[HN Gopher] Aster shootdown over Sydney in 1955
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Aster shootdown over Sydney in 1955
Author : tapper
Score : 220 points
Date : 2024-06-21 17:33 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (navyhistory.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (navyhistory.au)
| ortusdux wrote:
| It doesn't take all that much wind to cause modern light aircraft
| to take off on their own. The gusts in this video were 55 knots,
| but I've heard that some STOLs are susceptible to 20 knot winds.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_WmjWAGkLI
| bombcar wrote:
| Ah there are pilots in those planes, I was wondering how they
| were doing so well.
|
| The other plane with all the guys lying on the wing is amusing.
| Onavo wrote:
| That's a glider I think
| dfgasdgsd wrote:
| Yup - this looks like it's at the Air Force academy north
| of Colorado Springs - spent a summer there and was really
| cool to drive by and see the gliders getting towed up for
| practice pilots almost daily.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| That is crazy, thanks for sharing. I wouldn't call a Piper Cub
| modern though.
| NikkiA wrote:
| The cessna 172 is still manufactured today, its factory
| condition stall speed is 40 knots.
| delecti wrote:
| There's a regional airport near me, which I drive past often,
| and the smaller planes are all tethered to their "parking
| spaces" (taut cables between the tips of the wings and mounting
| points on the ground). It always seemed a bit silly and I've
| had the thought "what, like they're going to run away?". It
| doesn't seem so silly anymore.
| sundvor wrote:
| Send a few Blackhawks over or near untethered light aircraft
| and watch the party. :-)
| olelele wrote:
| You mean Blackbirds?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The landing is the hard part.
| Frenchgeek wrote:
| Oh, no: It's really easy. Doing it twice is the hard part.
| smegger001 wrote:
| "If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If
| you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding
| landing."
|
| Chuck Yeager
| labster wrote:
| One year later, the USAF fared an even worse against a runaway
| drone. It took two days to put out all of the fires caused by the
| rockets that missed.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale
| appplication wrote:
| Wow, 208 rockets fired and all of them missed. That is way more
| than I would have thought. Also, I hope those pilots got some
| training, or maybe they quickly reevaluated the battle
| worthiness of those rockets. I imagine there are much harder
| targets to hit than an unmanned drone.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > The Mighty Mouse was to prove a poor aerial weapon.
| Although it was powerful enough to destroy a bomber with a
| single hit, its accuracy was abysmal. The rockets dispersed
| widely on launch: a volley of 24 rockets would cover an area
| the size of a football field.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding-Fin_Aerial_Rocket
| hn_go_brrrrr wrote:
| Also they had no functional targeting computer or gun
| sights.
| russfink wrote:
| And they were not skilled in the ways of the Force.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| They should have used the nuclear Genie
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie
| russdill wrote:
| There's a lot of stories regarding weapons that have abysmal
| success but stay fielded anyway. US navy torpedos are a good
| example.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| If the Mk 14 Torpedo had worked for the US submariners off
| the Philippines in December, 1941 the Japanese would have
| probably failed to take those islands.
|
| IIRC, the US subs put torpedoes into more than half the
| Japanese ships, but did almost no damage due to defective
| torpedo exploders.
|
| Imagine if the US had stayed with the reasonably reliable
| Mk 10 Torpedo and had adopted the British Fairey Swordfish
| instead of the TBD Avenger.
|
| Just deploying Swordfish along the US East Coast would have
| saved thousands of lives lost in the Battle of the
| Atlantic. Instead Admiral Nimitz relegated the existing
| Swordfish to ferrying personnel after they chased Japanese
| subs away from the American West Coast. He did not believe
| the reports of then damaging so many Japanese subs. After
| the war, he learned those reports were correct.
|
| WW2 in the Pacific would have been a lot shorter.
| cpgxiii wrote:
| You are confusing the TBD _Devastator_ with the TBF /TBM
| _Avenger_. The Avenger was a very capable aircraft,
| certainly the best carrier-borne torpedo bomber and
| antisubmarine platform of the war.
|
| The Swordfish did _OK_ in the Atlantic solely because it
| never faced any meaningful fighter opposition (having
| been quickly relegated to "safer" roles), and the
| distances were low enough that its low speed was not a
| hindrance. It would have been utterly unsurvivable in the
| Pacific theater against Japanese opposition.
|
| Additionally, short-range ASW aircraft were never really
| the problem in the Atlantic, the problem was always how
| to provide long-range cover, which was only solved by the
| use of land-based B-24s and carrier-borne Avengers.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| They got hits, but the rockets bounced off.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| I was wondering why they didn't use cannons instead.
|
| Turns out the D variant only had rockets, the cannons were
| removed.
|
| Interesting insight into the thinking around interceptor
| tactics immediately post-war.
| dctoedt wrote:
| One of the funniest things I've read in awhile -- not least, that
| it took two young pilots from the _British_ Royal Navy, on
| temporary duty with the Aussie navy under an exchange program, to
| shoot down the errant aircraft after failures to do so by Aussie
| navy and air force. I 'm sure the RN didn't gloat about that one
| _at all_ ; oh, no, that'd _never_ happen .... (Their attitude
| would likely have been a dismissive, "Of course -- what'd you
| expect?")
| emmelaich wrote:
| Well, we lost a war against emus, so ...
| zrfk wrote:
| Don't mention the war.
| tomcam wrote:
| Twice IIRC
|
| Not that I'm counting or anything
| cbanek wrote:
| This is a good one, but I think the most impressive is the
| cornfield bomber.
|
| The pilot ejected due to a flat spin (just like what happened in
| Top Gun, RIP Goose). Now a flat spin is a kind of spin and stall
| that tends to happen when the center of mass and center of lift
| are in the same place. This can make planes very unstable. So the
| pilot can't recover and ejects. But this changes the center of
| mass on the plane, and the plane recovers on its own, and
| eventually lands itself in a corn field.
|
| The plane was eventually returned to service after repairs.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber
| tristramb wrote:
| Surely it should have been called the 'cornfield interceptor'?
| cbanek wrote:
| This makes perfect sense to me. The plane was an interceptor
| intercepting the ground, there's no bombers at all involved!
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I imagine that this pilot was heavily trolled after this
| incident!
| Terr_ wrote:
| Maybe, but perhaps they could counter that their piloting
| skills are so good they don't even have to be _in_ a plane to
| land it.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| "It was a great landing," he said at the time. "We even got
| to use the plane again."
| bombcar wrote:
| Apparently he was told over the radio to "get back in" while
| still on parachute.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Also fun fact: the F-104 Starfighter also had dart in the nick
| name here in Europe. It was called the lawn dart because so
| many of them crashed. This was due to the lesser pilot
| experience but also the change in role from interceptor to
| multirole fighter + ground support for which it was uniquely
| unsuited with its tiny wings. So low and slow was not a good
| role for it.
| cpgxiii wrote:
| Actually, the F-104 aerodynamics were quite well-suited to
| the low-level strike mission. Small, highly-loaded wings
| reduce the effects of low-level turbulence. A dedicated low-
| level strike airframe like the TSR-2 has similarly tiny
| wings.
|
| What led to the high crash rate for _some_ operators (other
| operators had much lower losses) was the jump in aircraft
| complexity and performance combined with an inherently
| challenging and dangerous low-level strike mission.
| llm_trw wrote:
| Another fun fact about lawn darts:
|
| >Starting in the late twentieth century, the safety of metal-
| tipped lawn darts was called into question in several
| countries. After thousands of injuries and at least three
| children's deaths were attributed to lawn darts, the sharp-
| pointed darts were banned for sale in the United States and
| Canada.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Over in the UK in the 80s, as kids, we played lawn darts
| and not once did we manage to injure ourselves.
| defrost wrote:
| Not once have I, nor any family member, died in a car
| accident.
| CrazyCatDog wrote:
| The 3 min documentary listed in wiki is excellent...1500 mph
| and 57k ft capable is mind-blowing in and of itself--not to
| mention flying sans pilot!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noriLGVL7Qo
| rz2k wrote:
| That's pretty interesting. Would pumping fuel from wing to the
| other ever be a viable way to get out of a flat spin?
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| That level of silliness belongs in a Looney Tunes cartoon.
| Thank you for sharing!
|
| Is this a common outcome of flat spins? That is, to return to a
| recoverable state after ejection? I'd think this would be
| exceedingly rare. And what's the stability profile on this make
| of plane?
| cbanek wrote:
| I don't think many of them at all ever recover themselves
| like that, after a certain point you just don't have the
| altitude to fix it all.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| I love this part: One of the other pilots on the mission was
| reported to have radioed Foust during his descent by parachute
| that "you'd better get back in it!"
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I was surprised when I first took a flight lesson how easy it is
| to takeoff and go. You push the throttle all the way in and it
| takes off on its own. I believe there have been incidents of them
| flying themselves for hours after a pilot died or was
| incapacitated.
|
| They are built to fly, so they do unless something interferes.
| jffry wrote:
| The ones I could find sounded like autopilot was engaged:
|
| -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_cras...
|
| -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Australia_Beechcraft_King...
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522
|
| -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Baltic_Sea_Cessna_Citatio...
| buildsjets wrote:
| "In a million-to-one chance the brake failed to hold and although
| pilot Thrower grabbed a wing strut to check the plane he was
| quickly forced to jump clear, just avoiding the tail"
|
| Parking brakes in light training aircraft of that vintage, if
| they were even equipped with one, were typically a hole drilled
| through a metal plate, that was placed on the actuator rod for
| the brake master cylinder, so that the metal plate would jam on
| the actuator rod and hold the brakes down when you pulled on a
| piece of string that was tied to the metal plate. They worked
| similar to the tab of metal to hold open the damper of a crappy
| old aluminum-framed screen door.
|
| Parking brake failure in aircraft of that era is not a million-
| to-one scenario, it is the default operating condition. Go down
| to your local general aviation airfield and peek in the window at
| the parking brake knob on every Cessna 150 you see, I guarantee
| that many of them will be placarded INOP, and many of the un-
| placarded ones are also actually be INOP if you tried to use
| them.
|
| Here's one for sale on eBay. $300 for that bit of junk! No wonder
| people leave them INOP.
|
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/134695710339
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Jeez, I reckon cars have a more substantial parking brake than
| that. Though I guess they probably weigh more, and deal with
| more direct torque...
| quercusa wrote:
| _the engine failed 10 feet from the ground. Landing the plane in
| the middle of the strip he climbed out, swung the propellor by
| hand (there was no self-starter) and the engine immediately
| roared into life._
|
| Early software developer?
| lmpdev wrote:
| For those unfamiliar Punchbowl to coast is well over 10km
|
| At the time this would have been a city-wide event
| BoppreH wrote:
| > The incident did not quickly subside here. Embarrassing
| questions were directed in Federal Parliament to. the Government
| of the day by both Mr C Chambers (Member for Adelaide) and Mr F
| Daly (Grayndler) during the Budget debate the following month.
| They asked why was so much money being spent on defence to an Air
| Force and Navy that took over two hours to shoot down an unarmed
| light aircraft?
|
| ...
|
| > The harsh criticism against the Services was unfounded though
| and despite some initial bad luck the Navy and Air Force had
| performed creditably on a difficult and elusive "ENEMY".
|
| That was a suspiciously unconvincing conclusion. It made me check
| check the domain, and sure enough, "navyhistory.au". I wonder if
| it was even written by the same author.
| rob74 wrote:
| Er... I mean, what were they supposed to do?! They couldn't
| just shoot it down and let it crash in an inhabited area, then
| they could have just as well done nothing and let it crash when
| it eventually ran out of fuel (less risk of fire). So they had
| to wait until it was in an area where it could crash without
| causing too much damage (over the sea) and shoot it down there.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| The real question is, whatever happened to the Gatwick Airport
| Drone?
| susam wrote:
| In case you missed it, at the bottom of the article, there is a
| link to a 10 minute documentary about the incident:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ehAQVhOL3k The documentary is
| quite interesting too!
| oakmad wrote:
| Fly Navy!
| dylan604 wrote:
| No mention on how expensive that rental was for Thrower. Did he
| take out insurance on the plane, or was he personally responsible
| for covering the loss? Did any of the planes that came in for the
| assist send a bill for their time as well? Everyone seems to be
| focused on the plane itself, but I want to know about Thrower!
| That's the part missing to make this a good movie
| mrandish wrote:
| > was he personally responsible for covering the loss? Did any
| of the planes that came in for the assist send a bill for their
| time as well?
|
| I doubt it. People in 1955 had a different (and, IMHO, more
| balanced) outlook on things like this. Sometimes weird flukes
| happen. I imagine their default mindset was "Thank goodness no
| one was hurt" and not "who can we place the blame on and hold
| legally liable." The plane rental company probably had
| insurance which covered the loss of the plane and everyone
| moved on.
| gumby wrote:
| What happened to Mr Anthony Thrower
| fnord77 wrote:
| > In a million-to-one chance the brake failed to hold
|
| Much more likely: the pilot forgot to engage the brake
| perilunar wrote:
| Once it was over the ocean there was no need to shoot it down. It
| had already been in the air for 3 hours and probably only had ~4
| hours endurance. And it was heading further away from the city.
| It would have run out of fuel and ended up in the water soon
| anyway.
| askvictor wrote:
| Unless a sea breeze pushes it back over land. Weather
| forecasting wasn't as detailed back then as it is now
| Sakos wrote:
| Man, I would've loved to see a video of something that wild. If
| it happened today, it would be all over social media.
| emmelaich wrote:
| *Auster not Aster
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Deformation professionelle probably but what this makes me think
| of is how easy it is for a vehicle to enter Accidental Full Self
| Driving mode, without having any specialised equipment. For cars,
| just put a brick on the gas pedal and point the car in the right
| direction, and in some situations the car will "drive itself" for
| a while; even a long while. For planes or boats it's probably
| easier to find circumstances where this can go on until they run
| out of fuel.
|
| Once, in another life time, I owned an ancient Horex Regina II
| 400 cc., a 1953 model and it came with Full Self Driving. To
| activate it, I simply had to take my hands off the wheel and rest
| them on the tank. It would keep going straight on its own,
| without intervention. If the road turned, all I had to do was
| turn my hips a bit and it would follow along.
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