Sea Fury G-RNHF Forced Landing

[wellsprop]

Hi all, 

 

Im incredibly releived that Navy Wings have reported the crew are OK. Navy Wings also reported it made a forced landing due to engine issues.

 

 

Unfortunately the Sea Fury T20 operated by Navy Wings made a forced landing today shortly after 1500 at Yeovilton. 

 

 

The aircraft returned from overhaul at North Weald last Friday and it looks in quite an unhappy state now.

 

The crew are out and safe, aircraft can be repaired.

 

WG665 suffered a similar accident in 1990, in which it lost it's wings and the fuselage broke apart. Early days obviously, but all is not necessarily lost.

 

I watched the flight live on adsbexchange and I was incredibly concerned when the flight profile seemed unusual.

 

And here's an easy way to support Navy Wings!

 

https://shop.navywings.org.uk/?gclid=CjwKCAjwj6SEBhAOEiwAvFRuKC_urHVVSPSRTdFpyZLJ7_S8cGFhCoEmTKb-lCReDBaszt_n2zLkzxoCdosQAvD_BwE

 

[Head in the clouds.]

Main thing is pilot is OK.

Still very sad to see a warbird in this predicament, I would not like to be working at the  North Weald company now, no doubt some questions will be asked and they themselves will be gutted.

[malpaso]

Wonder why they chose to fly today?  It wasn’t really flying weather when I was down in Yeovil this morning!  

[wellsprop]

11 minutes ago, malpaso said:

Wonder why they chose to fly today?  It wasn’t really flying weather when I was down in Yeovil this morning!  

 

It was terrible this morining!

 

There was a break around that time however, I managed to get on an aircraft just after lunch (Yeovil) and there was quite a bit of traffic from Yeovilton.

[malpaso]

But any RNHF flight is non-essential so why choose to fly on the crappiest day for weeks?  And forecast for Yeovil tomorrow is glorious.

[Max Headroom]

I’m glad that both crew are safe. However, their Sea Furies do seem to have an unfortunate relationship with the Centaurus engine.

 

Trevor

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

33 minutes ago, Max Headroom said:

I’m glad that both crew are safe. However, their Sea Furies do seem to have an unfortunate relationship with the Centaurus engine.

 

Trevor

 

Not especially. TF956 was stuffed in due to hydraulic failure with one wheel locked up and one locked down.

 

Meanwhile WG655 / G-INVN was wrecked last year after its Centaurus was replaced with a Pratt & Whitney R2800 for perceived reliability failed on departure from Duxford last year.

[GiampieroSilvestri]

This may just be our opinion but all these classic aircrafts are too precious.They should be kept airworthy in a Hangar and not flown without reason so that people in the future can still enjoy these marvellous machines.

They are an unreplaceable heritage.The only good thing is that nobody was injured or worse.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero+Christian

 

 

 

 

[JohnT]

Good to read the occupants are ok even if the airframe is bent. My late uncle, a motor engineer, said of car crashes “ cars repair, people don’t”.  I hope they manage to find the cash and energy to restore her though. 

[Tim R-T-C]

I have to admit I'm nervous whenever warbirds are returned to flight. This following close on from the Avenger incident last week just highlights that - at least no major injuries were sustained in either.

 

Personally I'd rather limit flying to replicas and keep the originals safe - but then after restoration, how much is really original anyway?

Edited April 28, 2021 by Tim R-T-C

[wellsprop]

3 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

I’m glad that both crew are safe. However, their Sea Furies do seem to have an unfortunate relationship with the Centaurus engine.

 

Trevor

 

It seems the Centaurus is not an easy engine to maintain, unfortunately. 

 

2 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

Not especially. TF956 was stuffed in due to hydraulic failure with one wheel locked up and one locked down.

 

Meanwhile WG655 / G-INVN was wrecked last year after its Centaurus was replaced with a Pratt & Whitney R2800 for perceived reliability failed on departure from Duxford last year.

 

WG655 crashed shortly after restoration to flying condition in 1990, whilst under the ownership of the RNHF. It had an engine failure (fatigue in a conrod, IIRC) and force landed near Bruton, losing both wings and breaking the fuselage.

 

G-RNHF force landed at Culdrose in 2014 due to an engine failure and today because of an engine failure. 

 

I know TF956 was lost due to a hydraulic failure, however, I am not knowledgeable enough on the incident of hydraulic system to know if it was becuase of a hydraulic pump failure on the engine.

 

1 hour ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

This may just be our opinion but all these classic aircrafts are too precious.They should be kept airworthy in a Hangar and not flown without reason so that people in the future can still enjoy these marvellous machines.

They are an unreplaceable heritage.The only good thing is that nobody was injured or worse.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero+Christian

 

 

 

 

 

The I watched a video recently about the Sea Fury and I can't recall who it was (possibly the then curator of the FAAM) said that more static aircraft exhibits are lost/scrapped than airworthy aircraft are lost.

 

Moreover, there is already a far more original Sea Fury in the FAAM, rather than a T20 that has been modified for air racing.

 

Whilst I agree everything should be done to preserve them for the future, a flying aircraft is vastly more impactful and better at demonstrating the aircraft to a vast audience than a static aircraft in a museum. 

[ckw]

2 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

They should be kept airworthy in a Hangar and not flown without reason so that people in the future can still enjoy these marvellous machines.

The problem with this is that as well as keeping the aircraft airworthy, pilots need to spend time on these aircraft to stay current. Keep them in the hanger and you'll end up with no one capable of flying them safely.

 

Yes its a shame some get lost, but it is the sight, sound and smell of these aircraft flying that keep the public interested and prepared to support restoring and maintaining warbirds through ticket sales, merchandising and donations. 

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[NAVY870]

I'm all for flying warbirds however the Centaurus was problematic in service (The RAN lost more to engine failure than any other cause) and from my own experience

hard to maintain.

Sea Fury with a Centaurus would not be my aircraft of choice.

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

The number of people worldwide interested and able to pay the amount of money required to maintain an aircraft in good enough condition that it could fly, but never actually want to enjoy flying it, could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

 

In almost all cases, advocates for grounding interesting aircraft in the interests of preserving aircraft too precious to fly have no money to offer up by buying airworthy aircraft and grounding them, and wouldn't do that with their money if they did have it. What they mean is that they wish current owners would not only have grounding forced upon them but also entrapped into keeping them hangared and maintained in country.

 

Just look at Hawker Hunters for a practical example of what happens when not allowed to fly and display them since that crash which still makes people very angry due to how it happened at Shoreham - all the airworthy Hunters have left, having been sold overseas to buyers who can fly them. It proves that the appetite to maintain hungry stuff you're not allowed to play with is pretty much zero.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

9 hours ago, wellsprop said:

I know TF956 was lost due to a hydraulic failure, however, I am not knowledgeable enough on the incident of hydraulic system to know if it was becuase of a hydraulic pump failure on the engine.

 

Whilst I'm not sure the exact source of the failure was discovered due to only partial recovery of the wreckage from the sea, the symptoms of the failure pretty much preclude anything being attributable to the Centaurus engine or its attached hydraulic ancilliaries.

 

After takeoff, John Beattie selected Undercarriage Up. One wheel went up and locked, the other didn't lock. He did what most pilots would do and selected Undercarriage Down. The wheel which hadn't locked went down and locked whilst the one locked up stayed locked up. He tried the hand pump which did nothing (i.e. it wasn't a pump failure but rather strongly pointing to a fractured hydraulic line bleeding away the hydraulic oil) and tried pulling G, bumping the aircraft along the runway on one wheel etc all of which also did nothing.

 

Whatever it was, the probability of the Bristol Centaurus being responsible for the loss of TF956 are pretty remote.

 

 

It's highly fashionable to berate the Centaurus' reliability, much as HMS Hood is maligned by a dazzling lack of context in berating its woeful lack of armour which was surprisingly comparable to most other capital ships when compared objectively, but the last Sea Fury which crashed was let down by a Pratt & Whitney R-2800, the one before that in Texas crashed following failure of a Wright R-3350, the Avenger which ditched off Florida last weekend was let down by a Wright R-2600, the B-17G Nine-Oh-Nine crashed due to two poorly maintained Wright R-1820s, both P-51D Miss Velma and P-51D Miss Helen were substantially damaged by failures of Packard Merlins, The American Air Power museum's P-47D went into the Hudson River with loss of the pilot due to a seized Pratt & Whitney R-2800 and John Romain dead-stick landed Hispano Buchon G-BWUE at Headcorn following a broken conrod in a Merlin.

[WV908]

A real shame to see G-RNHF suffer with another engine failure, but of course it is great news that the pilots got out ok.

 

From a post I read last year (but can no longer find) I understand that the contract for maintaining the Centaurus switched to a new company prior to this last winter maintenance, if anyone can confirm? 

 

Cheers,

  WV908

[GiampieroSilvestri]

6 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

The number of people worldwide interested and able to pay the amount of money required to maintain an aircraft in good enough condition that it could fly, but never actually want to enjoy flying it, could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

 

In almost all cases, advocates for grounding interesting aircraft in the interests of preserving aircraft too precious to fly have no money to offer up by buying airworthy aircraft and grounding them, and wouldn't do that with their money if they did have it. What they mean is that they wish current owners would not only have grounding forced upon them but also entrapped into keeping them hangared and maintained in country.

 

Just look at Hawker Hunters for a practical example of what happens when not allowed to fly and display them since that crash which still makes people very angry due to how it happened at Shoreham - all the airworthy Hunters have left, having been sold overseas to buyers who can fly them. It proves that the appetite to maintain hungry stuff you're not allowed to play with is pretty much zero.

As we wrote they should not fly these aircraft unnecessarily,not that they should not fly at all.I love to see classic aircraft flying but it must be considered that even if they have been completely rebuilt these aircraft are still more than seventy years old and there is always something that can brake.Fly classic aircraft yes but not every day (I am exagerating) and not like they were modern aircraft.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero+Christian

Edited April 29, 2021 by GiampieroSilvestri

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

42 minutes ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

As we wrote they should not fly these aircraft unnecessarily,not that they should not fly at all.I love to see classic aircraft flying but it must be considered that even if they have been completely rebuilt these aircraft are still more than seventy years old and there is always something that can brake.Fly classic aircraft yes but not every day (I am exagerating) and not like they were modern aircraft.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero+Christian

 

It's a bit more binary than that. If the aircraft is to be flown at all, it must be flown regularly enough that the pilot(s)/crew are current and comfortably familiar with it. They are not used like Nissan Micras on minor errands - they simply cost far too much money to run to do that. They are flown as often as is felt to be necessary either to satisfy flight testing minimums after maintenance or to keep crew sufficiently current operating them, or as often as the operator can afford - and hopefully those two requirements line up. Display pilots would be cringing at the thought of beginning the display season (where any revenue other than donations comes from) without having worked up currency in spring to get re-familiarised with the aircraft and practise the display routines for the season. One simply does not wheel it out of the hangar for the first time on the Saturday morning of Flying Legends, check the tyres, see if the engine will start then take off to perform, well, any sort of flying display whatsoever, actually.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

1 hour ago, WV908 said:

A real shame to see G-RNHF suffer with another engine failure, but of course it is great news that the pilots got out ok.

 

From a post I read last year (but can no longer find) I understand that the contract for maintaining the Centaurus switched to a new company prior to this last winter maintenance, if anyone can confirm? 

 

Cheers,

  WV908

 

I read the same one, and also can no longer find it.

[WV908]

Just now, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

I read the same one, and also can no longer find it.

 

IIRC the post was from the guy who previously had the contract. He had the Culdrose engine failure under his belt and explained a lot of the goings on around that. He was certainly displeased about the situation and, as it's not fair to speculate, all we can do is sit back and wait to see what comes out in the report.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

[ckw]

 

2 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

Fly classic aircraft yes but not every day (I am exagerating) and not like they were modern aircraft.

 

When they are flown, they are done so with respect to the age and value of the aircraft - never (intentionally) anywhere near their design limits. I'm not sure where you get the impression that these classics are flown excessively. They are simply far too expensive to operate just for fun, and any operator will be acutely conscious of the hours put on an airframe - and in particular, the engines - leading to early and very expensive maintenance. That said, they have to earn their keep and do so either directly or indirectly through public displays - and those displays need to be entertaining. No one wants to see Spitfires flying gentle circuits.

 

Overall I suspect there would be far, far fewer survivors and restorations around today were it not for the fact that some of them still fly. In the UK I believe airshows to be the 2nd most popular spectator event (after football) - you certainly don't see crowds forming to get into museums to see static displays. 

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[wellsprop]

3 hours ago, ckw said:

 

In the UK I believe airshows to be the 2nd most popular spectator event (after football) - you certainly don't see crowds forming to get into museums to see static displays. 

 

No idea if it's true or not but, personally, I can't overstate just how incredibly important airshows are to me at least.

 

Seeing the Sea Fury up close at the FAAM is one thing, sitting in the cockpit of G-RNHF is another (I got very lucky), but seeing the aircraft displayed, hearing it and watching it roll a d loop is totally different again.

 

I can only be so interested in static displays... How many of us are happy to pay a good amount of money and travel a long way to go to Flying Legends for example? 

 

If it means occasionally aircraft are lost in the process....

 

Obviously, I cant think of a justification for flying an aircraft that is truly a one off original - they really ought to be preserved! 

[ckw]

3 hours ago, wellsprop said:

Obviously, I cant think of a justification for flying an aircraft that is truly a one off original - they really ought to be preserved! 

If you haven't you should pay a visit to a Shuttleworth trust display at Old Warden - they fly some incredibly rare (possibly unique in some cases) aircraft (as well as replicas). Personally I don't think anyone can really get a feel for what an amazing achievement the early days of flight were without seeing these things in the air.

As far as I'm concerned, anything that can be made to fly should fly. That's what they're for. For me its tragic that the Vulcan had to be grounded and there is no flying Concorde neither of which can come close to being properly appreciated sitting on the ground.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[NAVY870]

14 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

It's highly fashionable to berate the Centaurus' reliability,

Well I'm guessing this is a shot at my comments above so allow me to retort

The Centaurus is a sleeve valve engine and as such is far more susceptable to cooling and lubrication issues than a normal radial usually causing the sleeve to momentarily bind with and shear

off from its cam

As I said above the RAN lost more Sea Furies to engine failure than any other issue and having been able to read many of the accident reports in my time at the RANFAA museum 

and the majority of findings stated the engines had failed from seizure of a sleeve causing catastrophic damage and loss of power. Failures were predominately during takeoff and landing.

I would be interested in seeing RN figures and I would not be surprised if a similar pattern showed.

Now if an aircraft in service with all the technical and spares support that implies can have such issues then using the same engines with 40/50/60 year old parts in engines of equal age and a support base no where near what it was

in service then failures like this will continue. This makes no allowances for the "Look at me I'm a fighter pilot" element.

I'm all for flying old aeroplanes, indeed its been a large part of my career but I am of the firm belief that some engines aren't worth it.

For the record I've maintained 3 flyers VH-HFA & VH-HFG (Line servicing) and VH-HFX for its time of the RANHF. Non flyers are VW.623, VW.232, WG.630 & VW.647.

[wellsprop]

I think it should be pointed out that the Centaurus had a TBO of 3000 hours, the Merlin had a TBO of only around 1000 hours. (n.b. I can't find any official document sources confirming this, just what has been said on multiple forums and websites) 

 

The Centaurus powered the Beverley and the Brabazon. With the correct maintenance, the Centaurus was a reliable engine during it's service. Obviously that does not mean it will be reliable now.

 

For what it is worth, huge amounts of Spitfires were lost due to engine failures, look at any page here airhistory.org/spitfire/production.html and you will find that the single most common cause of aircraft lost was engine failure - yet no-one claims the Merlin is unreliable. 

 

I would be very interested to have a list of all the losses of Sea Furys and the cause of the loss - I am not aware of this being freely avaible for the FAA.

 

All of the above is not to say that the Centaurus is not hard to maintain (in fact it is clearly incredibly complicated) and proves difficult to keep serviceable in modern times.