Ran Midshipman Died In Vampire, Crash RAAF Pearch Januaary 1966

[Luig]

"RAAF Series 2 - ADF Aircraft Serial Numbers
A78, A79 and N6. De Havilland DH-100/DH-115 RAAF / RAN Vampire

A79-609 4130 T.35 Performing his first night solo flight 21/04/60 CDT Taylor misread the altimeter during a touch and go. His aircraft struck trees thereafter and crashed.

A79-653 4175 T.35 According to aircraft status card aircraft "crashed, exploded and burned whilst on a training flight" 21/01/66 1AFTS Pearce WA."

Perhaps the information about the RAN Midshipman Night Crash during takeoff at RAAF Pearce is on that page but I could not find it. I suspect the second entry above where no details known is the crash 21/01/66.

I recall that about 5 years ago now I sent information about the Midshipman night crash but it would be not easy to find that same information on my old computer records easily. Probably the 'great crash of the board/website' some years ago makes finding that same info today for record holders not easy also.

I am wondering if anyone has easy access to the PDF or information sent by me. Many thanks if you do. I could repeat the info but my recollection of details now is not so good. I think the Midshipman's name was Hammond - but that could be incorrect.

Briefly the story is that due to the known precesssion of the Vampire Attitude Indicator during the Takeoff Run, it was known to allow for that by - after liftoff at night - to fly with about a five degree to port attitude with nose slightly higher than usual for climb. This overrode the precession which - if followed - would cause the aircraft to fly as Hammond did - to the right and down. All Vampire students were shown this effect by flying towards the hills (with instructor) during the day. They all pointed to the same black spot in the hills to the east of the airfield (we all took off on RW 36).

This post has been edited by Luig on Jan 9 2012, 03:41 PM

[Martin Edwards]

Phil
I have just checked one of my back-up memory sticks and I have a mass of your Vampire pdfs.
I will have to go thru to find the one but if you posted it cahnces I kept it
Please send a couple more hints on exactly what I am looking for

[Luig]

Thanks Martin. Computer Hard Disk crashes both internal and external over the years have made a mess of my own archives. The PDF may be findable on an old CD backup but that is 'last resort' and once again probably better to try to recreate the original. However for the life of me I cannot confidently recall the Midshipman's name. Hammond is what vaguely comes to mind. I'll keep looking and ensure that this PDF goes into my main 4.4GB PDF etc.

Other than the vague recollection of when I first started to correspond with adf-serials, I recall that this incident was one of the first I had some knowledge about for you. Perhaps the PDF was going to be published in the old edition of the newsletter. Now I cannot recall if that was the case. The PDf had an airfield map of RAAF Pearce with the flightpath annotated and an explanation of the 'Artificial Attitude Indicator' precession problem - caused by acceleration forces on it during the takeoff roll from start to after established in a steady climb. The precession was not an issue once safely airborne but a killer as indicated if ignored.

[Martin Edwards]

Phil ,I have just spent the last couple of hours going through the files, I found a lot of stuff that I had forgotten about but the map below is the only thing close to what you were after.
I found an artcle on false altitude but not attitude
Sorry to give you false hope!

Attached Image

[Luig]

Many thanks Martin, You have saved me hours of work/looking - much appreciated.

I forgot about the Roll of Honour:

http://www.faaaa.asn.au/news/roll_of_honour.htm
&
http://www.faaaa.asn.au/news/roll_of_honour.pdf (29Kb)

"20 January 1966 Vampire RAAF Pearce MIDN A.H.Hammond RAN Crashed while training at RAAF Pearce."

Would the Vampire person be so kind as to update your records please? Thanks.
___________

And Martin are you able to send the 'false attitude' article please via e-mail? I presume it is not a large file size? Many thanks again for finding the info.

This post has been edited by Luig on Jan 10 2012, 05:37 AM