B-17 Down at Bradley Int'l Airport

Ugh. I got a ride in 909 last year with my dad and best friend. We commented on the amount of pointy metal things around and how difficult egress would be. RIP
 
weilke said:
Cliff notes:
- a plane crashed
- 'i don't have that information'
- look at me, I am a politician, have nothing of substance to contribute, but I am here anyway, vote for me!
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Take the plane crash away and you’ve described nearly every press conference. If they know anything, only the expensive professional PR person speaks.
 
denverpilot said:
Take the plane crash away and you’ve described nearly every press conference. If they know anything, only the expensive professional PR person speaks.
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I am not critical of either the airport director or the police commissioner. They could have been a bit more concise and organized, but I understand that this is a 'omce in a career' situation, they had limited info and little time to prepare. What I have a problem with are the politicos who suck up 1/2 the time and have zero factual information to contribute.
 
I have heard the controller tape on the news and had a question. Does everyone think he was appropriate in stating that he had jets coming in and did the pilot really need to land right now? Just wondering what everyone else thought.
 
denverpilot said:
Sad. I really prefer the old airplanes flying instead of in museums, but there’s an inherent risk when they need to fly constantly to fundraise. :-(
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I don't know why a fundraising flight would be inherently more risky than any other type of flight. Unless the suggestion is tat they should not be flying because of equipment, maintenance or crew issues.
 
jallen0 said:
I have heard the controller tape on the news and had a question. Does everyone think he was appropriate in stating that he had jets coming in and did the pilot really need to land right now? Just wondering what everyone else thought.
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If true, yes, I would have a real damn problem with that.
 
There is a penalty for declaring an emergency. The FAA may ground you until they decide that you now meet their requirements for the repair.

From the incomplete information, the problem was initially not major, the #4 engine had a problem, and they had enough performance to return and land. Apparently, the #3 engine also failed, as witnesses reported that propeller was not turning.

With both engines on one side out, the crew had all they could do to maybe keep airborne until the runway was reached. Communication is not number one at that point.

The tower guy did not suitably respond to the magnitude of the potential of an engine out at low altitude in an antique aircraft, resulting in useless radio calls, when he should have been rearranging his inbound flow to minimize possible conflict, until the B 17 was on the ground.

Unfortunately, the B 17 crew, at least initially, was trying to salvage the rest of the days flights by bringing the B 17 in without an emergency, for what initially was a repairable malfunction.

Back in the day of the monster radial engines, my mother was on one that had an engine fire on startup, they shut all down, put out the fire, inspected for damage, restarted, another fire, repeat, the third time, start was successful, and when all four were running, took off. Major airline, Dallas Texas. Life flying those big radials is different than we expect today.

Comments on the huge surplus of power without a bomb load are exaggerated, as the de-rating from reducing the compression ratio to burn 100 octane instead of 150 octane is severe.

All that said, my heart goes out to the crew, as they did the best they could, as they saw the problems that came their way. Their last few minutes of life was incredibly challenging, and they nearly made it home OK. Not much different than a WW 2 crew coming back with a crippled plane, and doing their best to get safely down.

From my misty eyes, I see nothing they did wrong. They just did not make it home.
 
mryan75 said:
If true, yes, I would have a real damn problem with that.
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They didn’t declare an emergency at least on the portion of the tapes we have. He was trying to figure out how bad of a problem they were saying they had... no foul in him asking. Also, keep in mind that a tower controller is a the end of the funnel. If he shuts off his end of the funnel, everyone else in ATC gets busy keeping all the inbound traffic safe. The crew may have had their hands full, but using the emergency word gives the controller the information he needed...
And yeah, it sucks that they got it all the way back to the airport but couldn’t survive. I for one am curious how the ground sequence of the emergency landing played out.
 
A Google search did not bring up the ferry flight if the B 24 from Canada to Harlingen Texas, and their epic fight with the FAA after their first engine failure. The FAA canceled their ferry permit, but they successfully avoided being "served" notice, with the aid of airport personnel who sympathized with the WW 2 pilots and mechanics who were flying the old bird. From the second airport, they flew so low the FAA could not track them.

Their time in service had brought them to a willingness to take risks that some others would call foolish, but they were willing to take.

Their third engine out stop was a wheat field in Kansas, the farmer agreed not to call and report them down, supplied them with the hydraulic hose they needed , and brought out his gas truck to top up their tanks and give them the range to make it to Harlingen, non stop. The B 24 was at home on a smooth 'grass strip' such as a wheat field, and took off just fine.

The FAA did serve the papers at Harlingen, but grounding it there was immaterial.

Some of the spirit of those guys may have been in 909 at Bradley. They didn't need to risk getting grounded for a single engine failure, just go back and fix it. Then the second went out..............

The second guessers will have a field day, but I am with the pilots on this one.
 
jallen0 said:
I have heard the controller tape on the news and had a question. Does everyone think he was appropriate in stating that he had jets coming in and did the pilot really need to land right now? Just wondering what everyone else thought.
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Not inappropriate at all. The pilot in his initial request to return did not declare an emergency and the initial report of an issue with number 4 was somewhat vague. I'm honestly still not sure what he was saying/meant (sounded like he wanted to return to 'blow out' number 4) and I fly multi-engine radial warbirds.

Because the TRACON is dealing with multiple arrival/departures, he was simply trying to ascertain if it was an emergency or simply a precautionary return so he could accommodate. From what I could tell on the tapes, the controller took it upon himself to treat it as an emergency and send the other aircraft on approach around.

Not trying to say anything negative about the flight crew as I was not in the cockpit dealing with whatever they were faced with (I can't say I would have done anything differently), but it is important for us as pilots to remember the controller doesn't know what we are dealing with and we should not be afraid to declare an emergency if we need it.
 
There’s a world of difference between a known ferry situation and a pax ride flight... not that the ferry story is acceptable, or frankly relevant.
 
geezer said:
All that said, my heart goes out to the crew, as they did the best they could, as they saw the problems that came their way. Their last few minutes of life was incredibly challenging, and they nearly made it home OK. Not much different than a WW 2 crew coming back with a crippled plane, and doing their best to get safely down.

From my misty eyes, I see nothing they did wrong. They just did not make it home.
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This sums it up in my mind. People love to say things like "they went out doing what they loved" or whatever else. Personally, I don't feel that way at all. Anyone who truly thinks that is, IMO, romanticizing the risks of aviation a lot. That would really suck to be in that position. Like being in a knife fight to the death, and ultimately losing. It would not be a peaceful or fun way to go out. I'm sure that they were doing everything in their power and skills to get it on deck safely. Tragically, it did not end up that way.
 
geezer said:
...
Comments on the huge surplus of power without a bomb load are exaggerated, as the de-rating from reducing the compression ratio to burn 100 octane instead of 150 octane is severe.

...
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Having flown on it and having inspected 909, I can tell you that the turbo wastegates are welded fully open. They do not have the power add of the turbos, as those have been disabled, probably due to the lack of high test gas.
 
This is not intended as speculation, but to put an idea out there as an opinion for other Warbird pilots who might read this and face a future emergency. Ever since I had to belly land our Cardinal after the hydraulic failure I’ve had a lot less fear of actually of keeping an intentional gear-up belly landing in the tool bag in an emergency situation if terrain looks favorable, and most runway environments would meet that criteria. The positives are maintaining a longer glide in an engine out situation and actually probably stopping in a much shorter space than a roll-out. The negatives are obvious, but numerous B-17s have belly landed before.
 
The senator had a lot to say about old airplanes, that he knows little about.
 
geezer said:
de-rating from reducing the compression ratio
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I always wondered how these older giant radials behave with the different type of gas burned today. Surprised there is no way to get appropriate octane gas to keep something like this flying.. there's no "antique" gas that can be procured? Some kind of race grade gas?

Also, how did they reduce the compression ratio? Is it a "hack" with the valve timing or did they actually swap out the connecting rods with different length ones?

arnoha said:
I can tell you that the turbo wastegates are welded fully open. They do not have the power add of the turbos, as those have been disabled, probably due to the lack of high test gas
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What a travesty. The effective power output of those engines must be a fraction of what they once were
 
RyanShort1 said:
This is not intended as speculation, but to put an idea out there as an opinion for other Warbird pilots who might read this and face a future emergency. Ever since I had to belly land our Cardinal after the hydraulic failure I’ve had a lot less fear of actually of keeping an intentional gear-up belly landing in the tool bag in an emergency situation if terrain looks favorable, and most runway environments would meet that criteria. The positives are maintaining a longer glide in an engine out situation and actually probably stopping in a much shorter space than a roll-out. The negatives are obvious, but numerous B-17s have belly landed before.
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Hopefully some friends and family have video to let us know what went wrong on the landing; I believe it was reported that they hit a nav tower, which may have started the loss-of-control event.
 
geezer said:
There is a penalty for declaring an emergency. The FAA may ground you until they decide that you now meet their requirements for the repair.
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They can only do that if they're actually right there, and that's rare. They generally won't even bother to contact you and ask about it later unless you cause some trouble (like closing a single-runway airport) and it's a slow day. I doubt the FAA entered the pilots' decisionmaking at all, and if it did, that's bad.

The tower guy did not suitably respond to the magnitude of the potential of an engine out at low altitude in an antique aircraft, resulting in useless radio calls, when he should have been rearranging his inbound flow to minimize possible conflict, until the B 17 was on the ground.
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I listened to the recording. They never actually said their engine was out.

Unfortunately, the B 17 crew, at least initially, was trying to salvage the rest of the days flights by bringing the B 17 in without an emergency, for what initially was a repairable malfunction.
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Assumes facts not in evidence. They sounded pretty calm and probably didn't really think it was an emergency. It sounded like they were going to return and "blow it out" and take off again without even having a mechanic look at it. I think the problem was likely quite a bit worse than they knew.
 
Tantalum said:
I always wondered how these older giant radials behave with the different type of gas burned today. Surprised there is no way to get appropriate octane gas to keep something like this flying.. there's no "antique" gas that can be procured? Some kind of race grade gas?

Also, how did they reduce the compression ratio? Is it a "hack" with the valve timing or did they actually swap out the connecting rods with different length ones?


What a travesty. The effective power output of those engines must be a fraction of what they once were
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Certainly they could use a fuel similar to what is used in some of the higher-end "gasser" racing; it's quite pricey, however, and makes 100LL look like a bargain.
 
Tantalum said:
I always wondered how these older giant radials behave with the different type of gas burned today. Surprised there is no way to get appropriate octane gas to keep something like this flying.. there's no "antique" gas that can be procured? Some kind of race grade gas?
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The highest octane race gas I've seen is 110. Getting the leaded 130 is probably prohibitively expensive. One person who was working on an engine-related STC had to get "100LL" that was exactly at each end of the octane tolerance for testing, and IIRC it was in the neighborhood of $100/gal. You want to ground all these old birds, making them burn a wartime gas blend that they have to buy in the quantities they would be able to burn would do it.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
The highest octane race gas I've seen is 110. Getting the leaded 130 is probably prohibitively expensive. One person who was working on an engine-related STC had to get "100LL" that was exactly at each end of the octane tolerance for testing, and IIRC it was in the neighborhood of $100/gal. You want to ground all these old birds, making them burn a wartime gas blend that they have to buy in the quantities they would be able to burn would do it.
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They also open up the waste gates to be "easier" on the engines to help them last longer, not just fuel related.
 
Tantalum said:
I always wondered how these older giant radials behave with the different type of gas burned today. Surprised there is no way to get appropriate octane gas to keep something like this flying.. there's no "antique" gas that can be procured? Some kind of race grade gas?

Also, how did they reduce the compression ratio? Is it a "hack" with the valve timing or did they actually swap out the connecting rods with different length ones?


What a travesty. The effective power output of those engines must be a fraction of what they once were
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By forcing the wastegates open, the effective pressure in the cylinders is lowered. It's not the compression ratio that's directly the issue...it's the cylinder pressure and heat prior to spark. Compression ratio is just one way to increase both. The turbo is another. By pulling the turbo out of the equation and with careful management of the engines, the pressures stay low enough. The actual compression ratios of these engines was quite low, often as low as 7:1. I don't know about the ones that were on 909.

I'll also note that auto gas is rated in anti-knock index, but avgas rating do not use that and typically run higher for the same fuel. They're also usually rated, in the past, with two numbers, a rich and a lean number. We only see the lower lean number now. The 150 being quoted is a rich number. So, yeah, just saying the numbers being run around in this thread aren't all directly comparable.
 
jallen0 said:
I have heard the controller tape on the news and had a question. Does everyone think he was appropriate in stating that he had jets coming in and did the pilot really need to land right now? Just wondering what everyone else thought.
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Controller did a good job. Pilot starts with just saying he wants to return to land. No tone of voice or words that it was an emergency. The controller does however ask if he needs to get down immediately. Pilot gives a somewhat vague answer, “when you get a chance.” The Controller sends another plane around and tells the B17 to proceed however he feels is necessary. There’s no ping on ATC in this one.

EDIT: should have kept reading and got to @Fearless Tower ’s post #52 and just said “yeah, this”
 
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geezer said:
A Google search did not bring up the ferry flight if the B 24 from Canada to Harlingen Texas, and their epic fight with the FAA after their first engine failure. The FAA canceled their ferry permit, but they successfully avoided being "served" notice, with the aid of airport personnel who sympathized with the WW 2 pilots and mechanics who were flying the old bird. From the second airport, they flew so low the FAA could not track them.

Their time in service had brought them to a willingness to take risks that some others would call foolish, but they were willing to take.

Their third engine out stop was a wheat field in Kansas, the farmer agreed not to call and report them down, supplied them with the hydraulic hose they needed , and brought out his gas truck to top up their tanks and give them the range to make it to Harlingen, non stop. The B 24 was at home on a smooth 'grass strip' such as a wheat field, and took off just fine.

The FAA did serve the papers at Harlingen, but grounding it there was immaterial.

Some of the spirit of those guys may have been in 909 at Bradley. They didn't need to risk getting grounded for a single engine failure, just go back and fix it. Then the second went out..............

The second guessers will have a field day, but I am with the pilots on this one.
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My dad flew on a B-25 with 4 P-51s from Calgary to Harlingen in 1981.
 
jallen0 said:
I have heard the controller tape on the news and had a question. Does everyone think he was appropriate in stating that he had jets coming in and did the pilot really need to land right now? Just wondering what everyone else thought.
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Yes he was "appropriate" in that sometimes getting information out of pilots is like pulling teeth. I understand that "communicate" is last on the list but if there is the slightest chance that an emergency should be declared, then do it. Controllers are happy to help, they just need information in order to do so. Like someone said earlier, he was trying to see if they needed assistance/declaring an emergency. As soon as he found out the B-17 was in trouble, he cancelled approach clearances and got the jets out of the equation. In some emergencies, and I've seen quite a few in 27 years as a controller, they need to burn down fuel before landing because they are too heavy. Controllers have to pick up the crash phone and give information about the emergency to the rescue people. It is really difficult to do that with limited information. Controllers need information, that's why they ask questions.
 
I don't believe there is any indication at this point that a failure to declare an emergency (if indeed there were such a failure) is any way contributed to the accident, is there?
 
Timbeck2 said:
Failure to declare an emergency would make the difference in the trucks being in position and waiting vs driving out to the site after the crash. Better to declare and not need help rather than not declare and need it.
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Ah, OK, gotcha
 
Discuss this all you want but please refrain from pointing fingers, especially based on the sketchy information you currently have. Just because it happened doesn't mean it has to be somebody's fault.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
The highest octane race gas I've seen is 110. Getting the leaded 130 is probably prohibitively expensive. One person who was working on an engine-related STC had to get "100LL" that was exactly at each end of the octane tolerance for testing, and IIRC it was in the neighborhood of $100/gal. You want to ground all these old birds, making them burn a wartime gas blend that they have to buy in the quantities they would be able to burn would do it.
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Damn, that sucks
 
denverpilot said:
Take the plane crash away and you’ve described nearly every press conference. If they know anything, only the expensive professional PR person speaks.
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The ONLY press conferences worth watching are the ones hosted by the on-scene NTSB lead investigator.
 
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