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[Alfie Noakes]

Don't try this at home Folks !



..... or if you do, make sure to kill the engine at the top of your loop....and make sure you land in a stiff cross wind 

Cheers

Alfie

[FL2070]

[SAS~Ghost129er]

Has potential, shitty editing lmao
-meme points -rep :steamsalty:

[FL2070]

Ah, the wonders of modding!

[wedge55]

Now that's what I call animal husbandry

[SAS~Ghost129er]

Any car nuts here?

[SAS~Ghost129er]

https://i.imgur.com/ngEMnrU.mp4

[SAS~GJE52]

 

[SAS~GJE52]

 

[SAS~GJE52]

The Harrier called "Cristine"

There are stories about haunted or "jinxed" aircraft, some exaggerated and some just fanciful, but this one concerns a troubled a Harrier and is definitely one that makes you think ..........

In common with a lot of airfields (usually military or with a military history) the base often has a decommissioned aircraft parked by the main entrance in the role of 'gate guardian'.

RAF Wittering once had this one. The aircraft in question is a Harrier GR-7A, serial no. ZD469 - an aircraft whose unfortunate operational career led her to be Christened 'Christine' after Stephen King's possessed car in the novel of the same name.

It's alleged that her removal from active service came as a great relief to many pilots and ground crew.


Here is a quick summary of her many misfortunes. Compared to a 'normal' aircraft of the same type she never remained serviceable for long enough to be economically viable and furthermore gained a reputation for being actively dangerous:

An engineer was trapped by sudden un-commanded closure of undercarriage doors.

Then a second, almost identical, accident in which a technician nearly had the top of his head sliced off.

Twice damaged after falling off jacks with gear raised at an Italian air base whilst on ops over Bosnia, flown back to Harrier hospital in Boeing C-17 Globemaster.

In-flight collision with high-tension power cables in Norway ... resulting in a Globemaster trip again.

Three 'significant' bird strikes - quite remarkable given her very low hours at the time.

Cockpit canopy became detached during a flight  over Canada - aircraft returned to UK in a C-17 transport again.

Damaged by shrapnel from Taliban missile while parked at Kandahar.

The aircraft was so accident-prone and un-reliable that she'd only managed 1,000 flying hours since 1990 and the airframe was pretty much written off as a viable warplane. Anyway, some parts could, in theory, be re-purposed. So ... back to England by Boeing again....

On arrival at Brize Norton she took a tumble whilst being unloaded from the Globemaster, after another technically sound bit of ZD469 appeared to have self-destructed.

When one of the remaining un-damaged parts of 'Christine' - the tail fin assembly - was fitted to another Harrier the previously reliable recipient aircraft (ZD375) it immediately became dogged by endless technical problems unrelated to those airframe components, giving more fuel to the fire of superstition.

Hence the RAF understandably gave up on Christine , eventually deciding to cut their losses by retiring her to adorn the entrance to RAF Wittering.

And then... after being tidied up, polished and bedded down, a motorist passing the base on the A1 lost control of her vehicle (a Renault Scenic) for unknown reasons, swerving off the dual carriageway to collide rather dramatically and accurately with Christine.

 .......... 

[SAS~Storebror]

Interesting Story of this ill-fated bird, thanks for sharing it with us Glynn.

During my Service time in the German Navy, we've had our own Christine - christened for the very same reason after Stephen King's possessed car/novel.
Some day in 1992 Christine went in maintenance, 2nd PE was due.
Turned out she had quite a couple of structural issues and the repairs got postponed over and over and over again.
At some point we started cannibalizing Christine as we had many spare parts on short supply and other helicopters were much closer to being airworthy again.
Years went by, with Christine standing in the last corner of the maintenance hangar, being only a shadow of her former self.

Then in 1995 we got a new Admiral who was very keen to climb even higher ranks in the German Navy.
He ordered all Naval Wings back to NATO CR standards, which means 80% of planes had to be airworthy at any given time.
Our Wing Commander made a fool of the Admiral when he publically replied to his speech: "Admiral we'd love to achieve 80%, but taking into account that we've got just one engine for each our helicopters, I'm not quite sure how this will pay out."

That much for that Wing Commander. We got a fresh one who didn't dare to contradict.
This meant that anything looking remotely like a helicopter had to be brought back into service again.
Including Christine.
It's been a tremendous effort, but in late 1995 Christine left the maintenance hangar for her first ground runs.
Soon it became clear that she was "blessed" with many unique "features". It took a few weeks to get all certifications together, but when the final day of her first flight came, nobody wanted to man the plane. The pilots squadron would draw straws, and the loser crew demanded to have a specialist of each technical division with them on the flight, so we would draw straws as well and I became part of the crew for the maiden flight.
We survived

I don't think Christine was particularly worse than any other of our helicopters, but opinions differ on that matter.
Right after I left the Navy, another crew made a hard deck landing on a ship which got Christine to be completely dismantled again and basically become rebuilt from scratch.
She's been having a good life thereafter, even got a special painting for the 50 years SAR jubilee.

This is Christine:












Mike

[Stainless]

It happens to pilots as well !!

A friend of mine was doing a training flight through the valleys of south Wales , when the Jaguar E lost all power. At 250 feet climbing up a valley in wales, he had very little time to troubleshoot the problem and before he really got chance to do anything his rear pulled the tigger lever and he found himself looking down at his bird as it gently dove into the ground,

Six months of medical treatment and painful exercises later he reported back for work to be told he was converting to the Harrier.

He went through the conversion course with no problems , got to love the Harrier. Until he was sent for more low level training again in Wales. The first day was fine. The second day, same thing, total loss of power at 250 feet. This time he pulled the tigger handle himself but had no time to properly brace resulting in spinal injuries.

Nine months later he reported back for work, and was told he was off flying duties for a while. I can't remember how long he was grounded , but I remember he was whinging and whining that if he didn't get flying again soon he would transfer to the army.

Eventually he got back to flying duty, again in the Harrier and for a while he was happy.

Then he was flying in a joint training exercises with the Americans.  An American pilot in a F15 managed to get a missile lock on him and pulled the trigger to record the shot, and was shocked to see a nine lima jump off his wind tip and fly towards Simon's Harrier.

He screamed and shouted on the radio, Simon heard him and the tigger handle was pulled again.

That was him done.

He lost three aircraft, none of them were lost due to his piloting skill. However he was considered an "unlucky pilot" and the RAF had no intention of giving him a fourth bird to crash.