Sea Fury landing gear collapse

[Cap'n Wannabe]

http://forces.tv/95144845

[Knotty]

That will be expensive !!!

[Adam the Akrodude]

Damn! Well, pilot walked away, so officially a good landing!

That's the RNHF bird. They've sure been through a few Sea Furies over the years - one single seater in the drink (gear failure), one two seater into a field (engine failure) and now this. Looks like it was blowing a bit of smoke from one pipe as well beforehand. Guess those of us interested/bothered will find out in time what happened.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2712450/Moment-historic-Royal-Navy-fighter-plane-crash-landed-thousands-airshow-spectators-suffering-mechanical-problems.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

[hrtpaul]

Bugger

[_BlackHawk_]

Somethings gone pop in that engine. White smoke plus look how much oil it's spewed down the fuselage. Cylinder failure maybe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_sf9OK8P6k

[Cap'n Wannabe]

Somebody must've put a Jabiru engine in it..

[hrtpaul]

That'll be out of the air for quite a while. There's a multitude of things that could've gone wrong in the engine to produce that smoke. The Centaurus, being a sleeve valve engine, is rather sensitive to low oil pressure etc. More so than other 'normal' radials. It's gonna be an expensive fix that one

[Adam the Akrodude]

Did the engine failure cause the gear collapse I wonder? Engine drives the hyd pump - engine failure, low hyd pressure perhaps?
All happens very quickly in a sleeve valve engine. I was once shown the mystery of these engines by a Ansett engineer at their Tulla engine workshop. They had a beautiful cutaway of a Hercules cylinder showing how the sleeve goes up and down and rotates exposing the inlet and exhaust ports.
Wonderful engines, but give me a R-2800 or BMW-801D. They seem to keep turning even with a cylinder blown off.
I remember reading about Guido's engine failure in his Fury. Oil pressure dropped to zero, engine seized in a matter of seconds and within a few more seconds he was sliding along a paddock wheels up with 18 brand new "ash trays" as he referred to his stuffed Centaurus.

This aeroplane will hopefully fly again.

[hrtpaul]

I reckon the engine shit itself and the prop was just windmilling, not under power. I'd be assuming there'd be a manual extension system for the U/C, possibly a hand pump of some sort. If that's the case, he probably just run out of time to pump the gear down with everything else going on. All just speculation on my part though

[oz rb fan]

Adam
i suspect that maybe the lack of engine power meant no pressure to the gear locks....one gear is flapping as he approaches finals.........considering the fate of the first tf11 seafury they had(gear wouldnt extend...so bail out over the English channel)
this is a good result..metal can be repaired..(my wife actually liked this plane!!)
how she looked 2 weeks ago


Adam the civil Centaurus had the highest hours between overhauls of any piston engine...on the other hand ask any old school Qantas engineer about connies......the best 3 engine plane they ever had!!!!

ironically if Paul Morgan hadn't been killed in a seafury accident we'd have brand new Centaurus sleeve valves ..the bane of anyone that wants a proper seafury!!!!