Proficient Pilot: Who needs wings?

Despite being confronted with an impossible set of control challenges, its pilot miraculously nurses the airplane to an airport and lands safely. (To see this video, go to YouTube.com and search for “Pilot lands plane safely after losing a wing.”)

It appears that the pilot has performed an impossible maneuver—impossible because that’s exactly what it is. The video is a hoax. If you stop the video at various points and study individual frames, you will notice that the film is a composite showing at some points a real airplane, and at others what appears to be a model of the airplane with several slight but detectable differences. Other inconsistences prove further that the video is fake.

Although entertaining, such phony videos tend to discredit and create doubt about some incredible events that really did occur. Take, for example, a wing failure experienced by four-time British aerobatic champion and retired Royal Air Force test pilot Neil Williams, whose skills were put to the ultimate test.

On June 3, 1970, Williams was practicing an aerobatic routine near Hullavington, a village in Wiltshire, England, in a Zlin Z 526A Akrobat, a single-place Czechoslovakian sport plane. He was preparing for the forthcoming World Aerobatic Championships.

While executing a 5-G recovery from a vertical dive at 1,000 feet agl, Williams said he “heard a loud bang and felt a severe jolt through the airframe.” His airplane immediately began rolling left while the left wing remained parallel to the horizon. The spar of the left wing had failed. The rolling could not be arrested despite applying full right aileron and rudder. Williams had intended to land as soon as possible but by the time he had reached 300 feet over the farmland, it became clear that he was about to lose control.

Acting almost reflexively, the 6,500-hour pilot rapidly applied left aileron, pitched into a negative-G condition, and rolled inverted. This forced the left wing to “snap back into position with a loud bang.” He was thankful to discover that the airplane could be flown somewhat normally while inverted. Remaining upside down, Williams climbed to 1,000 feet and headed for the nearby airport while assessing the handling characteristics of the damaged airplane. He knew, however, that the Zlin’s inverted fuel system would keep the engine running for fewer than 8 minutes. Williams later said that if he had had a parachute, he would have climbed as high as possible and jumped.

Williams said also that he considered four types of landings: “an inverted ditching, deliberately crashing inverted into trees to take the impact, an inverted crash landing on the airfield, or an inverted approach with a last-minute rollout and hope for the best.” He opted for the fourth choice because he felt this offered his best chance for survival.

He made one wide circuit of the field and then approached the grass runway while still inverted. He decided to land with landing gear and flaps retracted because he did not know what additional adverse effects might be caused by extending them. As the threshold of the runway passed “over his head,” Williams began a slow inverted flare. When the aircraft achieved a level attitude, he rolled the airplane upright. It landed hard on its belly as the left wing began to move out of position. Any further delay in touching down would have rendered the airplane uncontrollable.

There are very few pilots with enough of the right stuff to smartly cope with and survive such a challenging emergency. The queen of England honored Williams with an award for his unbelievable performance.

Amazingly, though, there is another pilot who literally lost an entire wing and landed without hurting himself or his navigator. This occurred in 1983 when Israeli Air Force pilot Ziv Nadivi, flying a McDonnell Douglas F–15D Eagle, had a midair collision with a Douglas A–4 Skyhawk over southern Israel. With fuel streaking and vaporizing so profusely from where his right wing had been attached, it was impossible for Nadivi to see that his right wing was gone. So rather than ejecting, he saw no reason not to attempt a landing. He needed and used so much power that what remained of the airplane was forced to act like a lifting body. He landed at an Israeli Air Force base with a touchdown speed of 260 knots.

To see this airplane flying with a missing wing, go to YouTube.com and search for “F–15 lands with one wing.” This one is no hoax.

barryschiff.com