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Herald: "MBE For Pilot Who Crashed In Front Of Prince"

I was at Lossiemouth on that day, along with Slim iirc, the gannet was doing an upside down fly past, and the jockey pulled the stick the wrong way , to recover to normal flight, and went down instead of up :sad7: all the crowd thought it was part of the show :cheese: well that was the folklore story in the Fulmar club from that day hence, but this is what really happened......The Gannet landed on his radome, He was demonstrating single engine capability and for some reason the good engine shut down as he curved in for a low pass - a quick alignment waggle and it was down with sundry sparks trailing before you realised it wasn't part of the show
 
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I was at Lossiemouth on that day, along with Slim iirc, the gannet was doing an upside down fly past, and the jockey pulled the stick the wrong way , to recover to normal flight, and went down instead of up :sad7: all the crowd thought it was part of the show :cheese: well that was the folklore story in the Fulmar club from that day hence, but this is what really happened......The Gannet landed on his radome, He was demonstrating single engine capability and for some reason the good engine shut down as he curved in for a low pass - a quick alignment waggle and it was down with sundry sparks trailing before you realised it wasn't part of the show

Never let the truth get in the way of a good dit:razz:
 
The folklore story was in fact a theme on the following,display on that great day!! Capt Bandini in a Macchi flew inverted along the crowd line at about 15 feet and so close you could almost touch the tip tanks. True Dit
 
The folklore story was in fact a theme on the following,display on that great day!! Capt Bandini in a Macchi flew inverted along the crowd line at about 15 feet and so close you could almost touch the tip tanks. True Dit

Capt. Bandini


This the guy?
 
Don't think the 849 Sqdn AEW Gannet prang on Lossiemouth Airday, 13 July 1963 story will ever die! I was one of the Duty SAR Crew that day and watched it happen. The SAR Whirlwind Mk7 was moved across from the Station Flight area, to the K16-K17 Hangars Hardstandng on the other side of the airfield to make room for the crowd. Lt Dick Saker RN was our pilot and the other crewman with me in the back, was REM1(A)(Aircrew) Pony Moore, later Lt A Moor RN, Buccaneer Pilot. We had a grandstand view from K Site. The Gannet came in from the West, from the Elgin direction of the airfield and flew towards the crowd, at around 200' he started to turn starboard to pass in front of the control tower and crowd and as he did so he (I understand) shut down one engine to start the other as a demo. There was a puff of black smoke from the exhausts as the in-use engine stopped, without the other one re-starting and for a moment it was horrifying: the nose came up, his speed decreased and the tail dropped away to starboard. I thought for a moment that the aircraft was going to more or less stall right onto the crowd, just about where our young Royal was standing. He managed to get the nose down and quickly 'kick' and 'pole' it around to starboard and neatly plant it, 'wheels up' on the 19 end of the short runway, by then we we were running to man up and start, to await further developments whilst all this was going on, so I didn't see the aircraft come to a stop, I believe that the 'Rescue1' PRV Landrover and crew were there very swiftly and the pilot and his one Midshipman Observer were out of it equally quickly! By the time we were organised, checks done 'Burning and Turning' and I looked back, the 'Crash1' Mk7? Fire Truck was approaching the now stationary Gannet. We got airborne later in the afternoon with a Phot rating, to take some snaps for the 'Subsequent Board of Enquiry'! The Gannet was repaired and flew back to Culdrose within a few days, although I vaguely remember lots of bits of radome and the scanner dish strewn along the runway afterwards. Great that everyone was still around to tell the story! The result could have been much worse. I remember the Italian 'Frecce Tricolori' singleton doing his low-level run that day too. One of them ploughed a furrow with his wingtip in Yeovilton Airfield a few years later and the 'Frecce' had a major and horrific mid-air at USAF Ramstein in Germany after that with considerable loss of life and injury.
 
Sent a copy of my dit on here about the Gannet Airday prang to Pony Moore. Thought I should after mentioning him on here! I also asked him for his recollections of that day, as an additional and definitely 'expert' witness, herewith: "my recollections of the Gannet crash as I remember it"! "The 1st pass was along the short rumway (01/19) in a southerly direction coming in past the lighthouse, then a dumbell turn to return in the opposite direction shutting down 1 engine to fly past with 1 feathered. Another dumbell turn around the lighthouse whilst relighting the 'dead' engine in the turn". "That's when it went to rat sh*t and the 'good' engine started to fail. As he lost altitude he turned stbd away from the crowd and slithered towards the main runway". "Eric Bryson was the pilot"

That is similar to my memories, except that Pony recalls the Gannet as coming back in eastwards along the coast from over Covesea Lighthouse, by Lossiemouth Golf Course and not straight across the airfield as I had thought. The pilot's name is the third option I have heard! It seems likely that the (then) Midshipman Observer, was 'Dai Rees' quoted in the media, as they often do with aircrew, as the "pilot".
 
Just came across this site some time after the comments were written. Most of the comments are incorrect. The gannet had flown past the crowd shutting down the port engine and then completed a turn to starboard. On the next pass the pilot relit the engine. As the propeller moved from the feathered position and started to rotate the ‘pitch stops’ were supposed to prevent it going past +8 degrees. Unfortunately the pitch stops failed and the propeller went through to the reverse position. This was known as ‘discing’ and was a rare but known fault with the Double Mamba engine and propeller system. A number of pilots have died in the subsequent crashes as the aircraft becomes uncontrollable, The pilot endeavored to shut the engine down and feather the propeller but there was insufficient time. He managed to turn the aircraft away from the crowd and put it down on the ground.
This was the finding of the the Board of Enquiry and the pilot was not blamed.
I know this for a fact as I was the pilot. Eagle1.
 

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