The end of Foxy Lady ?

[colin m]

I just stumbled across this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4549964/Last-Sea-Vixen-plane-does-emergency-landing-show.html

[stona]

[ATTACH]282483[/ATTACH]

How good or bad that is only a proper engineering assessment can tell.

I do think it safe to say that it could have been a lot worse. For a start nobody was hurt.

Cheers

Steve

[rickoshea52]

That's looks like relatively minor runway rash. I have seen worse that flew again but it will all come down to money in the end.

[colin m]

It doesn't look to bad (to my totally untrained eye) in that picture.

[stillp]

Surprisingly little visible damage, after seeing photos of the landing.

Pete

[tanktrack]

the pilots skill saved it

[PaulTRose]

the drop tanks took most of the damage

[stona]

There are some more pictures of the damage on the Navy Wings Facebook page.
They look fairly depressing to me, but I'm not an aircraft engineer.
Cheers
Steve

[Dave W]

There was a similar incident when i was working for British Aerospace in Saudi Arabia around 1992/93.one of our Tornado F3's couldnt lower its gear. Saudi crew were told to eject. Navigator ejected. But Saudi pilot decided to land it on its belly. There was surprisingly little damage.A team of Bae engineers came out and got it airworthy again .As Rick says, it will all come down to money.

[flyjoe180]

That will buff out no worries

[stona]

I'm afraid that it doesn't look good for this aircraft. From the operator.

"Unfortunately the structural damage to the airframe is more serious than first thought. This includes cracks on both tail booms, warping of the main bulk heads in the engine compartment and major damage to the gear box. The important factor here was speed of landing. The Sea Vixen suffered a major hydraulic failure of both systems and the pilot, Commander Simon Hargreaves was unable to lower the flaps along with the under-carriage. This necessitated a high speed, low angle run on and the energy transferred itself through the airframe.
Work by Assessors estimate that it could take between 3-4 years and cost £2-3M to get her flying again. A white knight is needed in the next month who would be prepared to come to the rescue and under-write these costs and save the last flying Sea Vixen in the world, recognising her uniqueness and value to the Nation’s naval aviation heritage."

Whether this aircraft will ever fly again must be dubious at best.

Steve

[Steve Brodie]

Thats a shame , couldnt they use a bit of Milliput fine

[Gern]

I'm afraid that it doesn't look good for this aircraft. From the operator.

Work by Assessors estimate that it could take between 3-4 years and cost £2-3M to get her flying again.

Steve

With that time frame and budget I would have thought you could build a new one from scratch! Don't we have any engineering companies with empty order books who could offer their services cheaply - or won't the bean counters allow companies to do that sort of thing nowadays?

[flyjoe180]

That's a sad outcome, doesn't sound like good news for the Vixen