Australian Defence Force Academy Officer Cadet Patrick Humphries (age 18) may not be the first person to land a stricken aircraft on a roadway after the engine gave out. But he is the first – at least to my knowledge – to do so while successfully flying under a highway overpass:
“I considered several football fields and had a look at a couple of roads but quickly ruled them out because of the cars on them,” he told the Hobart Mercury.
“When I looked at the Brooker, I noticed that there were no cars on the highway as they were stopped at the traffic lights.”
Officer Cadet Humphries maneuvered the aircraft beneath an overpass before his right wing hit a concrete road divider. The aircraft then clipped a tree and spun before coming to rest on an embankment.
Unhurt, but concerned at the risk of causing a car accident, Officer Cadet Humphries ran down the road and signalled cars to slow down, redirecting traffic until police arrived on the scene.
Well done, young man.
Don’t get cocky.
As for the Victa Airtourer, well. Let’s just say that from a purely aesthetic standpoint, this was no great loss.
Good piece of work, that! I’m guessing the AC is cheap to operate, but you are right about the lack of beauty. still, I’d be happy to have it as it’s more AC than I have at the moment.
wha? No “twisted steel and sex appeal”? Dang, all these years I thought that ANYTHING that broke bonds with terra firma was a beautiful creation – helos and autogyros included.
I suspect Lex might dispute the assertion that helos actually, um, “fly.”
From ‘leg end dairy’ past, RAAF trainer CT-4s on low level practice bombing run over HMAS No Name: http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l261/SpazSinbad/CT4sSaluteBRISBANENavy_News-July-19.jpg
Nice pic! thanks for that one
First thing that popped into my head on that pic was “Meet George Jetso-o-on . . .”
Does it make the high pitched putter sound too?
No great loss… especially if it was in that color scheme. Geez!
Aren’t Green & Gold Australia’s “unofficial” national colors, Tim? After all, that’s what their Olympic teams are outfitted in…Or maybe it was a wayward aircraft flown by an off-course member of the Baylor Univ. Bears aero club..
‘Course Spaz knows all about the green & gold–he’s just probably never heard of the Baylor Bears…
Or the Green & Gold Colorado State Rams, for that matter…
Or God forbid the Green & Gold Mattoon, Ill. HS “Green Wave”–my High School’s most hated rival from the next town over. In different conferences and quite playing each other even before *I* was HS age because of all the fights in the stands–and that was in the “boring” 50s and with no racial overtones either! LOL!!
In RAAF Basic Training service CT-4 had a variety of YUK schemes: http://www.airforce.gov.au/raafmuseum/exhibitions/training_hang/ct4a.htm “Although the CT4 fleet transitioned to the orange-and-white ‘Fanta can’ colours in October 1981, A19-027 returned to the original green-and-yellow colour scheme…” nicknamed the ‘Plastic Parrot’.
Lex, my hobby is building and flying old time model airplanes–designed from say 1932 to 1942. And I have learned a lesson–which may have escaped you “Even ugly airplanes need love too”
Sneer not at the little Victa Airtourer–somewhere out there there’s someone who loved that particular speckled pup.
PC-
Affirmative. Any airframe that can break the surly bonds provides some fortunate individual with a great deal of psychic reward as well as allows them to transcend the rest of the mere surface dwelling mortals even for short periods. “Butt ugly she may be, but there is nothing like a plane.” (apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein and South Pacific)
Hey, nothing wrong with “Plastic Rats”
, spent many an hour servicing the MAGS / Tachos and other assorted instruments & electrical bits & pieces fro them in my time
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showphoto.php/photo/35152/ppuser/9002
http://www.kiwiaircraftimages.com/pages/ms01ct43.html
Second photo shows “mirror” and there ain’t no lateral offset either
Let’s just say that from a purely aesthetic standpoint, this was no great loss.
Oh, stop it. I’m sure that once it’s airborne and about fifty miles away, it looks just as good as any other fixed-wing…
Buy it’ll never come down to the level of fling wing.
Am I the only one who remembers that cartoon about the quick thinking Naval Aviation candidate who landed wheels up at an uncontrolled outlying field, THEN declared an emergency and allowed himself to be talked down wheels up? increases the gliding distance just enough, you know?
Am I the only penguin in the audience who thinks our brave lad clipped a concrete divider after underflying a bridge, then considering the options, revised the timeline to indicate a decision to land before he got to the bridge instead of after?
Maybe too much timeline obfuscation in my own guilt-ridden past?
Either way, good job, well-done!
May I speak up for the venerable CT-4, if no one else will? Specifically designed to allow two adult humans and a golf bag – awesome. Fully aerobatic, bubble canopy. Looks are in the eye of the beholder, and they remind me of a scaled down Mustang.
Having driven through that area, I can say the options are very limited given engine failure – so I say well done that man. Even had the nouse to run up the road after getting out and stopping the oncoming traffic.