Videos below are pretty graphic for the collision.
Grandpop flew a B-17 in the war.
https://twitter.com/heckyessica/status/1591525267197009926
https://twitter.com/DavidSFOX4/status/1591522623376211968
https://twitter.com/DallasTexasTV/status/1591522828863799296
Wow. Condolences to their families.
That clip just popped up on my IG feed. Horrible loss of life and history.
One less flying (there were 4) P63 as well 
Wow, that's terrible. So sorry to the families.
E36 M3. I met those guys countless times.
I just got a notification on this as well, that’s tough to watch. Condolences to the families.
As cool as I think vintage warbirds are I’m wondering if it’s time to reconsider flying them in air shows. There were some survivors of Collings Foundation B-17 that crashed in Hartford CT several years ago, sadly I don’t think that will be the case with this one.
In reply to 11GTCS :
The reality here is the crash had nothing to do with the aircraft being vintage warbirds. This should have an affect on what sort of displays are performed at airshows and how traffic is controlled around the show as that seems to be where the problem was here. That B17 (as big as it is) was completely in the P63 blind spot which is pretty concerning that a situation like that can happen even without a collision.
It really drives home what a bunch of late teens and early twenty year old's faced 70 years ago though flying in massive formations with fighters, flak and rounds flying around, and in the dark too for some.
11GTCS said:As cool as I think vintage warbirds are I’m wondering if it’s time to reconsider flying them in air shows.
That's just terrible. I have no idea what went wrong, but if the plan was for a near miss, maybe they need to rethink the plan. There might be a place for daredevil airshows, but I don't believe that B-17's (or any other flying history) has a place in them.
Thoughts and prayers to those who've lost loved ones today.
Without air shows, people would just have to be lucky to see these old planes fly (or invest in a ride in one). Makes no sense- they should fly at airshows. Certainly rethink what kind of flying they do, sure- but don't end it.
The planes at this last summers Thunder Over Michigan were pretty epic- and some of them I've never seen live before. Like ANY Japanese naval plane (there were 6- three pairs), let alone an real FW190.
alfadriver said:Without air shows, people would just have to be lucky to see these old planes fly (or invest in a ride in one). Makes no sense- they should fly at airshows. Certainly rethink what kind of flying they do, sure- but don't end it.
I agree with that. My son and I were lucky enough to catch the Memphis Belle in Ashland, VA several years back. It was the star attraction. No airshow. Just the B-17. We got to check it out up close. They were doing rides but we didn't take one. Just seeing that big old bird take off was something I'll not forget.
Sure, fly 'em at airshows. But give 'em some room, eh?
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
I promise you, a near miss is never part of an airshow routine.
I just also scrolled into this on Instagram.
What possible benefit could there be (other than useless views on social media) of posting the actual footage.
Yeah, that has nothing to do with flying old planes. It looks like they where both doing pattern orbits. One of them was not following the pattern, or it was not well defined.
The other potential apparent issue I see is the obvious speed differential between the planes. I have seen a number of such displays, and never seen anything approaching a potential issue. Clearly planes, especially faster planes need to keep aware af planes in the pattern and will generally fly wider patterns.
Two big looses. Most know the B17, but the P63 is a very cool plane also. US (Packard) version of the Merlin engine (like the P51) and a similar airfoil as the P51, the so called laminar flow wing which had the thickest part far closer to the middle of the wing than a traditional airfoil (tricky stall characteristics though). They where heavily exported to Russia, who loved them, along with the P39. The 37mm cannon is rather effective against ground targets.
This is so sad and unnecessary.
Tragic loss of life and historic aircraft.
Saw initial reports earlier in the day, was gonna start a thread.
Waiting for Blancolirio to weigh in.
Chopper view of debris field:
Was the impact zone clear of spectators? It was a terrible crash and clearly fatal for everyone in the planes but I haven't heard anything about any possible folks on the ground.
Mr_Asa said:Videos below are pretty graphic for the collision.
Grandpop flew a B-17 in the war.
https://twitter.com/heckyessica/status/1591525267197009926
https://twitter.com/DavidSFOX4/status/1591522623376211968
https://twitter.com/DallasTexasTV/status/1591522828863799296
In the second video above, there is another fighter shown flying by on the left side of the B-17 right before the P-63 flies into it. I wonder if the P-63 pilot was chasing the first fighter and didn't know the B-17 was even there?
It seems to me that an event like this needs to be run in a super-tight fashion, and that the tragedy was either the result of poor planning and management, or a pilot going off script. In either case, it's terribly sad.
I was scrolling on social media earlier and saw this and couldn't look away, and my heart just sunk. So, so awful. Such a tragic loss all around.
Annie and I are on vacation in Palm Springs, SoCal, and they have a great air museum here with many airworthy vintage aircraft. They've been maintaining and flying veteran WW2 aircraft since the fifties. They're extremely conservative with their flying. Here's the flyover at the start of the Veterans Day parade yesterday:
It was a very disciplined and well-rehearsed routine with none of the free lance dumb-ass flying of the King Cobra jockey in the tragedy in Dallas.
I think the King Cobra jockey may have been trying to simulate an air attack from an enemy fighter for the paying customers in the B-17. But the pilot was never taught in flight training when to break off the attack (which the WW2 pilots were trained to do). So he flew straight into the target.
Looking at the second video, as highlighted above, I would have to say there was clearly something strange and obvious dangerous going on.
The P51 and the B17 are on different tracks and wildly different speeds (hard to say what is inside or outside) and the P63 is on a totally different heading, looking like it's trying turn toward the P51 because he was supposed to be on that track?
So maybe he turned late? Which would mean the B17 was on the outer track? Which would make it impossible to see in a turn if you are inside. Strange.
As a note: air to air collisions are actually extremely rare in normal flying. There's a lot space up there. Most are the results of two planes going for the same spot, a runway. Even two plane trying to fly at the same altitude are unlikely to hit as it very easy to be off 20 feet, and that's all it takes.
Point of trivia: someone I went to HS with and sort of knew, died in a mid-air collision with a UPS plane next to an airport. His mom led the fight to require mode C (altitude encoding) transponders in controlled (busier) airspace's.
This is one of those occasions where absolutely no one should be speculating what happened and what the pilots should have done different. This is a horrible nightmare and none of us have a clue and we should grieve and wait for the NTSB report.
Sad. My condolences to the families and the plane owners.
It will be interesting to see what the report says. To me, it looks like the smaller plane was trying to catch up for the flyover and misjudged his location.
As to flying them, that should be up to the owners of the planes and no one else.
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