On Sun, 02 Aug 2020 03:39:34 -0700, Paul B wrote:
Great video, there are couple of questions I would ask though.
1) Why did he not turn much tighter to return to the airfield, one
looses much less height in a tight turn that a shallow one? From a tight
turn he might have been able to land downwind. Of course I do not know
what the winds were, or how feasible is to land P-51 downwind.
2) Why did he cross the highway, surely he could have turned base
halfway down the strip and have enough runway to stop.
If you have Google Earth or similar, go he
52° 5'32.77"N 0° 7'43.46"E
Take a look at the situation. From the video it looks as though he was
flying a left-hand circuit, with the downwind leg on the north of the
airfield. This means that there was an easterly, so they would have
crossed the motorway immediately after takeoff. The main runway was
shortened when the M11 motorway was built across it in 1977, 1200ft from
its eastern end.
Here I'm guessing but its likely the formation formed up ENE from the
airfield, maybe somewhere south of Whittlesford or Pampisford, ready for
a pass down runway 24.
Turning in early wouldn't have been a good idea with lots of buildings to
cross: you can see them off to his left in the video and doing so would
also have meant flying over a lot of spectators, so definitely a no-no.
Whilst I appreciate that he did not do it under the pressure of the
situation, I was surprised however, that it did not come up in the
discussion.
I thought the pilot said he considered and discarded that option. Reason
left unsaid, but buildings and lots of people would have been a good
enough reason for that.
This is slightly off topic, as its about an engine failure in a P-51,
but is well worth watching because the majority of it is concerned with
the pilot talking us through a video shot from the aircraft followed by
a very interesting discussion as he and the interviewer unpick his
thought processes. Here's the link:
https://youtu.be/BBpqvPujZgM
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Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org