What crashed in front of us today?

My son was taking his inaugural flight today, thanks to a "Chuck Yeager - Young
Eagle" program at Gillespie Field (El Cajon, CA). He was standing on the wing
of a sparkling red Grumman Yankee, getting his preflight brief from the owner
while various civil and antique a/c came and went on the active, a hundred
yards away. I saw a French thing sitting on the numbers, ready to go but
taking its time. Looked like a Beaver that had been rear-ended by a Potez...
Single engine, shoulder wing, tail of a ... well.. a Potez or Leo - some kind
of twin tail that sure looked out of place on the little 4-6 seater. At long
last, the thing started making the appropriate amount of racket and took off
down the runway. Lex was looking at his pilot - I was looking across the
cockpit at him, toward the runway. My eyes followed the a/c; thinking, that
sure is a slow takeoff.. I don't think the tail ever came up. Answered a
question of Lex's and glanced back - gear is collapsing and its ground looping
to the right, as if he aborted the T/O and tried to turn off with too much
speed. Fire truck rolled quickly to the scene, luckily no meat wagon was
called.

After a short wait, the field announced everything was good and Lex and his
pilot took off, past the forlorn, wing-down kite. 15 minutes later, they
landed (he loved it) and taxied past the French-marked a/c, coming back with a
smile. My wife should stop beating me shortly ("YOU SENT HIM UP AFTER THE
PLANE IN FRONT OF HIM_CRASHED_?"). I tried to make her understand that
mathematically, the chancesOWW Owww OWWW

ahem. Anyway - two questions: everyone ok? and what the heck was it?

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR Aircrew

"Got anything on your radar, SENSO?"
"Nothing but my forehead, sir."

"Gordon" a écrit dans le message de
...

[snip]
ahem. Anyway - two questions: everyone ok? and what the heck was it?

Hello,

Did it look anything like that? :

http://caea.free.fr/fr/coll/broussard.html


ArVa

Did it look anything like that? :

http://caea.free.fr/fr/coll/broussard.html

That's it! Hope it wasn't mangled too badly..

Thanks, Arva. As soon as the image loaded, my son said, "That's it!"

v/r
Gordon

"Gordon" a écrit dans le message de
...

Did it look anything like that? :

http://caea.free.fr/fr/coll/broussard.html

That's it! Hope it wasn't mangled too badly..

Me too. I didn't even know there were some Broussards - which name BTW means
in English 'Bush-man', a rather ironic name nowadays for a French-built
aircraft!... :-) - in the US and I hope that it will be able to fly again
some day.

Thanks, Arva. As soon as the image loaded, my son said, "That's it!"

Glad to help.

Regards,
ArVa

(Gordon) wrote:

[SNIP]

Thanks for the Trike World update.

You're welcome. Thanks for the the update on your local EAA
chapter's get-together. Truly warmed the cockles of our little hearts.

BTW, you seem to be insinuating that it's perfectly appropriate for
Gordon to post off-topic chit chat all day long on this NG but not me
simply because I own a trike. For your military enlightenment, below
is a link depicting Gus Grissom and Milt Thompson standing next to an
early trike at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center:

http://members.lycos.co.uk/hglide/Aus.htm

The Trike World is forever indebted to all the outstanding NASA and
military aviators for their early contributions to weightshift,
flexwing aviation.

I'm going off to thank the folks that read my first post and simply gave
me good info in return.

You're welcome, again. Ya' gotta' admit that it wasn't exactly clear
if you simply wanted to chit chat about your local EAA weenie roast
or if you really were seeking information as you claim.

You said:

"Looked like a Beaver that had been rear-ended by a Potez...
Single engine, shoulder wing, tail of a ... well.. a Potez or Leo -
some kind of twin tail that sure looked out of place on the little
4-6 seater."

("Gord_Beaman") wrote:

(...just because your 'aircraft' is tiny doesn't mean that you,
as a person, aren't 'up to snuff'...)

Careful Gord, your ignorance is showing again. The wingspan
on my bird is almost 40-ft. wide and she stands more than 13-ft.
tall! In other words, she barely fits (or doesn't fit) in most hangars
built for GA planes.

"Mike Marron" wrote in message
...
("Gord_Beaman") wrote:

(...just because your 'aircraft' is tiny doesn't mean that you,
as a person, aren't 'up to snuff'...)

Careful Gord, your ignorance is showing again. The wingspan
on my bird is almost 40-ft. wide and she stands more than 13-ft.
tall! In other words, she barely fits (or doesn't fit) in most hangars
built for GA planes.

With Marron flying it the whole thing reminds you of the Wizard of Oz; with
its flying monkeys.

Mike Marron wrote:

("Gord_Beaman") wrote:

(...just because your 'aircraft' is tiny doesn't mean that you,
as a person, aren't 'up to snuff'...)

Careful Gord, your ignorance is showing again. The wingspan
on my bird is almost 40-ft. wide and she stands more than 13-ft.
tall! In other words, she barely fits (or doesn't fit) in most hangars
built for GA planes.


My God Marron...I didn't think that my metaphor was *that* deeply
buried...try again...perhaps you'll catch on now that you have
this rather broad hint. ...

Gollee mistar Dillon...

I assume that you don't chew gum while flying, right?.
--

-Gord.

That's it! Hope it wasn't mangled too badly..

Me too. I didn't even know there were some Broussards - which name BTW means
in English 'Bush-man', a rather ironic name nowadays for a French-built
aircraft!... :-) - in the US and I hope that it will be able to fly again
some day.

I think it will - the back didn't break and it seemed that the damage was
localized to the gear although it was hard to tell through a 300mm lens (it
spun about 400 yards away from us). I've never seen a bird like it and I hope
it was not destroyed as it had to be quite rare.

I did get a laugh out of the name translating into "Bush-man". That rules out
ME ever flying in it!

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR Aircrew

"Got anything on your radar, SENSO?"
"Nothing but my forehead, sir."

"Gordon" wrote in message
...

I did get a laugh out of the name translating into "Bush-man". That rules
out
ME ever flying in it!

Don't you lick bush?