Mid air collision at Duxford- no one hurt

[Garry Russell]

I get the impressin he was getting ready and just making sure it was pointing in an empty direction and stable before he went overboard.

It looked steady but he may have lost some of the control.

It was amazing the Skyraider which intially suffered from the collision was brought back to level flight with such damage.

Thank goodness no one was hurt....the metal can always be replaced or even recreated

[jonesey2k]

Looking at the slow speed replay its amazing that the Mustang wasn't cut in half. That was one hell of an impact!

[Chris Trott]

Thankfully, over half of the Skyraider's right aileron was still intact so the pilot by going with the roll was able to bring it back upright and then stop the roll and regain most of the control. All he had to do after that is just come in a little fast since the right wing obviously was going to produce a lot less lift.

The P-51 (looking at closeup photos posted elsewhere), the wing impact broke the P-51's back. The pilot really didn't have much he could do and the nosedive was simply a result of the continued structural failure as the air loads overcame the structure. The bigger testament is that the wings on the Mustang didn't fold despite a major and sudden negative-G loading, something they really weren't designed to handle.

The other forum (which has a lot of warbird pilots, including a lot of very experienced formation guys in both the Skyraider and Mustang) basically say that what it looks like is what it is - the Skyraider pilot broke the #1 rule of formation flying - he lost sight of his leader. Sadly, this is why most formation accidents happen - the wingman looses sight of his leader and doesn't do the right thing (put the plane straight and level and call out "knock it off" or "lost lead" on the radio until you find him).

[Paul K]

I think the Skyraider pilot expected the P-51 to continue the turn at the same rate, whereas in fact it goes off a little wide and so disappeared under the nose of the Spad. Maybe the P-51 pilot widened the turn so as to maintain separation from the tail aircraft of the preceding vic, who knows. Anyway, the AAIB report is going to make very interesting reading.

And it could have been worse...the lost aircraft could have been the sole airworthy Curtiss 75 Hawk, or the Pearl Harbour survivor P40B. Not to diminish the loss of a P-51, but there were very much rarer aircraft in that big formation.

[Paul K]

Rob Davies, the P-51 pilot, in a brief interview.

http://www.itv.com/anglia/pilot-speaks- ... rash48488/

According to the commentator, the other aircraft was a Skyrider. He probably thinks a P-51 is called a Mustard.

[Blister]

A bit more and a video - how sad - BB Doll was a favourite must see of mine too

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rshow.html