WIX Archives

The Collings A-26 Story...44-35696

Posted by Ryan Harris on Tue Jan 20, 2004 01:50:02 PM

The question was asked further down as to why '696 would never fly again. Rather than writing a book and posting it way down the board so no one would see I thought I would post it as a new message so here it is:

The crash happened on take-off in Kankakee,IL and the master cylinder in the #2 engine let go. In the footage from the ground, this is starting to take effect before brakes were even released. Anyways, she rotated and the gear was just beginning to retract when the engine fully let go and she began to torque roll. Fortunately her right wing tip struck the ground and kept her upright. However this also took about 8 inches of wing tip off and ground the very end of the spar. After hitting her wing tip, she slammed side ways back onto the taxiway and this torqued her entire airframe from the nose to the very last rib in the tail cone. She then proceeded to slide off of a berm at the end of the runway and became airborne again before landing one more time in a wheat field and coming to a stop. When she impacted the wheat field her glass nose literally exploded and the metal broke into two halves. The #2 engine broke from its mount and a small fire started but was quickly put out. Her back also broke right behind the gunners compartment and the main landing gear was shoved up through the wells. The entire nosecase from the #1 engine came out and two of the blades did some damage when they seperated. One blade came over the top of the canopy taking off the right hand clam shell while the other bounced down the armor plating inbetweem the fuselage and nacelle.

If the power had simply been pulled back or if she had bellied straight ahead, she would have a good chance of flying again, but because she hit sideways she is completely torqued and her spars are also probably cracked from the flexing they took.

Even after almost 11 years this summer, it still pisses me off and makes me sick. She was absolutely gorgeous and for a 9 year old kid at the time who got to do various little things that I could she was a dream machine. When I got to fly in her it was even better. She was almost back to 100% stock. About the only things left to do to her was add the periscope in the gunners compartment, make the turret operable, finish bringing her cockpit back, and then get her 6 gun nose back that she wore in Korea. For those that don't realize this, she was the A-26 raced at Reno and flown around known as "Cotton Ginny". The hard nose that she wore in Korea is still around and last I heard was in a museum up North somewhere.

Long winded but the whole story. I'll dig out the serial of our other gutted airframe later.

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