I didn’t realize he died piloting an antique aircraft at age 90. Dramatic video from San Juan Islands, WA at link:
I haven’t seen someone go straight into the ground like that since that young baggage handler stole that Alaska Airlines turboprop a few years ago.
intercst
I had to find out why a 90-year old former Apollo 8 astronaut and former U.S. Air Force aviator William Anders was flying a vintage Beechcraft T-34 Mentor, a single propeller, 2-seat aircraft that both the Air Force and Navy began using in 1955 for flight school training. Here’s what I found.
Source: Aviation Safety Network
• Type of aircraft: Beechcraft T-34A (A5) Mentor
• Owner/operator: Apogee Flight Inc., ops Heritage Flight Museum
• Year of manufacturer: 1961
• Narrative:
A Beechcraft T-34A (A45) Mentor impacted the waters 80 feet offshore of Jones Island, Washington.
The pilot, former Apollo 8 astronaut William “Bill” Anders (90), perished and the aircraft was destroyed.
An online video shows the aircraft in an inverted dive/loop before it impacted the water at high speed. It appears that the maneuver is consistent with a Split S, in which the pilot half-rolls their aircraft inverted and executes a descending half-loop, resulting in level flight in the opposite direction at a lower altitude.
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The owner of the T-34 was the Heritage Flight Museum that was founded in 1996 by William and Valerie Anders in Bellingham, Washington. The Museum’s vintage aircraft collection began with the P-51 Mustang “Val-Halla” and has steadily grown. In 2014, HFM moved to its new home at Skagit Regional Airport in Burlington, Washington. The museum currently houses 15 aircraft, several antique military vehicles, a library and many artifacts donated by veterans. Recent facilities upgrades have helped pave the way for new acquisitions and additional exhibits.
The Heritage Flight Museum is a flying aircraft museum that displays, operates and maintains its many donated and closely associated aircraft from the hangars that make up the museum’s main buildings. A majority of the aircraft on display are fully functional and are frequently flown by skilled pilots.
Sadly, it appears Anders died flying the same type of aircraft that he began his long distinguished aviation career flying in military flight training school back in 1955.
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Back in the summer of 1964, as a U.S. Navy midshipman on a NROTC scholarship, I had the thrilling experience of taking 4 training flights in the front seat of a U.S. Navy Beechcraft T-34 yellow aircraft as shown below at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas.
After my first T-34 flight, I loved it and immediately decided to become a Navy jet pilot. My first instructor was a young Marine Corps Captain fighter jet pilot who told me that the commanding officer wanted instructors to fly straight the first time up without any aerial maneuvers that might make midshipmen air sick. He asked me, “Straight flight or do you want to experience what this aircraft can do?” I responded, “Let it rip!” and after teaching me how to trim the aircraft, he did loops, barrel rolls et al like shown in this video Aerobatic Flying Maneuvers T34 Mentor Cockpit View.
Best of all, I also had two exhilarating training flights in the front seat of a U.S. Navy TF-9 Cougar jet trainer with a Navy Lieutenant Commander jet pilot instructor at NAS Kingsville, Texas that today continues to train 50 percent of the Navy & Marine Corps’ tactical jet pilots each year.
My 1964 midshipmen summer training program was run by the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy with one half of all midshipmen (those attending the U.S. Naval Academy and those on NROTC scholarships at 52 colleges/universities) taking fight training in Texas while the other half was experiencing Marine Corps training at Virginia Beach, VA. Mid-summer, both groups switched training locations via military air transport - like the Marine Corps, everything ran like clock work, smoothly and efficiently.
At Virginia Beach, I was running through obstacle courses; shooting a M14 rifle (which was being replaced by M16s) at the firing range; introduced to Marine Corps UDT (Underwater Demolition Team that in 1983 merged with the U.S. Navy Seals) lifting a heavy raft with a team of midshipmen, paddling out, flipping the raft over and back again and paddling back to shore; finally, boarding a Navy troop ship joining U.S. Marines from Camp Lejeune for an amphibious landing demonstration show before dignitaries and a large crowd, climbing over the ship’s rail and down nets into a landing craft, circling a long time until getting the order to assault the beach. At summer’s end, I retuned home to Hawaii 15 pounds lighter at 145 pounds, to which my parents exclaimed “What the heck happened to you?” I responded, “Oorah!” - the battle cry of the Marine Corps. When my mom heard that I decided to become a Navy jet pilot, she and I got into our only major disagreement ever. When she reacted, “Isn’t landing on an aircraft carrier extremely dangerous?” She didn’t like my answer, “Yes. It’s a controlled crash landing on s moving angled deck. Not everyone can qualify and become a military combat pilot that demands a lot of hard work, dedication and passion for flying. Someone has to step forward and do it.”
In 1966, I spent my last midshipman summer training aboard the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), a former WWII aircraft carrier overhauled with an angled deck and back then supporting the last Navy squadrons flying F-8 Crusaders - a single-seat, single-engine supersonic jet fighter.
Finally during my senior year in college, the Navy sent a mobile medical unit to my university to give the last physical exam for flight training school at NAS Pensacola, Florida. Shockingly, I flunked the 20-20 vision with no corrections standard. I asked the Hospital Corpsman to retest me and with permission from the examining physician I failed again. My Navy pilot goal ended suddenly, and I was not interested in becoming a Naval Flight Officer (NFO) who occupied the second seat of certain aircrafts and was the navigator, lookout, weapon operator and specialist in airborne weapons and sensor systems. Soon after, I made a collect long-distance call via a telephone operator to my mother in Hawaii, telling her, “ I just flunked my eye vision test.” Boy, was she happy and relieved!
Regards,
Ray
When I was in Pensacola, there was a running gag at NAMI about “the blind NFO program”.
When I took the group trip offered by an aviation museum near my home to Oshkosh, the guy who drove the C-47 was a career Navy P3 driver. As we were wandering around Oshkosh, we passed some T-34s, and Randy talked about his lust for one.
Steve