Sad news.... It's been reported on Pprune that one of the two-seater Lightnings has crashed at an airshow at Overberg, SA. The pilot is thought to have been killed in the crash, which occured following hydraulic failure.
Oh dear. My younger son flew it in January this year ( as P 2 of course) and thought it was a splendid aeroplane and thought it was jaw-dropping in its performance even though he is an experienced aerobatic pilot
i was at the show and heard pilot declare emergency. air craft was routed to east of the field and pilot indicated possibility of needing to eject. he reported he was going to fly away from populated areas and again indicated he may need to eject. thereafter indicated he was having difficulties with control and was ejecting. shortly afterwards he reported "ejection failure" and the aircraft impacted the ground. I saw no parachute deploy
So now theres being some questions asked already....
from one of the local forums:
My other photos show that at speed on the take off roll, a liquid was also streaming off the dorsal fin on the belly of ZU-BEX. What event lead to this is unknown and why not spotted by his crew chief as being "unusual" is also.
You can see the main stream below the after burner on my take-off photo elsewhere.