Hawker Hunter crash in Manchester, NH
John A. Morley
All,
A newly restored Hawker Hunter military aircraft crashed today in
Manchester, NH while on it's first flight in at least 20 years. The
pilot radioed a distress call prior to crashing, the details of which
have not been available. The pilot did mange to eject from the aircraft,
but unfortunately did not survive. That's all that is known at this
time.
John M.
Mike Kopack
That's sad to hear. Two Hunters in two weeks...
Mike
JDupre5762
>From: "John A. Morley"
>A newly restored Hawker Hunter military aircraft crashed today in
>Manchester, NH while on it's first flight in at least 20 years.
My old boss Ed Stead is probably the owner of that Hunter but I don't believe
he flies anymore do to medical problems. He also had a beautiful DH Vampire
that was one of the first jet warbirds in New England. At one time he had at
least two maybe three Hunters at least one of them was ex Danish Air Force.
Stead Aviation was one of if not the biggest FBO in New Hampshire in operation
for more than thirty years Mr. Stead retired recenty and sold his business.
A real shame and my sympathy to all concerned.
Regards,
John Dupre'
Dave Sutton
> "John A. Morley" <ende...@ultranet.com> writes:
> A newly restored Hawker Hunter military aircraft crashed today in
> Manchester, NH while on it's first flight in at least 20 years. The
> pilot radioed a distress call prior to crashing, the details of which
> have not been available. The pilot did mange to eject from the aircraft,
> but unfortunately did not survive. That's all that is known at this
> time.
>
> John M.
All I can say is Shit.
Ed Stead, the guy who restored it (and who owns the
sistership of my Vampire, BTW), is a real gem, and
was the one who introduced me to jet warbirding. I
was a junior co-pilot on the Shorts 360, and we used
to overnight in Manchester ever week, arriving at aboout
2 in the afternoon and departing the next day. I used
to go into the hanger there, and spent a little bit of time
working on the Hunter with Ed. This was a single seat
fighter that Ed had converted to a 2 seat trainer by demating
and remating cockpit sections. The work was done to a very
high standard indeed, as Ed put literally thousands of hours
into the restoration (reskinning the wings, for example).
This is a shame, and in addition to the loss of a pilot (not Ed,
I am sure, as he is semi-retired now), the loss of many thousands
of hours of work and many tens of thousands of dollars on a
firstflight must be heartbreaking to the restorer.
Dave Sutton pil...@planet.net
Yak-50, Fouga Magister, DeHavilland Vampire, MiG-17
"There is no substitute for horsepower...."
James Wilkins
> All,
> Manchester, NH while on it's first flight in at least 20 years. The
> pilot radioed a distress call prior to crashing, the details of which
> have not been available. The pilot did mange to eject from the aircraft,
> but unfortunately did not survive. That's all that is known at this
> time.
> John M.
Ed Stead??
Bob Saur
Childress of North Carolina. The plane was Edwin Stead's. The Globe's
on-line web site reference is:
http://search.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/170/Pilot_of_vintage_plane_killed_in_N_.htm
Condolences to Mr. Childress's family and friends.
I live near the Manchester airport and have the pleasure of seeing Mr
Stead's aircraft over my house occasionally. The pilot did a great job
putting the plane down in an unpopulated area just north of the
airport's runway 35-17. It is a shame he perished.
Dave Sutton
> James Wilkins <je...@mitre.org> writes:
> John A. Morley wrote:
> > A newly restored Hawker Hunter military aircraft crashed today in
> > Manchester, NH while on it's first flight in at least 20 years. The
> > pilot radioed a distress call prior to crashing, the details of which
> > have not been available. The pilot did mange to eject from the aircraft,
> > but unfortunately did not survive. That's all that is known at this
> > time.
> > John M.
> Ed Stead??
No. The pilot was a good friend, John "Hunter" Childress,
a member of the Board of Directors of the Classic Jet Aircraft
Association and a member of the SC Air Guard, flying F-16's.
An extremely experienced pilot, family man, and friend to all
of us Classic Jet owners. He had extensive experience in the
Hunter, and was performing a test flight for Ed, who is semi
retired and not flying the high performance stuff like he did.
No additional details yet. If I could write Hunters epitaph,, it
would be "He loved to fly". He did, more than about anyone
I know.
Shit. A sad day indeed.
Charles K. Scott
In article <6meuks$i...@jupiter.planet.net>
Dave Sutton <nospam...@planet.net> writes:
> No additional details yet. If I could write Hunters epitaph,, it
> would be "He loved to fly". He did, more than about anyone
> I know.
According to our local newspaper, little fuel was found in the gas
tanks.
Corky Scott
John S. Maddaus
"John A. Morley" <ende...@ultranet.com> wrote:
>All,
>
>A newly restored Hawker Hunter military aircraft crashed today in
>Manchester, NH while on it's first flight in at least 20 years. The
>pilot radioed a distress call prior to crashing, the details of which
>have not been available. The pilot did mange to eject from the aircraft,
>but unfortunately did not survive. That's all that is known at this
>time.
>
>John M.
>
The pilot had radioed in a loss of hydraulic pressure. This was the
first flight after 10 years of restoration work. I used to see the
plane all of the time parked at MHT. Apparently, the tanks were dry
according to the initial investigator's comments to the Manchester
Union Leader. According to the description in the paper, he held off
of ejecting until about 40 feet of altitude to avoid hitting the
crowded area under the approach path. He must have been quite low
crossing Rte 293 as the paper described motorists as being scared and
its not unusual to see the commercials come in quite low there as that
is the predominant approach path. He did miss a school and quite a
number of stores. There isn't a lot of flat empty ground surrounding
the MHT airport. If you are short, you won't be landing horizontal.
John Maddaus
jmad...@usa.net
scott....@gmail.com
I'm way late to the discussion but I wanted to add some of the details that I saw. People credited the pilot for "piloting it away from homes" but in reality the crash sit revealed that this likely was not the case. I rode my bike down to the crash site the day after the crash. The Hunter was still sitting where it came to rest, surprisingly in tact. It was sitting almost perpendicular to the runway heading. There was caution tape all around the hulk, and you could see caution tape in the woods where the seat came down. I returned to the site a couple of days later after they cleared out the wreckage and the caution tape was still in the woods around where the seat was, but no sign of the ejection seat. I remember that you could see the tops of some very small maple trees were topped where it hit the plane (these were not tall trees, maybe 7-10' high where they were topped). It was clear to me that the plane came in flat and bounced, and then landed and slide into it's final resting place. According to folks at the scene, the pilot ejected too low and the trajectory rocketed him into the trees. I remember that even after the plane was removed, various pieces of metal and hydraulic lines (and hydraulic line markings) were still in the area as a micro site (for wreck hunters).
The place where the plane went down was right next to the Ryder truck maintenance space in a vacant sand lot, behind the Toys R Us. I have since Manchester and I have not revisited the crash site since 1998 or so. I remember filling a small shoe-box with bits and pieces that were at the scene and turned it over to Stead Aviation's receptionist.
If my memory serves me, the pilot deviated from the planned flight plan, and instead did several "high-speed" fly-by's, and was low on fuel. The official cause was fuel exhaustion if I recall correctly.
This crash was the beginning of the end of Ed Stead's business too, coupled by a divorce and this crash, he sold the Vampire off that he flew for all of the Escadrille Airshows.
Peter Stickney
poisoning.
What happened during the flight is that some minor system glitches showed
up, and checking them over ate up time. The flight was at a lower level
than planned, increasing fuel consumption. And fuel is one thing a Hunter
doesn't have. According to the NTSB, the fuel gages were misreading
somewhat - but the fact remains that the jet was in the air longer than
planned, and the tanks were pretty much empty when it hit the ground.
The airplane had been sold to, and was to be delivered to an outfit in
Texas, and they were anxious for it to arrive.
Ejections, especially at low speeds and altitudes are always a crapshoot.
Ed's Vampire ended up in Brazil, last I heard. It was a beautiful ship, and
it flew like a dream.
--
Pete Stickney
Always remember to close all parentheses.
We're not paying to air-condition the entire paragraph.
Mark Phelps
He was working on the Hunter then, and after I went to work for Flying Magazine, we did a feature story on the Vampire. Pete is right, it flew beautifully. My biggest revelation was that - despite worrying about flying with that funky two-piece, spade-handle control column, it was completely intuitive. Seamless, even for someone who had only ever flown with a regular GA yoke.
Back when I was having trouble paying for my radio work, we were standing out in front of the hangar where his Hunter was taking shape. He waved his hand at my little airplane on the ramp and the Hunter in the hangar and told me, "Hey. I undahstahnd [remember that accent?]. I'm trying to do the same thing you're doing. The numbahs are just biggah."
Peter Stickney
I had always joked with him that he should pick up a 2-seat Venom to fill
out the set.
In the later '80s, when the Hunter was pretty well along, he was part of
a group that was looking into obtaining a couple of CS-92 jets (Czech-
built Me 262s built postwar) from Czechoslovakia as the Warsaw Pact fell
apart. I was doing performance and flying qualities predictions for the
airplane, re-engined with J85/CJ610 engines. (Much like the later
reproductions.)
The loss of the Hunter and pilot really took a lot out of Ed, and the
rest of us.
--
Peter Stickney
Java Man knew nothing about coffee