RNHF Sea Fury Crash Lands at Culdrose Yesterday.

[big ned]

Sad to see the RNHF Sea Fury T.20 crash landed yesterday at the Culdrose Air Day, but at least the pilot's O.K. and he did a good job getting it down from the look of it. It's so easy for these aircraft to stall and go in on finals when situations like this arise, so well done to him.

I guess we'll have to wait for the official report into the incident, but watching the video indicates something may have let go in the engine. Such a shame as it's only become airworthy again after a costly rebuild to flight, but hopefully they can fix it up again assuming there's nothing structurally compromised that would cause it to be SOC.

Regards, Ned.

[m3bobby]

I saw the display at the Coningsby families day on the Thursday before, a really good display.

He did do well, from what I understand he intentionally selected gear up when he landed because the gear hadn't had time to get down and locked and so he selected up to get it on it's belly. The reason being that they are renowned for flipping over when a leg collapses and this usually kills the pilot. So if this is true, good show for acting quick, saving your self and saving the aircraft.

It does appear from the video that the aircraft suffered a Hydraulic failure and this may support the reason for the under carriage not locking. He just needed to get it on the deck ASAP and it looks almost as though he has selected emergency lower as the wheels come down in an almost springy way without the control expected when under hydraulic pressure.

[Grimebox]

I was at RNAS culdrose and saw it. I think it had a serious hydronic failure, it was coming to the end of its set when it started smoking. The pilot banked to the left and brought it straight down. As it came into to land I thought the pilot was going to belly land it as he dropped the landing gear at the last second. One wheel came down, however, there was a noticeable pause until the second came down, as it touched down that wheel collapsed and she skidded down the runway. I didn't think anything could top the Vulcan, however, a crashing Sea Fury was pretty spectacular (especially as the pilot was not injured!)

[big ned]

With limited power at best, i'm not suprised he left the gear up until the last minute as these things apparently fly like a brick when the elastic breaks, and gear down early could have caused it to stall I suppose. I understand back in the day these beasts were flying in service, the procedure if anything went drastically wrong was not to ride it down, but point it somewhere that it can do as little damage as possible and step out!

[harryamb2]

oh dear,a great shame.

[m3bobby]

That's what happened to the last one, total under carriage failure. Despite the best efforts of the pilot (possibly the same Pilot), he opted to bail out and it crashed into the sea.