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This is a good one, but I think the most impressive is the cornfield bomber.

The pilot ejected due to a flat spin (just like what happened in Top Gun, RIP Goose). Now a flat spin is a kind of spin and stall that tends to happen when the center of mass and center of lift are in the same place. This can make planes very unstable. So the pilot can't recover and ejects. But this changes the center of mass on the plane, and the plane recovers on its own, and eventually lands itself in a corn field.

The plane was eventually returned to service after repairs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber

Also fun fact: the F-104 Starfighter also had dart in the nick name here in Europe. It was called the lawn dart because so many of them crashed. This was due to the lesser pilot experience but also the change in role from interceptor to multirole fighter + ground support for which it was uniquely unsuited with its tiny wings. So low and slow was not a good role for it.
Actually, the F-104 aerodynamics were quite well-suited to the low-level strike mission. Small, highly-loaded wings reduce the effects of low-level turbulence. A dedicated low-level strike airframe like the TSR-2 has similarly tiny wings.

What led to the high crash rate for some operators (other operators had much lower losses) was the jump in aircraft complexity and performance combined with an inherently challenging and dangerous low-level strike mission.

Another fun fact about lawn darts:

>Starting in the late twentieth century, the safety of metal-tipped lawn darts was called into question in several countries. After thousands of injuries and at least three children's deaths were attributed to lawn darts, the sharp-pointed darts were banned for sale in the United States and Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts

I love this part: One of the other pilots on the mission was reported to have radioed Foust during his descent by parachute that "you'd better get back in it!"
I imagine that this pilot was heavily trolled after this incident!
Maybe, but perhaps they could counter that their piloting skills are so good they don't even have to be in a plane to land it.
Apparently he was told over the radio to “get back in” while still on parachute.
The 3 min documentary listed in wiki is excellent…1500 mph and 57k ft capable is mind-blowing in and of itself—not to mention flying sans pilot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noriLGVL7Qo

That’s pretty interesting. Would pumping fuel from wing to the other ever be a viable way to get out of a flat spin?
That level of silliness belongs in a Looney Tunes cartoon. Thank you for sharing!

Is this a common outcome of flat spins? That is, to return to a recoverable state after ejection? I’d think this would be exceedingly rare. And what’s the stability profile on this make of plane?

I don't think many of them at all ever recover themselves like that, after a certain point you just don't have the altitude to fix it all.
Surely it should have been called the 'cornfield interceptor'?
This makes perfect sense to me. The plane was an interceptor intercepting the ground, there's no bombers at all involved!
"In a million-to-one chance the brake failed to hold and although pilot Thrower grabbed a wing strut to check the plane he was quickly forced to jump clear, just avoiding the tail"

Parking brakes in light training aircraft of that vintage, if they were even equipped with one, were typically a hole drilled through a metal plate, that was placed on the actuator rod for the brake master cylinder, so that the metal plate would jam on the actuator rod and hold the brakes down when you pulled on a piece of string that was tied to the metal plate. They worked similar to the tab of metal to hold open the damper of a crappy old aluminum-framed screen door.

Parking brake failure in aircraft of that era is not a million-to-one scenario, it is the default operating condition. Go down to your local general aviation airfield and peek in the window at the parking brake knob on every Cessna 150 you see, I guarantee that many of them will be placarded INOP, and many of the un-placarded ones are also actually be INOP if you tried to use them.

Here's one for sale on eBay. $300 for that bit of junk! No wonder people leave them INOP.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/134695710339

Jeez, I reckon cars have a more substantial parking brake than that. Though I guess they probably weigh more, and deal with more direct torque…
One of the funniest things I've read in awhile — not least, that it took two young pilots from the British Royal Navy, on temporary duty with the Aussie navy under an exchange program, to shoot down the errant aircraft after failures to do so by Aussie navy and air force. I'm sure the RN didn't gloat about that one at all; oh, no, that'd never happen .... (Their attitude would likely have been a dismissive, "Of course — what'd you expect?")
Well, we lost a war against emus, so ...
Twice IIRC

Not that I’m counting or anything

Don’t mention the war.
It doesn't take all that much wind to cause modern light aircraft to take off on their own. The gusts in this video were 55 knots, but I've heard that some STOLs are susceptible to 20 knot winds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_WmjWAGkLI

There's a regional airport near me, which I drive past often, and the smaller planes are all tethered to their "parking spaces" (taut cables between the tips of the wings and mounting points on the ground). It always seemed a bit silly and I've had the thought "what, like they're going to run away?". It doesn't seem so silly anymore.
Ah there are pilots in those planes, I was wondering how they were doing so well.

The other plane with all the guys lying on the wing is amusing.

That is crazy, thanks for sharing. I wouldn't call a Piper Cub modern though.
One year later, the USAF fared an even worse against a runaway drone. It took two days to put out all of the fires caused by the rockets that missed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale

Wow, 208 rockets fired and all of them missed. That is way more than I would have thought. Also, I hope those pilots got some training, or maybe they quickly reevaluated the battle worthiness of those rockets. I imagine there are much harder targets to hit than an unmanned drone.
I was wondering why they didn't use cannons instead.

Turns out the D variant only had rockets, the cannons were removed.

Interesting insight into the thinking around interceptor tactics immediately post-war.

the engine failed 10 feet from the ground. Landing the plane in the middle of the strip he climbed out, swung the propellor by hand (there was no self-starter) and the engine immediately roared into life.

Early software developer?

Deformation professionelle probably but what this makes me think of is how easy it is for a vehicle to enter Accidental Full Self Driving mode, without having any specialised equipment. For cars, just put a brick on the gas pedal and point the car in the right direction, and in some situations the car will "drive itself" for a while; even a long while. For planes or boats it's probably easier to find circumstances where this can go on until they run out of fuel.

Once, in another life time, I owned an ancient Horex Regina II 400 cc., a 1953 model and it came with Full Self Driving. To activate it, I simply had to take my hands off the wheel and rest them on the tank. It would keep going straight on its own, without intervention. If the road turned, all I had to do was turn my hips a bit and it would follow along.

> The incident did not quickly subside here. Embarrassing questions were directed in Federal Parliament to. the Government of the day by both Mr C Chambers (Member for Adelaide) and Mr F Daly (Grayndler) during the Budget debate the following month. They asked why was so much money being spent on defence to an Air Force and Navy that took over two hours to shoot down an unarmed light aircraft?

...

> The harsh criticism against the Services was unfounded though and despite some initial bad luck the Navy and Air Force had performed creditably on a difficult and elusive “ENEMY”.

That was a suspiciously unconvincing conclusion. It made me check check the domain, and sure enough, "navyhistory.au". I wonder if it was even written by the same author.

Er... I mean, what were they supposed to do?! They couldn't just shoot it down and let it crash in an inhabited area, then they could have just as well done nothing and let it crash when it eventually ran out of fuel (less risk of fire). So they had to wait until it was in an area where it could crash without causing too much damage (over the sea) and shoot it down there.
I was surprised when I first took a flight lesson how easy it is to takeoff and go. You push the throttle all the way in and it takes off on its own. I believe there have been incidents of them flying themselves for hours after a pilot died or was incapacitated.

They are built to fly, so they do unless something interferes.

Once it was over the ocean there was no need to shoot it down. It had already been in the air for 3 hours and probably only had ~4 hours endurance. And it was heading further away from the city. It would have run out of fuel and ended up in the water soon anyway.
Unless a sea breeze pushes it back over land. Weather forecasting wasn't as detailed back then as it is now
For those unfamiliar Punchbowl to coast is well over 10km

At the time this would have been a city-wide event

No mention on how expensive that rental was for Thrower. Did he take out insurance on the plane, or was he personally responsible for covering the loss? Did any of the planes that came in for the assist send a bill for their time as well? Everyone seems to be focused on the plane itself, but I want to know about Thrower! That's the part missing to make this a good movie
> was he personally responsible for covering the loss? Did any of the planes that came in for the assist send a bill for their time as well?

I doubt it. People in 1955 had a different (and, IMHO, more balanced) outlook on things like this. Sometimes weird flukes happen. I imagine their default mindset was "Thank goodness no one was hurt" and not "who can we place the blame on and hold legally liable." The plane rental company probably had insurance which covered the loss of the plane and everyone moved on.

*Auster not Aster
> In a million-to-one chance the brake failed to hold

Much more likely: the pilot forgot to engage the brake

In case you missed it, at the bottom of the article, there is a link to a 10 minute documentary about the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ehAQVhOL3k The documentary is quite interesting too!
Man, I would've loved to see a video of something that wild. If it happened today, it would be all over social media.
The real question is, whatever happened to the Gatwick Airport Drone?
What happened to Mr Anthony Thrower
The landing is the hard part.
Oh, no: It's really easy. Doing it twice is the hard part.
Fly Navy!