On 30/07/2021 20:12, bad sector wrote:
>>> BTW the AN-2 has an in-flight oil-filling spout IN THE COCKPIT :-)
>>
>> So does the Beaver.
>
> That's right, it does, it's just that I kneel whenever an
> An-2 goes by. The manual says that in the event of an
> engine failure in IMC you just "pull the column into your
> gut and wait", scarebus don't make'em like that no more.
> There's also a multi-engine machine on which I think
> significant engine maintenance was possible in-flight.
Isn't there a story of a guy who crawled out in a bombers wing in WW2 to
save the aircraft?
"Having bombed the target, Jackson's Lancaster (serial ME669) was
attacked by a German night fighter and a fuel tank in the starboard wing
caught fire. Jackson, already wounded from shell splinters, strapped on
a parachute and equipped himself with a fire extinguisher before
climbing out of the aircraft and onto the wing, whilst the aeroplane was
flying at 140 miles per hour (230 km/h), in order to put out the fire.
He gripped the air intake on the leading edge of the wing with one hand,
and fought the fire with the other. The flames seared his hands, face,
and clothes. The fighter returned and hit the bomber with a burst of
gunfire that sent two bullets into his legs. The burst also swept him
off the wing.
He fell 20,000 feet (6,100 m), but his smouldering and holed parachute
worked well enough to save his life. He suffered further injuries upon
landing, including a broken ankle, but managed to crawl to a nearby
German village the next morning, where he was paraded through the street.
He spent 10 months recovering in hospital before being transferred to
the Stalag IX-C prisoner-of-war camp."
and...
"On the return flight, while over the Zuider Zee on the Dutch coast,
Ward's Wellington was attacked by a German Bf 110 night fighter. The
attack opened a fuel tank in the starboard wing, and caused a fire
around the rear of the starboard engine. After initial attempts to put
out the flames using fire extinguishers directed through a hole made in
the fuselage of the Wellington failed, Widdowson ordered the crew to
bail out. However, Ward proposed that he climb out and try and smother
the fire using an engine cover. He crawled out through the astrodome on
the top of the fuselage, secured by a rope. Making his way down the side
and along the wing of the aircraft, he kicked or tore holes in the
fuselage's covering fabric with a fire axe to give himself hand-and
foot-holes.[2][6][7][8]
He soon reached the engine and attempted to smother the flames with a
canvas cover. With the fire out, he stuffed the cover into the hole from
which fuel from a petrol line, damaged in the night fighter attack, had
leaked and exacerbated the fire. Ward, now exhausted, gingerly made his
way back to the astrodome with the navigator, Sergeant Joe Lawson of the
RNZAF, keeping tension on the rope tethered to Ward and assisting him
back into the aircraft. Although the cover shortly blew away by the
slipstream, the remnants of the fire had burnt itself out and the plane
was now safe. Instead of the crew having to bail out, the aircraft made
an emergency landing, without flaps or brakes, at Newmarket. The
Wellington ran into a hedge and fence at the end of the runway and was
written off"
That's a bit like patching the kernel on a live running multiuser
system....
--
"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social
conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the
windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) "
Alan Sokal