarbol bestaan en niet op de schroothoop staan
je kunt je nu beter inbeelden hoe het moet geweest zijn in de tweede wereldoorlog in de pecific als een corsair werd neergehaald, idd erg zonde van de kist, weer eentje van de nog maar weinige die op de aarbol bestaan en niet op de schroothoop staan
H
hezik
Guest
Tsja, ik ben ook nog nooit bij een show geweest, maar dit zou mij er niet van weerhouden. Als je geen risico wilt lopen, moet je thuis in de kelder onder een tafel gaan zitten met het licht uit.
Je kunt ook op straat overreden worden..
Je kunt ook op straat overreden worden..
prop-er
Forum veteraan
Kevin Eldridge Bails out of the Super Corsair at the first annual Phoenix Air races. Notice he turns the plane away from the airshow crowd and points the plane at the ground before bailing out. You can bet his butt was getting really hot judging from the intense flames. The Super Corsair exploded upon impact, a sad loss. Kevin had minor injuries, but he is fine today. Announcer is Sandy Sanders.
Phoenix 500 Air Races in March of 1994.
Eldridge followed Pardue onto the course and caught up easily. "I was only running 62 inches or something like that," Eldridge says. "I wasn't running that much power. I paced him and was looking for a good spot to make my move." The first sign of any trouble came on the third lap.
"Coming around, it just started vibrating a little bit," Eldridge says. He radioed the crew and told them of the vibration while bringing the power back to about 10 inches, but the vibration remained. "I figured I'd started to burn a piston, so I called a mayday at that point and started to pull off the course."
That is exactly when all Hell broke loose.
"When I was in the climb, the engine just let go. I pulled the throttle back and started to shut it down," he says. The race site at Williams Gateway Airport features three ex-Air Force runways with ample room for a mayday racer. Getting to one of them didn't seem to present a problem at this point. "I just pulled up, made a big downwind, and said to myself, 'Oh, I've got it made...' I'll be able to shut it down and glide right in - no problem."
"The next thing I know, is that they tell me it's on fire, and to bail out..."
He takes a second to relive those moments. "Actually, they told me it was on fire, and I looked at everything and then they said the fire was out. I thought, 'Ok, the fire is out,' and I'm going to glide in. Then there is fire again, and they said it was just blazing. They said I better bail out. I didn't even hesitate; it's something you have with your crew. You trust them. They're not going to tell you to bail out unless you really have to bail out. And with 150 gallons of fuel between me and the fire, you know...?" he chuckles. But in an instant he is somber. "I'd just lost my friend Rick Brickert before then in Reno, and the last thing I wanted to do was burn up."
Overhead, Patterson and Hoover were joining up as best they could and also advising Eldridge to exit the aircraft. As he recounts the event, Eldridge makes movements like he's in the cockpit going through his procedures. "I didn't even hesitate to do what I had to do to get out," he says. "It's pretty tough getting out... I was still at 250 mph and 2,500 feet AGL, by the time I got out I was probably a couple of thousand feet above the ground."
The loss of altitude during this time had to do with the aircraft being trimmed for basically straight and level flight at 450 mph. Since the aircraft had lost power and was in a climb, the trim forces were unable to hold the aircraft level. Eldridge continues, "The first time I let go of the stick, the airplane pitched down, so I grabbed it and leveled it. The problem the Corsair had was it had a ground adjustable trim tab. You could adjust it for cruise to go to the race, and once you got there, we'd adjust it for fast flying. So when I pulled up, I pulled up to about 2,500 feet above the ground and I was down to about 250 mph. Even though that's pretty fast, it's slow for that thing. When you let go of it, it wants to roll over, so I had to get everything undone and let go of the stick to open the canopy."
The first time Eldridge let go of the stick to open the canopy, the burning racer rolled over to the right and began to pitch down. He again corrected and rolled in all of the nose up trim. He also tried to adjust with rudder to keep it straight, but it just wouldn't work. At this point, Eldridge was thinking to himself that he has to get out now. While rolling in the trim, Eldridge used his free hand to finally open the canopy. The racer was again rolling to the right and pitching for the desert. He had decided he was going out the left side.
With his long legs and the geometry of the Super Corsair's cockpit, Eldridge had to fly with the seat in the fully raised position, a fact that made bailing out more difficult. "You've got to kind of hop up on the seat to get out, so when I did this, the wind grabbed my helmet, so I ducked back in real quick, turned to the side, and proceeded to jump out," he says.
In the mean time, with flames streaming from the bottom cowling, the Super Corsair had begun it's final return to Earth. With precious few seconds to go before it dug into the ground, fans, pilots, crewmembers and emergency crews all joined in the chorus of, "Bail out! Get out!" Nobody was breathing.
As Eldridge leapt over the side, he explains, "My left leg got stuck between the seat and the canopy railing. I was just stuck in there and I was pushing to get out of the cockpit. You really want to get a good jump, but I just flopped over the left hand side. The last thing I remember seeing is the greasy side of the airplane; I kind of slid down the side of the fuselage and then 'wam-bam,' I'm kind of spinning in the air."
"Now I'm thinking I've got to pull the D-ring," he says as he goes through the motion of trying to located the parachute's ripcord handle. "I'm looking for the D-ring, spinning through the air thinking, 'Oh man... Where's the D-ring at?' Then I find the tube that the D-ring is connected to but the D-ring is gone."
About the time Eldridge realized the D-ring was missing, his parachute popped open. In reviewing video of the accident, the time frame this all occurred in was just a few quick seconds. When he realized his chute had opened, Eldridge remembers thinking, "Wow!!! OK!!!" It might be argued that at this point, things were looking up for Eldridge, but the drama wasn't over yet.
There were a few seconds left in the life of the Super Corsair. It had represented everything good about unlimited air racing. It had been built "On The Cheap" by a talented group of people. John Sandberg and Daryl Bond had provided sponsorship and donations to the program. It was competitive, it was a favorite, and it was rolling inverted... Still on fire, it flew straight into the ground. The muted impact and fireball made the crowd gasp. For a quick instance, fire trailed up one of the wing tip vortices. The Super Corsair was gone.
Back in the air, Eldridge took stock of the situation. His helmet and oxygen mask had been ripped off his head either from the slipstream or contact with the tail of the aircraft. When he looked down, he saw his left leg was pointed off at a 50 degree angle. "That's gonna hurt," he thought. He didn't watch the aircraft hit the ground. "I saw it on the news in the hospital. That was tough to watch," he says.
While hanging in the 'chute, Robbie Patterson and Bob Hoover were orbiting in the Mustang. "They came by and I waved at them to let them know I was ok. And I'll tell you, there is nothing more beautiful than the sound of that Mustang flying by when you're floating down in that parachute."
With the adrenalin still pumping, Eldridge had yet to feel any pain from his leg. Unfortunately, that was the least of his problems. All he knew was that his leg was pointing in a rather unique direction, and his arm had began to hurt. There was a large lump in it. "Then it hit me," Eldridge says. "To be blunt, I thought, 'This can't be f&*$ing happening to me! It hits you that it actually happened."
At this point, Eldridge tried to look up at his canopy, but could not get his head to tilt back enough to see. Knowing something was wrong with his neck, he began feeling a lot more pain in his arm. Things turn almost comical at this point. "It was just taking forever to come down. I'm over a double highway and all I see is this white diesel truck coming down the road, and I'm thinking, 'I'm going to get hit by the truck,' so I hold my arms out and wind kind of blows me past the road," he says.
"I was looking good at that point, going out over the sagebrush," he remembers. "But that last fifteen feet, man, you just haul ass. I hit and held up my left leg as high as I could because I knew it was broken. I tucked, rolled, and landed on my side and thought I would get up. I couldn't; I just laid on my side with my parachute for like - forever. It might have been ten minutes before they came out and got me."
In the distance, Eldridge could hear a helicopter that was part of the airshow. It had taken off and was flying back and forth searching for the fallen race pilot. He raised his good arm to make himself easier to see. Upon seeing him and landing nearby, a passenger came over and stayed with Eldridge until the paramedics arrived. "That was a comedy of errors," he says. "I was just dying of thirst; I wanted a Gatorade, but they wouldn't give me anything for fear of me going into shock."
After arriving at the hospital, the tally sheet for Eldridge's injuries included a broken C2 vertebrae, a broken right arm, a compound fracture in both bones in his left leg, and various minor injuries.
By all accounts, the neck injury alone should have paralyzed or killed him. Upon examination, his parachute was within a hair of falling apart. Due to the speed at the time the chute opened, three panels blew out, and the bottom skirt had one-eighth of an inch of nylon left before it would have torn. At every step, it seemed Eldridge had used up every ounce of luck in the world.
Kevin Eldridge's hospital stay in Arizona lasted one week, with another week in a Riverside, California hospital. His recuperation took quite a bit of time, including three months in a halo to keep his neck immobilized. Arm and leg casts were also on for a similar amount of time, and he still has the titanium plate and eight screws in his arm as a souvenir. Luckily, his recovery has been complete and he returned to flying right after his doctor cleared him.
"I've been the only one that had to bail out, " Eldridge sums up. "Everybody at the races wears all the gear; the helmet, the flight suit and the gloves, and everybody straps on a parachute. But nobody thinks they're going to have to use it. You should actually go through the steps and see what you're going to do to get out. Practice for the worst. Know your equipment and know how to use it."
"Well," he says laughing. "That was my mayday."
http://www.warbirdaeropress.com/articles/bail_out.html
Phoenix 500 Air Races in March of 1994.
Eldridge followed Pardue onto the course and caught up easily. "I was only running 62 inches or something like that," Eldridge says. "I wasn't running that much power. I paced him and was looking for a good spot to make my move." The first sign of any trouble came on the third lap.
"Coming around, it just started vibrating a little bit," Eldridge says. He radioed the crew and told them of the vibration while bringing the power back to about 10 inches, but the vibration remained. "I figured I'd started to burn a piston, so I called a mayday at that point and started to pull off the course."
That is exactly when all Hell broke loose.
"When I was in the climb, the engine just let go. I pulled the throttle back and started to shut it down," he says. The race site at Williams Gateway Airport features three ex-Air Force runways with ample room for a mayday racer. Getting to one of them didn't seem to present a problem at this point. "I just pulled up, made a big downwind, and said to myself, 'Oh, I've got it made...' I'll be able to shut it down and glide right in - no problem."
"The next thing I know, is that they tell me it's on fire, and to bail out..."
He takes a second to relive those moments. "Actually, they told me it was on fire, and I looked at everything and then they said the fire was out. I thought, 'Ok, the fire is out,' and I'm going to glide in. Then there is fire again, and they said it was just blazing. They said I better bail out. I didn't even hesitate; it's something you have with your crew. You trust them. They're not going to tell you to bail out unless you really have to bail out. And with 150 gallons of fuel between me and the fire, you know...?" he chuckles. But in an instant he is somber. "I'd just lost my friend Rick Brickert before then in Reno, and the last thing I wanted to do was burn up."
Overhead, Patterson and Hoover were joining up as best they could and also advising Eldridge to exit the aircraft. As he recounts the event, Eldridge makes movements like he's in the cockpit going through his procedures. "I didn't even hesitate to do what I had to do to get out," he says. "It's pretty tough getting out... I was still at 250 mph and 2,500 feet AGL, by the time I got out I was probably a couple of thousand feet above the ground."
The loss of altitude during this time had to do with the aircraft being trimmed for basically straight and level flight at 450 mph. Since the aircraft had lost power and was in a climb, the trim forces were unable to hold the aircraft level. Eldridge continues, "The first time I let go of the stick, the airplane pitched down, so I grabbed it and leveled it. The problem the Corsair had was it had a ground adjustable trim tab. You could adjust it for cruise to go to the race, and once you got there, we'd adjust it for fast flying. So when I pulled up, I pulled up to about 2,500 feet above the ground and I was down to about 250 mph. Even though that's pretty fast, it's slow for that thing. When you let go of it, it wants to roll over, so I had to get everything undone and let go of the stick to open the canopy."
The first time Eldridge let go of the stick to open the canopy, the burning racer rolled over to the right and began to pitch down. He again corrected and rolled in all of the nose up trim. He also tried to adjust with rudder to keep it straight, but it just wouldn't work. At this point, Eldridge was thinking to himself that he has to get out now. While rolling in the trim, Eldridge used his free hand to finally open the canopy. The racer was again rolling to the right and pitching for the desert. He had decided he was going out the left side.
With his long legs and the geometry of the Super Corsair's cockpit, Eldridge had to fly with the seat in the fully raised position, a fact that made bailing out more difficult. "You've got to kind of hop up on the seat to get out, so when I did this, the wind grabbed my helmet, so I ducked back in real quick, turned to the side, and proceeded to jump out," he says.
In the mean time, with flames streaming from the bottom cowling, the Super Corsair had begun it's final return to Earth. With precious few seconds to go before it dug into the ground, fans, pilots, crewmembers and emergency crews all joined in the chorus of, "Bail out! Get out!" Nobody was breathing.
As Eldridge leapt over the side, he explains, "My left leg got stuck between the seat and the canopy railing. I was just stuck in there and I was pushing to get out of the cockpit. You really want to get a good jump, but I just flopped over the left hand side. The last thing I remember seeing is the greasy side of the airplane; I kind of slid down the side of the fuselage and then 'wam-bam,' I'm kind of spinning in the air."
"Now I'm thinking I've got to pull the D-ring," he says as he goes through the motion of trying to located the parachute's ripcord handle. "I'm looking for the D-ring, spinning through the air thinking, 'Oh man... Where's the D-ring at?' Then I find the tube that the D-ring is connected to but the D-ring is gone."
About the time Eldridge realized the D-ring was missing, his parachute popped open. In reviewing video of the accident, the time frame this all occurred in was just a few quick seconds. When he realized his chute had opened, Eldridge remembers thinking, "Wow!!! OK!!!" It might be argued that at this point, things were looking up for Eldridge, but the drama wasn't over yet.
There were a few seconds left in the life of the Super Corsair. It had represented everything good about unlimited air racing. It had been built "On The Cheap" by a talented group of people. John Sandberg and Daryl Bond had provided sponsorship and donations to the program. It was competitive, it was a favorite, and it was rolling inverted... Still on fire, it flew straight into the ground. The muted impact and fireball made the crowd gasp. For a quick instance, fire trailed up one of the wing tip vortices. The Super Corsair was gone.
Back in the air, Eldridge took stock of the situation. His helmet and oxygen mask had been ripped off his head either from the slipstream or contact with the tail of the aircraft. When he looked down, he saw his left leg was pointed off at a 50 degree angle. "That's gonna hurt," he thought. He didn't watch the aircraft hit the ground. "I saw it on the news in the hospital. That was tough to watch," he says.
While hanging in the 'chute, Robbie Patterson and Bob Hoover were orbiting in the Mustang. "They came by and I waved at them to let them know I was ok. And I'll tell you, there is nothing more beautiful than the sound of that Mustang flying by when you're floating down in that parachute."
With the adrenalin still pumping, Eldridge had yet to feel any pain from his leg. Unfortunately, that was the least of his problems. All he knew was that his leg was pointing in a rather unique direction, and his arm had began to hurt. There was a large lump in it. "Then it hit me," Eldridge says. "To be blunt, I thought, 'This can't be f&*$ing happening to me! It hits you that it actually happened."
At this point, Eldridge tried to look up at his canopy, but could not get his head to tilt back enough to see. Knowing something was wrong with his neck, he began feeling a lot more pain in his arm. Things turn almost comical at this point. "It was just taking forever to come down. I'm over a double highway and all I see is this white diesel truck coming down the road, and I'm thinking, 'I'm going to get hit by the truck,' so I hold my arms out and wind kind of blows me past the road," he says.
"I was looking good at that point, going out over the sagebrush," he remembers. "But that last fifteen feet, man, you just haul ass. I hit and held up my left leg as high as I could because I knew it was broken. I tucked, rolled, and landed on my side and thought I would get up. I couldn't; I just laid on my side with my parachute for like - forever. It might have been ten minutes before they came out and got me."
In the distance, Eldridge could hear a helicopter that was part of the airshow. It had taken off and was flying back and forth searching for the fallen race pilot. He raised his good arm to make himself easier to see. Upon seeing him and landing nearby, a passenger came over and stayed with Eldridge until the paramedics arrived. "That was a comedy of errors," he says. "I was just dying of thirst; I wanted a Gatorade, but they wouldn't give me anything for fear of me going into shock."
After arriving at the hospital, the tally sheet for Eldridge's injuries included a broken C2 vertebrae, a broken right arm, a compound fracture in both bones in his left leg, and various minor injuries.
By all accounts, the neck injury alone should have paralyzed or killed him. Upon examination, his parachute was within a hair of falling apart. Due to the speed at the time the chute opened, three panels blew out, and the bottom skirt had one-eighth of an inch of nylon left before it would have torn. At every step, it seemed Eldridge had used up every ounce of luck in the world.
Kevin Eldridge's hospital stay in Arizona lasted one week, with another week in a Riverside, California hospital. His recuperation took quite a bit of time, including three months in a halo to keep his neck immobilized. Arm and leg casts were also on for a similar amount of time, and he still has the titanium plate and eight screws in his arm as a souvenir. Luckily, his recovery has been complete and he returned to flying right after his doctor cleared him.
"I've been the only one that had to bail out, " Eldridge sums up. "Everybody at the races wears all the gear; the helmet, the flight suit and the gloves, and everybody straps on a parachute. But nobody thinks they're going to have to use it. You should actually go through the steps and see what you're going to do to get out. Practice for the worst. Know your equipment and know how to use it."
"Well," he says laughing. "That was my mayday."
http://www.warbirdaeropress.com/articles/bail_out.html
Wat heb jij toch tegen vliegshows, alsof het levensgevaarlijk is om die te bezoeken. :? Tuurlijk gaat er wel eens wat fout, maar om daar nu voor thuis te blijven. Kans is zo klein en al helemaal als toeschouwer loop je weinig risico. Op de weg gaat het inderdaad veel vaker mis maar jij komt daar natuurlijk ook nooit :wink:Gerard_nl zei:
