The Crowd Pleasers

by Pete Fusco

  A period of accusations, denials, and lawsuits against manufacturer Boeing-Vertol followed the Mannheim disaster. A judgment was made against the manufacturer but appeals dragged on for years.

  CH-47 Chinook helicopter similar to that which crashed in Mannheim.

  43

  TOP GUN

  AS a stand-in and alter ego for Hollywood stars, Art Scholl flew and took the risks while others took the bows. The anonymity of a movie stunt pilot’s life worked for Scholl because he also enjoyed a showman’s life of wild applause.

  Millions thrilled to Scholl’s flying in the three decades he performed. He loved the crowds and catered to them. He frequently let go of the controls, stood on the seat of his de Havilland Super Chipmunk and waved, the ribbon he had just picked up while flying inverted fluttering from the vertical fin. Now and then his dog, “Aileron,” would accompany him in the cockpit for a show, further delighting the crowds.

  The immortal Art Scholl standing on the seat waving to appreciative spectators. The ribbon he just picked up while inverted trails from vertical fin. Courtesy of Wca42.

  Scholl, along with Paul Mantz and Frank Tallman, made up a famous Hollywood stunt-flying trilogy. All three were multi-faceted but Scholl came closest to winning the trophy for aviation’s Renaissance Man. He flew with the U.S. international aerobatic team for nine years. In 1974 he won the U.S. National Aerobatic Championship. He found time to compete in midget air racers. Scholl held aircraft mechanic and inspection licenses. He designed and built airplanes and flew everything, including seaplanes, helicopters, and gliders. Scholl was also an academic with a Ph.D. in Aviation Management and had been head of the Department of Aeronautics at San Bernardino Valley College before leaving to fly airshows full time.

  Airshows were Art Scholl’s passion. He was among the most gifted aerobatic pilots to ever grace the sky, a cut above even those regarded as the best. His lomcevak, an Eastern European tumbling maneuver, was unlike those of other performers, which tumbled erratically. Scholl and his Super Chipmunk tamed the extreme maneuver, rolling straight ahead, nose over tail, as if on rails. Scholl did not always fly a solo act. He and fellow airshow star Harold Krier flew upside down close to the ground mere inches from each other to execute a duel inverted ribbon pickup.

  Millions who never had the privilege to see Scholl perform in person watched him in Pennzoil commercials and, unknowingly, in television shows, documentaries, and the several hundred films in which he worked, most notably Top Gun, the film that cost him his life.

  On September 16, 1985, Scholl was over the Pacific Ocean in a Pitts Special S-2 equipped with an aft-mounted camera. His job: film a pilot’s view of the horizon from an inverted flat spin. It was to be used in the movie Top Gun. Scholl rolled the Pitts to the inverted position, entered the spin, and began filming. Soon after, he spoke a terse message on the radio, heard by spotter aircraft involved in the shoot. “I have a problem. I have a real problem.” With no further transmissions or explanation, the Pitts crashed into the sea. Neither Scholl’s body nor the aircraft were ever recovered. He was fifty-three years old.

  Ironically, it was an inverted flat spin that killed Goose, one of the film’s major characters.

  Because of Scholl’s vast experience with such maneuvers, it’s not believed pilot error was the cause. He had taught innumerable students flat spin recovery, both upright and inverted. One theory is that the weight of the rear-mounted camera moved the aircraft’s center of gravity too far aft, a situation that can make spin recovery problematic, if not impossible. An exact cause may never be known.

  Navy brass praised Top Gun for its value as a recruitment tool. Indeed, navy enlistments increased after the film’s release. Scholl was very patriotic and would have been pleased. His flashy red, white, and blue Super Chipmunk trailed red, white, and blue smoke to a backdrop of red, white, and blue music. Poor uncorrected eyesight had kept Scholl from serving in the military. Nonetheless, when he died, the navy lost one of its best pilots. Top Gun is dedicated to Art Scholl’s memory.

  Future film historians will study Top Gun and declare it interesting for its time but, by and large, very forgettable. Future aviation historians will study Art Scholl’s flying and judge it immortal.

  44

  TAKING OVER

  ONLY blind luck kept Air France Flight 296 from becoming the worst airshow crash in history on June 26, 1988. Even so, the accident remains one of the most controversial airshow crashes. On that day, a new dimension entered air disaster investigations: Who was at fault, pilot or computer?

  Flight 296 introduced the Airbus A320, the first fly-by-wire commercial airliner, to the public. Air France Captain Michel Asseline and First Officer Pierre Mazieres departed from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris in the third A320 built. They landed at Basel-Mulhouse Airport, held a press conference, and took on 130 passengers for a sightseeing and publicity trip. From Basel-Mulhouse, they flew the short distance to a small airshow at Habsheim Airport for a quick low-level fly-by. After the airshow appearance, they were to return to Basel-Mulhouse, drop off the passengers, and return to Paris.

  Nothing could have been any easier for the two veteran Air France pilots, both of whom had flown many hours on the line and also served in the training and technical departments. Any airline pilot would consider a flight such as theirs, which included a company-sanctioned “buzz job,” on a nice day in France more recreation than work. It didn’t quite turn out that way.

  All went well until the aircraft approached the airshow at Habsheim, a small airport for which the crew didn’t have much information. Asseline and Mazieres were almost on top of the field when they spotted it. Instead of flying over the airport and circling back, Asseline entered a hastened, non-stabilized descent. He lined up with the runway for the fly-by and called for partial flaps and for the landing gear to be extended.

  Asseline planned to fly by the spectators at “alpha max,” the slowest speed the aircraft could fly without stalling. The aircraft would be at minimum speed with the nose pitched up at a dramatic angle as it flew over the runway at 100 feet. Spectators would be treated to a great view of the new Airbus from a unique prospective.

  The airshow crowd, however, was not lined up on the runway Asseline anticipated, requiring him to bank over to another runway. The forest at the end of the newly-selected runway probably seemed like the least of the captain’s concerns at the time.

  The controversy centers on what happened in the next few moments. Perhaps because of the distractions, Asseline allowed the aircraft to descend below a hundred feet, the lowest altitude Air France had authorized for the fly-by. Asseline dropped further to forty feet, then to thirty feet as he continued over the runway. When the two pilots saw the trees coming up in front of them, Asseline instinctively applied full power and pulled back on the controls to climb out of the situation. At that point the computer did precisely what it was programmed to do: take over.

  The computer went into “alpha protection” and blocked Asseline’s inputs to the elevator to prevent the nose-high, slowed aircraft from pitching up further and entering a stall. Worse, it may have even lowered the nose. In any case, Captain Asseline was no longer master of the machine but its prisoner. No defense was possible against a system that was designed without regard for consequence. Asseline had no choice but to ride along like just another passenger as the aircraft flew headlong into the trees.

  When the A320 hit, the right wing tore off, spilling thousands of gallons of fuel, which exploded and burned. Watching videos of the crash, it seems impossible that anyone survived. But even as fire engulfed the aircraft, all but three of the 136 passengers and crew managed to flee the wreckage. No one can watch the video and not shudder. No one can watch it and believe that only three lives were lost. No pilot can watch it without wondering how such a machine could exist.

  At first, Captain Asseline cooperated with Air France and government officials but stopped talking when he suspected he was being mad
e the scapegoat in a cover-up. To substantiate this, he presented evidence that he insisted supported his claim that the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder had been doctored in favor of the A320’s computer. Asseline also claimed that the engines did not respond as quickly as they should have.

  The French government owns part of Airbus, a multinational company that employs tens of thousands of people. Air France had committed heavily to the A320. Everyone had a lot to lose if blame fell on the new technology. Asseline was tried for involuntary manslaughter. He was convicted and imprisoned for almost a year. His French pilot licenses were revoked. After his release from prison, he remained in aviation as an inventor while trying to clear his name.

  In the end, no one seemed to care about the A320’s regrettable debut in the forest. Airbus went on to sell thousands of A320s. Third world airlines, which for decades had grudgingly hired experienced foreign national pilots, welcomed the A320’s proactive computer as a way to put their own pilots in the cockpit. In effect, they substituted technology for human experience. As for the flying public, it is more concerned with low-cost fares and earned miles and would rather not dwell on long stories about court battles and crashes caused by computer failure or, in the case of Air France 296, a computer that might have done its job too well.

  Captain Asseline certainly put himself in a bad situation, but in an airliner with conventional controls he would have climbed out of harm’s way and few would have been the wiser. That day in France the world relearned what it already knew: technology, almost by definition, harbors unwelcome surprises and will never be man’s absolute slave. When the chips are down, no flight management computer will ever replace a quick mind and a good pair of hands.

  The Boeing Aircraft Company’s latest airliners also employ fly-by-wire technology but with a significant difference. While the Airbus computers for the most part run the show, those installed in Boeing aircraft run the show only until the pilot applies a bit of pressure on the controls to signal to the computer that he or she has a better plan.

  45

  BROKEN HEARTs

  ON Sunday, August 28, 1988, at an airshow held at the Ramstein Air Force Base in West Germany, the Italian Air Force Frecce Tricolori jet display team took off to perform its signature Cardioide, or “Pierced Heart.” Four minutes later, seventy persons were dead or dying, including three of the ten pilots. Approximately 1,000 more spectators were injured, 346 of them seriously.

  Shortly after takeoff, nine members of the ten-jet team separated into two flights, one with four aircraft and another with five. The two flights combined to draw a giant heart in white smoke in front of a crowd of three hundred thousand. The solo jet, flown by Colonel Ivo Nutarelli, aimed at the center of the heart to pierce it. He was also aimed at the crowd. His job was straightforward, something he had done many times. That day, a timing error of milliseconds caused Nutarelli to collide with two team members at the bottom of the heart.

  Complex flight path of the “Pierced Heart” maneuver as flown by the Italian Military Aerobatic Team at Ramstein. Courtesy of Julian Herzog.

  The two aircraft that Nutarelli struck crashed on the runway. His aircraft became a projectile that slammed into the ground, exploded, and cartwheeled. It snagged a section of barbed wire fencing and kept going. Nothing, including a row of parked vehicles, could keep what had become a steel fireball from reaching the crowd. The carnage lasted only seconds; it was over even before the white smoke “pierced heart” had dispersed in the wind.

  The midair collision and resultant casualties at Ramstein Air Force Base is well-documented on film. It appears to be a simple case of “piercing” pilot Nutarelli misjudging his altitude and/or speed. In fact, the video tape shows his landing gear extended just before the collision, suggesting he may have been trying to slow the aircraft when he realized he would hit the two team members.

  The question that screams from the videos is why the solo ship would be allowed to pierce the heart moving toward the crowd. The inescapable conclusion is that flying away from the grandstands is far less dramatic. The “Pierced Heart,” was, after all, part of an airshow act. The Frecce Tricolori, ranked as one of the best military jet teams in the world, still perform the maneuver, although the location of the crowd and the direction of the “pierce” is now a factor in the planning.

  The Frecce Tricolori, literally the “Tricolored Arrows,” at the time performed with nine and sometimes ten Aermacchi MB-339s, a greater number of aircraft than used by most other military flying teams.

  No tragedy the scope of Ramstein escapes the radar of conspiracy theorists. It was blamed on “sabotage,” a stretch even by the loose entrant requirements of conspiracy theories. The sabotage theory had its origins eight years earlier when Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870, a DC-9-15, crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea. All eighty-one aboard died.

  The Aerolinee Itavia tragedy became known as the Ustica Massacre, both because the aircraft went into the sea near the island of Ustica and the word “massacre” has an undeniable conspiratorial ring to it. Lt. Col. Nutarelli and Lt. Col. Mario Naldini, two of the three team members killed in the Ramstein accident, had been training in the vicinity of Ustica when the airliner crashed. According to the theory, they had incriminating knowledge of the Ustica Massacre that led to the sabotaging of their aircraft.

  The yet-unexplained crash of Flight 870 is itself the subject of several conspiracy theories, ranging from a missile launched by a French aircraft to a terrorist bomb planted near the rear lavatory.

  As a result of the Ramstein accident, the West German Minister of Defense barred all further multi-ship military aerial displays in West Germany. Even after the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, the German Air Force remains without an aerial display team.

  Ramstein held the record for the deadliest airshow crash in history for fourteen years, until it was eclipsed in 2002 at the Sknyliv Airshow in the Ukraine.

  46

  VERTICAL CHARLIE

  INDIAN Air Force Wing Commander Ramesh Bakshi was never accused of boring airshow spectators. He gave all he had every time he stepped into his Dassault Mirage 2000 delta-wing jet fighter.

  Bakshi’s signature maneuver was the “Vertical Charlie,” which began with a full afterburner vertical rolling climb until almost out of sight, followed by an equally vertical, but far more adrenaline-charged, rolling dive. After three rolls headed straight at the ground, Bakshi would recover and make a high-speed victory pass before the crowd.

  By any standards, the Vertical Charlie was extraordinary. It was the closing segment of Bakshi’s five-minute routine and, on August 8, 1989, the day he performed it for the last time, it was to be the grand finale of a New Delhi airshow celebrating the Indian Air Force. Thousands of spectators were in the grandstands.

  All eyes followed Bakshi’s Mirage as it climbed and became a tiny dot in the sky. It triggered a contest in the grandstands to see who would be the first to see him reappear. When Bakshi had achieved the desired altitude, he pushed the nose over and entered the downward portion of the Vertical Charlie. As expected, he rolled three times, traveling straight down. But instead of pulling up after the third roll as was his normal routine, Bakshi attempted a fourth roll. He did not initiate recovery until he was at 3,000 feet at an estimated 450 mph.

  The Mirage jet disappeared behind some trees and a water tank, like a magician veiling the secret of an escape trick from the audience. A split second later, the nose of the Mirage appeared, as if the trick had been successful and the audience fooled once more. Seeing the Mirage still in the air reassured those spectators with the closest view who, seconds before, saw Bakshi in the cockpit frantically pulling back on the stick during the last part of the maneuver.

  What seemed to be Bakshi’s safe recovery was the aftermath of the Mirage pancaking hard and bouncing off the ground. An explosion and fireball followed, all within three hundred yards of spectators. Bakshi, who was thirty-nine years old, died instantly
; others in the crowd were severely burned. One of the victims died the following day.

  Fellow Mirage pilots in the audience could not believe Bakshi had tried to squeeze the fourth roll out of the maneuver with so little altitude remaining and at such a high speed. Bakshi was respected and liked. Fellow pilots jumped to his defense; they speculated that he had miscounted his rolls in the dive, or that the sun had been in his eyes, or that a haze layer may have caused him to misjudge his altitude.

  Or did Bakshi get caught up in the spirit of performing the finale in a jet fighter in which he may have become too comfortable? Did the Mirage 2000’s stunning capabilities override his pilot instincts and inspire him, spur him on, to try that fourth roll? An even more pertinent question is whether Bakshi did it for the crowd—or for himself.

  More so than any other aviation disaster, fatal airshow crashes frustrate fair analysis and resolution. Pilots killed while performing take their story to the grave. Investigators, with few exceptions, are left to deal with information sometimes beyond their reach and depth. Hindsight, with all its overtones of bias and smugness, offers little chance of a fair shake for the pilot. Findings go unchallenged by the one person no longer able to offer an explanation or a defense.

  47

  ANALYSES

  ALL five of Ronald Shelly’s children had asked to be his wing walker. He said he thought about it and chose daughter Karen to join his act because, he told an Associated Press reporter, “… I thought she’d be the one who would enjoy it.”

  On June 27, 1993, the team was performing in Shelly’s Stearman biplane at an airshow in Concord, New Hampshire. With Karen seated in the front cockpit waiting for her wing walking portion of the act to begin, Shelly performed a slow roll to the left, followed by an apparent snap roll, also to the left. The Stearman lost speed and altitude in the maneuver. It struck the ground nose first and burst into flames. Father and daughter were killed. Ronald Shelly was sixty-one; Karen Shelly Duggan was thirty-one.