How not to land a Spitfire!

**Baldrick62** · 07-20-2013 04:22

Griffon-powered Mk.XIV Spitfire at Dijon, FRA earlier this month. Not the best quality video, but the 'souvenir hunting' at the end gives an idea of the damage done and should have resulted in an immediate shutdown to try to minimise further damage to airframe and engine from bits coming loose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81HHZF5wJng&sns=em

**somaliavet** · 07-20-2013 05:55

Well, thats about a once in a lifetime souvenir!

**Marechallannes** · 07-20-2013 06:00

That's what I thought when watching the landing: he shurley lost parts of his propeller blades...

Last part of the video confirmet it.

**Guntruck** · 07-20-2013 06:13

Could have been a lot worse, fortunately the pilot got away with it.

**alpine** · 07-20-2013 06:38

Couldn't have had a worse filmer. At least he got the safe taxi after the mishap. Luckily everything went better than expected. I bet that pilot sure clinched up!

**Baldrick62** · 07-20-2013 06:40

The video did at least give a good appreciation of the high landing speed of a Spitfire. Apparently failure to execute a three-point landing (main gear and tail wheel) was quite common with Spits.

Click image for larger version.

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**csadn** · 07-20-2013 14:13

And that illustrates why the Seafire was not exactly brilliant -- the Spitfire was hard-enough to land on the ground; a CV landing... well, a field-modification was developed where the last 6" of the prop was sawed off, and the tip resculpted; There Is A Reason For This.

**gully_raker** · 07-20-2013 18:02

Actually I was expecting much worse damage from the intro.

**Naharaht** · 07-20-2013 19:10

What is the saying, "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing." ?

**Flying Officer Kyte** · 07-22-2013 09:07

What suprised me most was that they were still using a wooden prop.
Rob.

**csadn** · 07-22-2013 13:08

Originally Posted by Flying Officer Kyte

What suprised me most was that they were still using a wooden prop.
Rob.

Sometimes trying to change the prop type introduces a series of other problems -- if an engine was designed for a particular prop type, putting in a different one may cause vibration or other problems.

Heck, some of the Unlimited-class air racers at Reno still use fabric-covered control surfaces; in one case, it was found the fabric helped dampen vibration at high speeds, where the "upgraded" all-metal replacements would wrinkle, and almost come off.

**richard m schwab** · 07-22-2013 18:55

He would have been in worse shape with a metal prop. The wood prop did exactly what is supposed to do, take the damage not the engine. I am amazed he did not shut the engine off as soon as he recovered and slowed down. The MAM`s Yak-3 evidently did that on conjunction with a landing gear problem. The wing had to be rebuilt and the prop and engine swapped out with the museums MIG-3.

Rich