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Thread: Appearance fees

  1. #11

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    Dec 2011
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    Lewisburg WV
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    Having flown acro at Oshkosh for 4 years I can tell you that they only pay for your fuel the day of your performance. Usually you have to find an outside sponsor to pay your fee for you. This in no way includes the folks of Airventure. The first 2 years I did it on my own dime, the rebound was I'd get at least 2 shows booked the next year that said they saw me fly at Oshkosh. For the really big name performers they provide hotel rooms.


    As for the card situation, Bill in the fighter flight it is not required due to the lack of formation in the round about.


    Circle the jumper card was done away with a few years ago but some folks retain the endorsement on their SAC card to this day. No particular reason just easier to leave it if they already have it.

  2. #12

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    Jul 2011
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    Scott, what is a "round about" as per your post? I have never heard that term for flying, except here it is a turnaround in the street.

    I have flown some formation flights at Oshkosh, the largest one was 18 planes in T-34s which was a lot of concentration, but worth doing. Some of the fighter flights are formation, like the big WWII celebration which I think was 95, but mostly not so at Osh in my experience.
    CAF likes formation flghts and acro.

    One formation flight that I did was at Sun N Fun to honor Charlie Hilliard the day after he was lost in the Fury rollover accident. I, and many others I am sure didn't feel like flying,but there was a request from Tom Poberezny for a fighter fly over and missing man, and specifically a Mustang as the pull out plane since Charlie was a Mustang owner.
    I knew that he and Tom had been good friends and although I had met Charlie I didn't know him well,but he was friends with folks that I knew like Howard Pardue.
    We got the request really at the last minute, perhaps an hour before the airshow was to begin. A lot of pilots were off seeing the other parts of the show or at lunch or the shopping tents, etc. so I just happened to be one of the pilots there at the headquarters. I found 3 other pilots that I knew and one had a 51. We had a very short briefing, no time to really practice, but we did the flight and it seemed to go ok. I think it was a good thing to do, but there wasn't much joy in it. It was my first show of the year. I remember the day Charlie was lost, and how nice the weather was.
    If flying these type of planes, even in CAVU weather can take a man who had been not only national but world champion it shows how much care the rest of us have to use, and there is still no guarantee.

  3. #13

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    Oct 2011
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    New Hampshire
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    Bill,

    If you were at Sun-N-F when Charlie Hilliard crashed, you likely saw my wife Ann and I open the airshow that day, skydiving with a 40' x 60' American flag. Very sad that the EMS folks did not have the equipment on site that could lift the airplane before he expired.

    Fly safe,

    Wes
    N78PS

  4. #14

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    Yes, Wes I was there on that day which started so well and ended so badly and I usually watch the opening skydiving acts and have always sort of envied them and never had the courage to try it.
    I had just come down from Colorado to Sun N Fun. It was my first airshow of the year, and I was planning on flying that day so I was aware of the weather being really nice with a very slight crosswind breeze of perhaps 7 knots.
    You may know John Russman who was in charge of maintenance at the warbird area as well as an owner, 02, and pilot. He rushed over towards the accident and was prevented by police from getting near it. John was pretty upset for a long time after that about this.
    I think it would be pretty hard to have a crane sitting right next to the runway, or it would be an obstacle, but if John could have gotten there right away he could have called to the crowd standing there and maybe lifted the tail of the plane to take the weight off Charlie. This would have had to be done in moments, but I'd bet there were enough people handy that could have gotten the tail up. The internal brace behind the seat had been removed, I think to put in a back seat, and when the vertical tail sank into the sand, there was nothing the support the plane and give Charlie any room to breathe. John said the police would not let anyone get to the plane, even him who had a pass on his truck.
    Joe Thibadoux in Denver owns and flys the Fury now.
    That accident, and a similar fatal one in a Skyraider in Florida got me motivated to have fabricated and reinstalled a seat back support in my own plane, fortunatly I have never needed it.
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 01-24-2013 at 03:37 PM.

  5. #15

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    To digress from the original topic a little more....

    The airshow now has a crane on site for every afternoon airshow. It is positioned with the other crash vehicles back by the media center, where the taxiways come together. They have to move the crowd a little to get out, but they are located where they have taxiways that take them in both directions to the runway that the performers fly over (9-27).

    Charlie was suffocated because the airplane landed upside down, the canopy failed, and he was pushed down into the seat before he could release the belts. The emergency responders could not operate the belt buckles as he was folded across them. It turns out that the Sea Fury was designed to have the armor plate behind the pilot stick up far enough to function as a roll over structure. But civilians remove that big chunk of steel to save weight and do not replace it with a roll bar. Or at least they didn't then, perhaps they do now. My reading after the accident suggests that the Royal Navy originally did not have the armor plate extend above the seat but they too lost some pilots to due to nose overs and changed the configuration. The Sea Fury as it sits on its landing gear is apparently nose heavy, especially if you remove heavy parts from the aft part of the airplane, like armor.

    Charlie was killed doing something in a new airplane that he had commonly done in his Eagle. A hard lesson that when we transition to a new airplane, we have to take a good look at all of our old habits.

    Fly safe,

    Wes
    N78PS

  6. #16

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    Dec 2011
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    Lewisburg WV
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    Bill,

    I was referring to the circuits that the fighters do in the warbird airshow portion. A FAST card is not required for that. For the mass formations in waivered airspace you must have a current FAST card for the position you are flying

  7. #17

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    Scott,

    Do they brief the fly by circuits these days that everyone flys the same speed? The mid-air that I witnessed was due to one war bird fly by participant overtaking another.

    Thanks,

    Wes

  8. #18

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    Wes, where was the accident that you refer to? I am not aware of any mid air in a warbird fly by at Osh, though there was a severe accident on the runway, one on takeoff and one on landing.
    Was the one you mean the Skyraider hitting the P-51 at Duxford?

    It has been my experience that the leader may give some idea of his speed or power setting, ie Reg Ursler in P-51 Gunfighter would always refer to some cruise power. But speed is going to vary as the fly by is not level, the planes dive coming to the show line so speed might get near 300 in a 51, and pull up sharply and then turn to downwind after the pass so speed might to down to 200.
    It is just follow in line, one after the other, so that speed is just whatever the leader flies. If it is all 51s then the speed is pretty much the same, but if there are mixed planes as there often are, they put the faster ones like Bearcat or 51s first and a slower one like a P-40 or Wildcat at the end. It seems to work out, mostly, slower planes can keep up to a point by flying a little tighter path at the corners.
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 01-25-2013 at 11:24 AM.

  9. #19

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    North Adams Mass. Skymaster ran down a Birdog. Skymaster lost outboard wing panel. Rolled about 3 times before impact. Birdog wing folded after strut was cut off. Fire started as wing folded and fuel line at wing root ruptured. Then impact. No survivors. I would have to look at a log book to get the date.

    I will suggest that passing in the fly-by pattern bumps the hazard level up a lot.

    Fly safe,

    Wes
    N78PS

  10. #20

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    I was not aware of that one Wes. A Birdog is pretty slow and an O2 faster, so if they are in the same flight they have to be careful. At Osh the lieson planes would usually be one group, but obiviosly a Cub or Champ is way differnt than an O-2. I haven't flown or briefed with the L birds, but I think they might put the faster ones in a higher and bigger orbit than the slower ones.
    You are right, there is not supposed to be passing of a plane ahead of you in your same group at the same level, just follow the leader in single file usually.If you overtake pull off some power and go to the outside until you lose some speed. Some fly bys are formation of 2 planes or even a few.

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