RIP Doll :: Jul 17, 2011 :: Comments [2]
This time last week I had just arrived home from Flying Legends 2011.
I look forward to this show so much every year and this was no exception, a really fantastic show. The climax of the show is always the "Balbo" a massed formation of aircraft in a flypast and it makes the hairs on my neck stand up every time. As the formations were breaking up and making a last flypast before breaking downwind to land I heard mumurings about a parachute. I hadn't seen anything happen but clearly something was wrong and the commentary seemed a little strained. The upshot of this was there was that there had been a mid-air collision between Big Beautiful Doll here and a Skyraider. An annoucement was made that the pilot of BBD had managed to parachute to safety and the Skyraider landed OK.
You may well have seen this on the news if you're in the UK, the Skyraider lost a large portion of its wing and the pilot did an amazing job of bringing it back under control, the Mustang pilot's quick reactions were astounding. From an interview I saw he said he had lost elevator control and therefore had no choice but to bale out despite being at only 500ft. In just thirteen seconds he had ejected the canopy and baled out, hitting the tail on the way. Landing just a few seconds later not far from BBD but thankfully there was no fire and he was able to walk away with just a few bruises. It is a miracle no one was hurt, aeroplanes can be rebuilt (doubtful in this case though) or replaced but people cannot.
Still BBD was lost, if I had known that this would be the last chance I would have to photograh her I would have made more of an effort to get a better shot! She has featured on this blog before here but this will be the last time :(
I shall return soon with something not aircraft related, promise ;-)
CM2011