P-51 Mustang gear up landing

Duke wrote:

Will wrote:

Beer Baron wrote: Bob Hoover is a super-human pilot.

Truth. Watch the vids of him pouring a drink during a 1-G roll, or dead-stick looping his Turbo Commander. Energy management--he understands it.

Those are understatements. At another show, I saw him (in the Aerocommander) come into the show box flying level at about 2000 feet. He killed and feathered both engines, then dove for speed to do a good-sized loop, followed that with a hammerhead at the opposite end of the box, crossed back along the flightline in a roll, turned onto the base and final legs, landed, and coasted to a stop *in a pre-marked parking slot on the apron* without ever firing the engines back up. It was positively eerie to see all that and hear nothing but wind noise from an aircraft of that size.

I watched that same routine at Mt Comfort back in the late 80's early 90's. I didn't realize what I was watching and wish I'd payed more attention at the time. IIRC, I was really distracted by the GAU-8 sticking out of the nose of the A-10 that was there.

I saw Hoover's Commander (I imagine he's had more than one over the years) at Udvar-Hazy in DC about a month ago.

In reply to aircooled:

I know of no FAA rules prohibiting a functional ejection seat.

In reply to Appleseed:

Perhaps its the exploding bolts used that aren't available? IDK, our nation has some weird laws.

It's probably the expense. Explody thingies aren't usually cheap, add in the airplane tax and that the original seat would be over 50 years old, and it all adds up to a very costly cushion.

Appleseed wrote: In reply to aircooled: I know of no FAA rules prohibiting a functional ejection seat.

It looks like you are correct. Apparently the FAA outlawed them back in the 80's, but that has since changed.

Makes you wonder why the Hunter pilot did not eject. The situation must have developed quickly.

One plus is that the air frame on those is pretty strong. That probably would have totaled a Cessena.

Not likely. Cessna's are well know for being rather rugged:

Man, that's a pretty airplane. Glad both made it. About the grass thing, I never realized the bigger risk involved there.

Just out of curiosity: if it was open dirt, would that have been a better choice than tarmac?

In reply to Curmudgeon:

Same concerns that you have with grass apply there as well.