Supermarine Seafire - Shuttleworth 'Fly Navy' Airshow 2017

Air Leasing Ltd's Supermarine Seafire LF Mk.III, PP972, G-BUAR, arriving at Old Warden aerodrome for the Shuttleworth 'Fly Navy' show 2017. The aircraft had a slightly unstable landing and as a result she was temporarily 'grounded' pending a precautionary check of the undercarriage and housed overnight with the Shuttleworth collection. So at the end of the show she can be seen being 'tucked up' in a hangar for the night.
Video and Audio content is
Copyright © 2017 Stephen Keeler
This video and audio material may not be reproduced in any form (except as the videos KZbin embedded video option on any other website), without written permission.

[@TeardropSidemarker]

Makes one appreciate the skill involved getting her on a carrier deck again and again.

[@HighFlight]

It certainly does, as well as the extra strengthening that presumably the undercarriage and airframe would have had to take all that extra punishment?

[@flyinhawaiian5848]

With the Seafire's lightly loaded wing and some headwind, she's gonna float like a kite. I think the main culprit here was a crosswind emanating from the right side of the aircraft, which lifted the starboard wing prior to touchdown. Even though the strengthened undercarriage of the Seafire can take the load, it makes sense to perform a precautionary inspection of the gear, given the historic nature of this beautiful aircraft..

[@markhaynes8909]

possibly a good job it was a Seafire with strengthened undercarriage.

[@johnrenton3463]

Thanks for this, I arrived after it had landed so didn't know the reason for its "grounding". Well done for staying until the bitter end - by 6pm my hands were so blue with the cold that I was having difficulty pressing buttons!

[@HighFlight]

Thankyou. It was rather cool by the end. I managed to keep moving to keep warm and was lucky enough to be in the hangars when the rain started. I think we were lucky with the weather, given what it was like elsewhere and since.

[@ybliga]

mush, mush, mush, mush . . .thud!!! a "slightly hard landing" is something of an understatement. I'm surprised the port landing gear didn't give way. No energy left to flare and appeared so close to stalling for the last 100ft or so of the descent. Short of an actual crash, possibly one of the worst approaches you could ever hope to see. I hope any damage was minimal . . . . .

[@bluestreak2701]

I have the pilots notes for the Seafire V & V11 with the Griffon engine. Its nice to see the Aircraft and have the Pilot book from that era.

[@jamesfeuilherade3664]

Wow shows how forgiving the Spit is, such a lady to fly, a Harvard would have bitten you badly on the butt in a similar situation with a big wing drop at 30 odd feet ...😨

[@idleonlooker1078]

Lovely abrupt arrival! Now it's back onto the Chipmunk until you've improved your technique.

[@RWBHere]

He nearly suffered a sudden inrush of gravity there. Was that an incipient stall and spin as it landed?

[@monsenrm]

He looked way too slow on final.

[@aue82a]

Are you a pilot?

[@michaelknott4361]

Yeah, I think he was trying to simulate a carrier landing and ended up being a bit too slow.

[@TheSound0fLegends]

@@michaelknott4361 why would he do that

[@michaelknott4361]

@@TheSound0fLegends This was the Fly Navy airshow, and it's a naval Spitfire.

[@monsenrm]

HiWetcam , Obviously under the power curve on final. That was a very hard three point landing at a high rate of descent. Most WWII pilots will do a wheel landing rather than three points as they are safer. I am a tail dragger owner and pilot so what I saw was obvious.

[@07870553254]

Too slow and cross wind, maybe could have carried little more speed.

[@steveholmes5207]

How many sea fires have you flown and landed on grass or anywhere be happy to know

[@nathansaunders2576]

Don't have to have done it yourself to diagnose the error, air crash investigators haven't crashed but they still diagnose the cause retrospectively. I'm sure the cause is obvious to many, pilot only human, he made a mistake.

[@nathansaunders2576]

The hard landing, resulting in grounding and inspection. That's the error. Cause? Open to debate, clearly. The cause overall was the speed, lost lift and started to sink.

[@wiljam1968]

That wasn't a hard landing, it was a spin entry interrupted by the ground.

[@theeltea]

The only thing I see is a smartass.

[@mauriciocastro7505]

1:46 taking it back to the hangar for inspection after that awful landing.

[@Franky46Boy]

Ha ha ha... They had even more 'rough' landings on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier! :-)

[@bitemykrank1970]

It WAS a halfway decent looking sideslip landing, but I think the ground came up to meet the aircraft a LITTLE quicker than the pilot anticipated. It's hard to see the ground for the last 20 feet in a Spit, kind of "Hail Mary" time, there is a BLOODY big engine in front of the pilot, and little in the way of reference points ahead of the wing LE, and sitting back so far behind the LE and low to the centre of the fuselage, there is LITTLE forward visibility, hence the tail wag on taxiing, like MOST taildragger's. It's surprising to me that this doesn't happen more often. I have seen worse f**kups on approach, and considering the taxi and parking, I assume any damage was minimal.

[@HighFlight]

Very good points made. Thankfully I don't think that there could have been any damage as the aircraft flew out the following day and has been regularly appearing at airshows etc. since.

[@paulsubbie1783]

Amen, You nailed the problem. He misjudged his height, and was still in a slop when he touched down..hadn't straightened out yet..which proves he thought he was higher than he was.

[@benvankoningsveld]

I'm totally amazed the port strut didn't break after that balls up of a landing.

[@aue82a]

Strut? what are you talking about?

[@josipvrandecic2472]

So what .... hard landing .... Seafire is made to fly/landing in all conditions btw like this ... Pilot is very cool. Thanks High Flight .

[@HighFlight]

Thankyou Josip and you are right on all counts.

[@andrewjamez]

Possible power loss? the whole final approach was under speed. No spitfire pilot would fly that slow deliberately

[@paulsubbie1783]

Doesn't look like he realized how low he really was at point of touchdown, he wasn't level, or ready for the touchdown.

[@jamesmcilvenny2294]

A temporary Spitfire pilot might. I saw someone kill themselves in a replica, flying too slow over airshow. Stall/ spin on base, no time to recover, dead on impact.

[@michaelknott4361]

Nah I think he was trying to recreate a carrier landing but ended up too slow.

[@pcka12]

Old warden is a tiny grass airstrip, you have to believe that the sea fire was brought in the best way possible, it is after all designed to land on the small aircraft carriers of WW2

[@HighFlight]

I agree. There was a nasty crosswind on the day too. Any landing without damaging the aircraft ,pilot or anything else is good!

[@loddude5706]

Well, last I heard, Old Warden's threshold doesn't pitch up & down by 20 or 30 feet very often, but neither does it steam into wind at 25knts - either way, it was a 'wet' approach - 'dribble, dribble, plonk'. Can't ace them all : )

[@pcka12]

Lod dude obviously the observation relates to the strength of the seafire not the ‘target’ it is attempting to land on, however the narrow undercarriage dictated by the spitfire’s original design with a ‘thin’ wing has always been commented upon as being ‘less than ideal’ in an aircraft used for ‘carrier’ operations.

[@andolas100]

It looks damn sexy not running up close in the hanger.

[@MrSteeleye]

Same plane did same thing in 2016 at the same airshow ??????

[@davidharnes3248]

Normal carrier style Landing

[@Bluenose352]

I was told this Seafire hasn't flown since this landing. Is this why it's for sale? Was there any damage?

[@HighFlight]

That information is incorrect. It was flown out of Old Warden following this airshow, not on the same day, but I think on the day after. There appeared to be some concerns that the pitot under the port wing may have been damaged, which may have been why the aircraft didn’t fly in the show and was hangared there overnight. The Seafire did fly again as it also featured in the Duxford Battle of Britain Airshow in September that year. See here - kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYHFlYqmm6aAoqc

[@Bluenose352]

@@HighFlight Thank you!

[@admiralrover5675]

It kinda hovers a bit

[@camelpilot]

Flared too early, came in too slow, great recovery.

[@AndreiTupolev]

You used to see plenty worse with 109s.

[@kellyreim6627]

It's aseafire that's the way they land ie carrier landing!

[@pauljanssens4449]

Way too slow on the approach. Very lucky pilot but keep him away from these beautifull birds. He'll be perfectly safe in a c-172

[@pauljanssens4449]

18.000 hrs, from gliders to civil and military jets, builder of a superstol xl and a glasair 3

[@joey95661]

lucky he didn't crash on landing but I've flown spitfires and they are hard to land but should have had his canopy open I'll be at flying legends this year can't wait ☺ great video

[@HighFlight]

Thanks. It was pretty gusty as well with a cross wind element, which probably didn't help? He was lucky not to have grounded a wing tip. I'll be at Legends too, on the Sunday.

[@joey95661]

High Flight he done well hope to see you at legends

[@joey95661]

I also forgot to say unless I am wrong but...from my experience I think this isn't a actual seafire it's just painted like one not sure tho. I only say this because it has no hook at the back like corsairs etc had and like the other seafire that is based at North weald if you look at that one you will see the hook at the back on that one but on this one like I said there is no hook but I could be wrong . I also think this spitfire use to be based at duxford but again I could be wrong

[@HighFlight]

Hope to see you there too. If you've been before you will notice some changes - no access to the 'tank bank', no 'freeloaders' in the field opposite, no 'freeloader hill' - it's been removed, and changes to the crowd line. This is an original Seafire. Here's a link to info. that Flying Legends produced about her - www.flyinglegends.com/aircraft/supermarine-seafire-lf-iii.html She's currently based at Sywell. The tail hook on this version is just forward of the tail wheel but partially retracted. You can see it on the hangar footage directly below the aircraft serial PP972 as well as on the main picture on the link. I think the North Weald one to which your referring is owned by Kennett Aviation, but has a slightly different retractable tail hook, also forward of the partially retractable tail wheel.

[@joey95661]

High Flight last time I was legends was 2008 but I'll be there this year flying the p51 named " Frenesi " Witch is the highlight and main star this year ahahah

[@Dzordzikk]

OMG. Why so slow landing??? :-( It was near crash.

[@julianducros8952]

Very lucky he didnt write that puppy off what a tool

[@MarsFKA]

Says the finest Spitfire pilot who ever lived.

[@okakokakiev787]

this plane is too difficult to land

[@silvergtotwinturbo9984]

Not if it is done correctly, too slow and not compensating for the cross wind, this is the slowest I've seen a Spit land, didn't think it wanted to!!!

[@odiloglobochnik2259]

I don't know whether to laugh or weep at these general comments made by people who have no idea of real flying. One even used some piece of shite Cherokee as a comparison. I would strongly recommend reading some original test reports of Spitfire/Seafire handling before typing a single letter here.

[@07870553254]

So obviously slow, lucky not to spin in...

[@Trevor_Austin]

That was not hard. That was not too slow. If you disagree, tell me how many hours you have on operating Spitfires (or Mustangs, or Sea Furys etc.). As then tell me how many times you have flown into Old Warden.

[@adrianlarkins7259]

Too high approach and definitely too slow. Flaps down too early. The pilot should have sensed that, upped flaps and gone round again.

[@lanc101]

Pilot error, what a fool. Lucky it didnt end up as a pile of bits

[@loppux]

Ugly commentary and...Seafire? Why still no real detail re the crash at Duxford???

[@HighFlight]

I'm not sure why you think that the commentary was 'ugly' or the question that your asking about the Seafire? Regards Duxford - Presumably your referring to the P-51 'Miss Velma' accident at Flying Legends in July, rather than to the P-51 air to air collision last weekend? If so I would expect that a report from the AAIB will be published during either October or November, as other incidents seem to take a minimum of 3 months before a report is published.