Yak gets smacked

[FlyTexas]

Very sad.
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled ... /4941277/L

Brian

[DaveG]

Video here:
https://youtu.be/gz07Q5Etyjc

[Paul K]

Fixable, hopefully. The Kiwis seem able to return anything to the air.

[SkippyBing]

The obvious question being who thought parking those cherry pickers there was a good idea?

[Airspeed]

The obvious question being who thought parking those cherry pickers there was a good idea?

Hi Skippy!
And why was he cleared to land on the grass, when there was a paved runway right next door?

[SkippyBing]

The obvious question being who thought parking those cherry pickers there was a good idea?

Hi Skippy!
And why was he cleared to land on the grass, when there was a paved runway right next door?

I think some warbird operators prefer grass runways, a lot of them were designed to operate from them originally and the undercarriage doesn't take to tarmac as well due to the higher grip levels. The Spitfire had to have a number of modification to the gear for the later versions that would be operating from hard surfaces, I believe to stop the tyres getting wrecked from the sideways loads due to torque.

Ultimately unless there's a reason not to ATC should let the pilot land where they want as they're best placed to decide what's safest, presumably ATC didn't know about the cherry pickers...

Having had a quick look at the Wanaka charts they don't appear to actually have ATC facilities, just a common radio frequency, although I'm not sure what's in place for the airshow.

http://www.aip.net.nz/NavWalk.aspx?sect ... ree=Wanaka

[FlyTexas]

Thanks for the info, Skippy!

Brian

[Airspeed]

Same here, Skippy!

[Dev One]

Lot more detail over at Key Publishing, seems the cherry pickers were there with a string between them for slow fliers to limbo. Also seems that Yak wings are like hen's teeth.

[Archer]

And why was he cleared to land on the grass, when there was a paved runway right next door?

There was a grass runway next to the paved one, but he appears to have touched down on the surface between the two runways. I'm sure the full story will emerge in due course, when the investigation report is published.

A shame about a lovely aircraft but at least everyone was able to walk away from this one.