NZFF

It is certainly a real shame to hear on the radio this morning that the Yak 3 crashed while taxing at Warbirds. Lucky the pilot was ok and walked away ok. But a real shame to see such a beautiful aircraft
torn apart. The Right wing sheared right off. At least like the Trojan at Ardmore it can be fixed.

For more updates Check out stuff.co.nz and other news sites.

It is indeed a shame. Apparently he was supposed to land on the asphalt runway but used the grass instead.

cowpatz wrote:It is indeed a shame. Apparently he was supposed to land on the asphalt runway but used the grass instead.

I cant see how he could not see the Cherry Picker on final and thought it could be iffy.

Here is a video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz07Q5Etyjc

cowpatz wrote:It is indeed a shame. Apparently he was supposed to land on the asphalt runway but used the grass instead.

Apparently he was supposed to miss the cherrypicker too, but took the wing off at half span instead.
There'd be some hard words at Wanaka this weekend.
You wonder what the story behind this extraordinarily action might be; sure hope Arthur wasn't busy texting on his phone at the time, about the amazing display he'd put on in the Yak.

Charl wrote:

cowpatz wrote:It is indeed a shame. Apparently he was supposed to land on the asphalt runway but used the grass instead.

Apparently he was supposed to miss the cherrypicker too, but took the wing off at half span instead.
There'd be some hard words at Wanaka this weekend.
You wonder what the story behind this extraordinarily action might be; sure hope Arthur wasn't busy texting on his phone at the time, about the amazing display he'd put on in the Yak.

There will be certainly words spoken, The flight director included. I wasn't there but I heard that the cherrypicker was there all day, So the pilot would have known it was there. Then on landing
he would have certainly seen well before the wheels had touched down. This accident was sure preventable if he used the Tarmac, but unless you were in the pilots shoes we don't know why he made
that decision to land there, or if he was told to land where he did over the coms. Well It will be another Project for Jem aviation to do and many months before it takes to the skies once again.


Anyone know the Progress on the Trojan with the wheel issue at Ardmore ? I was at Ardmore a few months back but know one knew.

The Trojan is still sitting in the hangar, I haven't seen anything done on it since last year and I use that hangar almost every day... However I believe it was waiting on a new propeller which arrived a while ago so hopefully that might speed things along a bit...

FlyingKiwi wrote:The Trojan is still sitting in the hangar, I haven't seen anything done on it since last year and I use that hangar almost every day... However I believe it was waiting on a new propeller which arrived a while ago so hopefully that might speed things along a bit...

Lets hope they look at working on the plane soon, I presume your avatar picture is your full size ? Its a very nice looking airplane, who makes it ?

It's a Slingsby T.67 - British despite the paint scheme, although the more powerful military variants were used by the USAF as trainers for a while so it's a semi-accurate paintscheme.

Also doesn't belong to me sadly but I do fly it quite a bit.

Thank you for sharing, Its a really nice airplane and your really lucky to fly it.

Was it Waitemata Aeroclub that used to operate a training fleet of Slingsbys?

Yes, although it wasn't much of a fleet, they had two - WAE in my picture was one of them, it's now owned by a syndicate of private owners but online with the Auckland Aero Club. The other was WAF which was sadly written off in a fatal accident many years ago. They're delightful to fly, probably the nicest control harmony I've come across in a light aircraft, although the B model is well and truly underpowered, but it teaches energy management in aerobatics well. I flew it to Wings Over Wairarapa a few years ago shortly after it received the USAF paintscheme and it got quite a bit of attention in the visitors parking!

I do recall seeing it at Wings Over Wairarapa a few years back.