Tue, Apr 14, 2009
But He's Far From The Only One
When you're royalty, your every action is held up to public
scrutiny (at least, so we hear -- Ed.) As
we approach the one-year anniversary since Britain's Prince William
landed a military helicopter in his girlfriend's
backyard, now comes word the budding search-and-rescue
pilot also "overcooked" the engine on a fixed-wing training
aircraft last year.
The Daily Mail reports the incident happened during the Prince's
12-week training stint with the Royal Air Force, while shutting
down the single Garrett TPE331-12B turbine powering his Short
Tucano T1 trainer.
"He flicked the wrong switch on shutdown and overcooked the
turbo," recounted Joe Watt, the (now-retired) RAF engineering
officer who inspected the aircraft, to the paper. "I think he
switched it back on.
"The engine tries to start again when it is stopping," Watt
continued, before offering a measured reassurance to the Prince.
"He's not the only one. We've had two or three. Better pilots than
him have done it."
The incident reportedly resulted in the plane being grounded for
approximately a week... though Buckingham Palace denies any damage
was done to any plane while the future leader of the British empire
trained.
In addition to the Embraer-sourced Tucano, William also trained
on Grob 115E light aircraft and a Eurocopter AS350 Squirrel
helicopter. By the time he landed a helicopter in Kate Middleton's
backyard in April 2008, he'd graduated to flying Chinooks.
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