Snowbirds crash in Kamloops -- in residential neighbourhood

[direwolf]

Christ almighty, just when you think 2020 can't get any worse. This f'n year is cursed.

[Timbo]

Horrible news. RIP Captain Casey

[blender]

Yeah, this is a bad day here in Kamloops and across the nation. I have a friend who lives in the neighborhood of the crash site; his mom's house was on the same block as the house that was hit.

We watched them buzz the city yesterday afternoon and felt the emotional power and pride in our nation's military/aviation history.
Today just feels like a bad joke.

[Snuffleupagus]

Terribly tragic, apparently my niece went to school with her in Halifax.

Can we please just retire these 60 yr old Tutor's and forget about the stupid idea of upgrading them.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Terribly tragic, apparently my niece went to school with her in Halifax.

Can we please just retire these 60 yr old Tutor's and forget about the stupid idea of upgrading them.

The idea was to replace them in 2025. They've already been retired as trainers like 15 years ago, only the snowbirds use them now.

But we all know how the government works. Need a new plane by 2000? Expect it by 2040. Even if it kills people in the meantime, no big deal. ####ing embarassing

RIP Capt. Casey. I've been following this story all day and have been too damn mad to say much about it. This one hurts.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by btimbit

The idea was to replace them in 2025. They've already been retired as trainers like 15 years ago, only the snowbirds use them now.

But we all know how the government works. Need a new plane by 2000? Expect it by 2040. Even if it kills people in the meantime, no big deal. ####ing embarassing

RIP Capt. Casey. I've been following this story all day and have been too damn mad to say much about it. This one hurts.

Yup, It's only Wiki but:

"An April 2018 air force document mentioned that until a decision is made on replacement, the Snowbird Tutors will receive modernized avionics to comply with regulations. Upgrading work will begin in 2022. The new avionics will permit the team to continue flying in North America and allow the Tutors to fly until 2030"

[peter12]

#### this affected more morale more than anything.

[DownInFlames]

This is a huge gut punch.

RIP Captain Casey

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Yup, It's only Wiki but:

"An April 2018 air force document mentioned that until a decision is made on replacement, the Snowbird Tutors will receive modernized avionics to comply with regulations. Upgrading work will begin in 2022. The new avionics will permit the team to continue flying in North America and allow the Tutors to fly until 2030"

What a joke.

Then they'll wonder why they have such a retention problem. I surely don't blame anyone who takes the first chance to leave vs risk their lives in the RCAF's rusted ####ing junk

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by bob-loblaw

It looked like when they were ejected they were fired straight at a bad angle - I didn't see any parachutes open.

This seems to be what happened. It’s a miracle the pilot survived, landing on a house from that height.

[btimbit]

It really is a miracle there was even one survivor. It reminds me of the 2010 Lethbridge crash, but at least the CF-18 has a much more advanced ejection system so even though he was only at 300 ft and at a 90-degree angle he survived. The system in the tutor not as good. So ####ing sad. I can barely watch that video

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Yup, It's only Wiki but:

"An April 2018 air force document mentioned that until a decision is made on replacement, the Snowbird Tutors will receive modernized avionics to comply with regulations. Upgrading work will begin in 2022. The new avionics will permit the team to continue flying in North America and allow the Tutors to fly until 2030"

There was a recommendation about a decade ago or so to stop using the Tudors. You can't keep flying planes that far past its end of life.



I'm hoping this isn't a moral stunt gone horribly wrong because the government wasn't paying attention.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by btimbit

What a joke.

Then they'll wonder why they have such a retention problem. I surely don't blame anyone who takes the first chance to leave vs risk their lives in the RCAF's rusted ####ing junk

What's really ridiculous is our CF-18's are too old for the snowbirds as well. we pretty much have a 3rd world air force with no direction for the future, but hey we like to give our tax dollars away to terrorists and billions overseas year after year.

[CaptainCrunch]

What's utterly ridiculous is that we've seen talk about the end of life of the CF-18's from microfractures, to wear and tear on the engines, so we go out and buy the same generation jets from Australia that have been flying in a far worse environment.


I get really aggravated over the question of defense spending and procurement.


You can't send young men and woman into dangerous situations, and even flying as part of a stunt team is dangerous, while basically failing in your duty to protect them and give them the best chance to survive and be successful.


And its not just the Liberal's though this current defense minister and this current CDS seem to be in the lead in terms of dishonesty and incompetence. The Conservatives broke some major defense spending promises. Brian Mulroney was one of the great hopes, he talked a good game with his White Paper on defense spending and in the end he let everyone down.


But doing a coast to coast moral thing with old jets like this is asking too much and ignoring the problem for public relations and I have a lot of problems with that. When they announced this thing I turned to a friend and said "I can't tell you how bad of an idea this is"

[speede5]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

But doing a coast to coast moral thing with old jets like this is asking too much and ignoring the problem for public relations and I have a lot of problems with that. When they announced this thing I turned to a friend and said "I can't tell you how bad of an idea this is"

I disagree, the season was pretty much a write off due to covid. Airshows have been cancelling everywhere, however the team still has the budget and hours to burn so this was a great way to use them up and keep the pilots proficient.

The planes are old but are still maintained to a high standard.

Flame out (speculating, I heard a pop in one video) on take off is about the worst situation you could have but they would have been flying back home regardless so I don't think you can blame the goodwill tour. For all we know they took a bird and it had nothing to do with the aircraft.

My facebook had been littered with posts about this tour and people were genuinely excited and proud of it. It's devastating that today that excitement has shifted to sympathy posts. I didn't know Jenn personally but have many friends who knew her well. Very sad day, RIP.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by speede5

I disagree, the season was pretty much a write off due to covid. Airshows have been cancelling everywhere, however the team still has the budget and hours to burn so this was a great way to use them up and keep the pilots proficient.

The planes are old but are still maintained to a high standard.

Flame out (speculating, I heard a pop in one video) on take off is about the worst situation you could have but they would have been flying back home regardless so I don't think you can blame the goodwill tour. For all we know they took a bird and it had nothing to do with the aircraft.

My facebook had been littered with posts about this tour and people were genuinely excited and proud of it. It's devastating that today that excitement has shifted to sympathy posts. I didn't know Jenn personally but have many friends who knew her well. Very sad day, RIP.

Just speculating as pilot but with zero jet experience, this probably was more than a flame out and more of an engine explosion as the way the aircraft acted the pilot lost tail control, I don't know a bunch but what I have heard is the Tutor has very good dead stick control and just doesn't just fall from the sky. At the speed it was going upon the "pop" you heard should have gave it more than ample time to recover and at least crash t1ts up in a field.

[speede5]

duplicate

[speede5]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Just speculating as pilot but with zero jet experience, this probably was more than a flame out and more of an engine explosion as the way the aircraft acted the pilot lost tail control, I don't know a bunch but what I have heard is the Tutor has very good dead stick control and just doesn't just fall from the sky. At the speed it was going upon the "pop" you heard should have gave it more than ample time to recover and at least crash t1ts up in a field.

Not at that altitude, the plane was going way to slow and low to get into a forced landing profile, (rest is my opinion only) he zoomed hoping to gain enough altitude to eject safely, bleeding airspeed, at the top his speed was too low to maintain control, the plane rolled and he fought to get wings level for ejection. I would bet that in the zoom he was telling his pax to prepare to abandon.

Time from the pop to ejection was 18 sec, felt like half that watching the video.

[FLAME ENVY]

Originally Posted by speede5

I disagree, the season was pretty much a write off due to covid. Airshows have been cancelling everywhere, however the team still has the budget and hours to burn so this was a great way to use them up and keep the pilots proficient.

The planes are old but are still maintained to a high standard.

Flame out (speculating, I heard a pop in one video) on take off is about the worst situation you could have but they would have been flying back home regardless so I don't think you can blame the goodwill tour. For all we know they took a bird and it had nothing to do with the aircraft.

My facebook had been littered with posts about this tour and people were genuinely excited and proud of it. It's devastating that today that excitement has shifted to sympathy posts. I didn't know Jenn personally but have many friends who knew her well. Very sad day, RIP.

Also keep in mind to those that simply jump on the CT-114 dues to it's age, the Snowbird fleet and spares are fairly low time airframes with a modest amount of cycles that are maintained to the highest standards, they are very far from being timed out. The J-85 engine is still in production today by GE as well. There is also a level of pride seeing the Tutor is a Canadian designed and built aircraft. This airframe allows the Snowbirds to perform the many maneuvers they do due to its slow speed handling capabilities and its aerobatic prowess. You don't get that with F-16's/18's if you've had the opportunity to see the Thunderbirds or BA's perform.

This was an unfortunate tragedy which has also claimed many other lives/aircraft through the course of aviation history. Engine failure after departure in a single engine aircraft at low altitude is never a good thing. The Pilot did a tremendous job recovering from the spin, he just ran out of altitude.

[speede5]

^ Your post is bang on except for the low time airframe. Most of them were hitting 10000 hrs when I worked on them 20 years ago. They kept the ones with the lowest fatigue for the team but they really are getting up there. That said they haven't had any incidents related to fatigue. Parts are getting hard to source. The avionics upgrade helps, and the engines are still maintainable.

They've toyed with the idea of an engine upgrade for several years, but that requires a long term commitment, same with a 0/0 seat which would be nice if you could fit it.