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B17 crash


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12 hours ago, fantom said:

The engines are complex as are the flight control systems, and weren't designed to last for more than 75 years.

 

Stay under your bed ;-)

That's silly.   So how long were they designed to last.    How much of the plane was 75 years old?      I saw a good discussion that if we aren't good at managing the public's risk around a well know flying machine, then we are no where near ready for space tourism.

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2 hours ago, Yetti said:

That's silly.   So how long were they designed to last.    How much of the plane was 75 years old?      I saw a good discussion that if we aren't good at managing the public's risk around a well know flying machine, then we are no where near ready for space tourism.

Exactly.  Modern maintenance programs replace essentially everything over time.

I remember a comedian once holding an axe saying, this is George Washingtons axe.  Yup, its his axe. But the handle rotted so they replaced it. Then the head rusted so they replaced that too.
 

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39 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Exactly.  Modern maintenance programs replace essentially everything over time.

I remember a comedian once holding an axe saying, this is George Washingtons axe.  Yup, its his axe. But the handle rotted so they replaced it. Then the head rusted so they replaced that too.
 

When talking about maintenance done to the plane and how old it is I have started saying "The longer I own my plane, the newer it is." I've said it enough this past year that I put it in my signature...

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12 hours ago, Yetti said:

I'm not that big of a history buff, but apparently I took pictures of the accident airplane a couple of years ago.

 

 

20150330_125339.jpg

This got me thinking - remembering.   I saw a b17 during the summer of 2018 which as it turns out was a week before osh when I flew to Montana with my son but your pictures got me looking back at my pictures.   I found a smiling picture of myself standing and smiling in front of this very same airplane.  

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it is a shame to see part of history destroyed but it is nice to know there are a lot of pictures and good memories. my wife and I were lucky enough to get a flight in Fuddy Duddy when Geneseo  air museum was around, It is a flight I will never forget. I just wish we had pictures from it.

Brian

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The thing we forget is these war birds were designed under pressing needs which means they would not meet FAR 23 or 25 design requirements of today. Indeed, this B-17 had a special AC not a standard. They were designed to carry men into war, not fly passengers for money. The original B-17 and a B-17G are two very different airplanes just as a Mooney C and an Acclaim are very different. We also forget how often those airplanes failed in various ways. I once read a book called "The Global Twentieth" which was the history of the 20th Air Force. Flying B-29's only 5% ever returned with all four turning. 30% on average returned with two engines shut down, yes two engines caged. 

Finally while these airplanes do not operate at war time weight, their performance is a question mark because of the lack of 115 octane fuels they were designed to operate on. While you can retard the timing and turn down the blowers the real world performance is really hard to calculate. Along with that fact is the effect low octane has long term. Yes, the timing is retarded but the valve timing. lift and duration have not. You end up with a lot of fouled plugs. In short, without long term study of these engine on low octane, you really don't know.

The maintenance intensity of latter day radials was overwhelming. I don't think we realize how much jets changed the world. Take a DC-6 or Super Connie that flew NY to LA. When that airplane arrived in LA, it was done for the day. Every plug had to be changed. TWA found it was quicker to remove and replace the entire engine and prop than change the rear plugs. They could do it in 45 minutes. So intense was the monitoring of these engine they had an oscilloscope called the "Sperry engine analyzer" that even analyzed the both the low and high tension sides of the ignition system and analyzed vibration for detonation. With jets, the airlines simply checked the oil and turned it around.

So the reality of engine failure on a B-17 is actually very real and very common. 

 

 

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Wasn't sure which thread to drop this in, but thought I'd put it here.   This came in an email today.   There's a link at the bottom to provide opinions.

 

Dear supporters,

Please join the Collings Foundation in our thoughts and prayers with those who were on the tragic flight of the B-17 Flying Fortress “Nine-O-Nine” on Wednesday, October 2nd. We will be forever grateful to the heroic efforts of the first responders at Bradley International Airport and the assistance of all local agencies in the days after the crash.

The Collings Foundation team has been and remains fully cooperative with officials to determine the cause of the crash and we will comment further when facts and details become available. We have suspended the Wings of Freedom Tour for the remainder of the 2019 season and the aircraft have returned to our winter maintenance base in Florida. 

The mission of the Collings Foundation remains steadfast in the goal of making history come alive as we have for over 30 years. Since 1989, the Wings of Freedom Tour has touched the lives of millions, as we have made visits to over 3600 communities in that time. Tens of thousands have flown aboard our Living History Flight Experiences (LHFE) on the B-17, B-24, B-25, and A-1E and flight training on the TP-51C, TF-51D, and TP-40N. In the past week we have received many stories on how powerful and life-changing the tour has been for families and as we move forward, and we expect there are thousands more who have been touched by the Wings of Freedom Tour.

In the coming months, federal agencies will be reviewing the LHFE program for not only our organization, but many other organizations nationwide who continue to fly vintage aircraft as a part of their educational mission. As these reviews take place, we feel it is important for the voices of those impacted by the Wings of Freedom Tour over the years to be heard. We need to let federal agencies know that the LHFE program is important to you and other American citizens as an educational tool. 

Please take a moment to add your comments to the current docket regarding the renewal of the Collings Foundation LHFE program with the FAA at the Federal Register. You may do so online at the following link:

 

https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=FAA-2001-11089-0096


As you write your comment, please review the tips for submitting effective comments from Regulations.gov at https://www.regulations.gov/docs/Tips_For_Submitting_Effective_Comments.pdf

Thank you for your support of our living history mission.

Best regards,
Rob Collings
Executive Director

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This popped up in my Youtube feed.   Looks like he got it down.  smushed the ball turret.  slid a long way.   Never want to end up in the deice fluid farm with lots of energy left in the plane..  

 

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3 hours ago, Hyett6420 said:

Thats a great video and shows very clearly how the plane ended up.  To my mind the fuel farm tanks did not appear to have ruptured, but I may be wrong.  He did definitely put it down well and then just slid and. Slid and slid, impacting the obstacles on the way, inc the hangars amd the way those engines are, he hit those hagars with a lot of energy.  Really really sad.  

For what it’s worth, it was not a fuel farm, but the de-ice station with typical glycol solution.  As bad as this was, it could have been worse if this were the fuel farm.  

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Wow - this looks from the video at least as if the pilots had done a good job of getting that crippled airplane back on the ground at the airfield but very bad luck that the roll out (slide out) had very hard objects in front of it before the energy had dissipated.  On a good luck day that might well have been just grassy field in front until the airplane came to a rest. 

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Below copied from this mornings AVweb.

The NTSB has published its initial factual findings on the crash of the Collings Foundation B-17 Nine-O-Nine on Oct. 2. The Boeing B-17 crashed shortly after departure from Bradley International in Connecticut, killing seven of the 13 aboard, including pilot Ernest McCauley and copilot Michael Foster.

According to the NTSB’s initial report: “On the morning of the accident flight, an airport lineman at BDL assisted the loadmaster as he added 160 gallons of 100LL aviation fuel to the accident airplane. The lineman stated that the accident airplane was the first to be fueled with 100LL fuel that day. According to preliminary air traffic control (ATC) data provided by the FAA, shortly after takeoff, at 0950, one of the pilots reported to ATC that he wanted to return to the airport. At that time, the airplane was about 500 feet above ground level (agl) on the right crosswind leg of the airport traffic pattern for runway 6. The approach controller verified the request and asked if the pilot required any assistance, to which he replied no. The controller then asked for the reason for the return to the airport, and the pilot replied that the airplane had a ‘rough mag’ on the No. 4 engine. The controller then instructed the pilot to fly a right downwind leg for runway 6 and confirmed that the flight needed an immediate landing.”

Once handed back to the tower, the pilot was informed that the wind was calm and was cleared to landing on Runway 6. The pilot acknowledged and, according to the NTSB factual, the B-17 was just 300 feet above ground (AGL) on the midfield right downwind. “The tower controller asked about the airplane’s progress to the runway and the pilot replied that they were ‘getting there.’”

The B-17 contacted approach lights 1000 feet short of the runway and made ground contact 500 feet before the threshold. “It then veered right off the runway before colliding with vehicles and a deicing fluid tank about 1100 ft right of the center of the runway threshold. The wreckage came to rest upright and the majority of the cabin, cockpit, and right wing were consumed by postimpact fire. The landing gear was extended and measurement of the left and right wing flap jackscrews corresponded to a flaps retracted setting,” the NTSB reports. Overall control continuity was established by NTSB investigators at the scene.

Examination of the left-side engines (Numbers 1 and 2) suggest they were still making power at the time of impact while the investigators found that the Number-3 engine’s propeller had one blade that was “impact damaged and near the feather position. The other two blades appeared in a position between low pitch and feather.” Moreover, the report confirms that “… all three propeller blades on the No. 4 engine appeared in the feather position.” The NTSB notes that both engines on the left wing and the inboard right-side engine had been overhauled at the previous annual, around 270 hours prior to the accident. The Number 4 engine had 1106 hours since major overhaul at the time of the crash.

In a statement on the Collings Foundation website, the organization says, “Our thoughts and prayers are with those who were on that flight and we will be forever grateful to the heroic efforts of the first responders at Bradley. The Collings Foundation flight team is fully cooperating with officials to determine the cause of the crash of the B-17 Flying Fortress and will comment further when details become known.”

As we reported previously, the Collings Foundation Nine-O-Nine, registered N93012, entered service in April 1945. It was purchased and restored by the foundation in 1986 after having spent time as an air-sea rescue aircraft, nuclear test subject and fire bomber. N93012 did not see combat but was named and painted to honor the original Nine-O-Nine, which completed 140 combat missions without an abort or loss of a crewman and dropped an estimated 562,000 pounds of bombs in WWII. The first Nine-O-Nine flew with the U.S. Army Air Forces 91st Bomb Group’s 323rd Squadron. It was retired after the end of the war and scrapped

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