New answers tagged accidents
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You need the plane to crashland, but not crash fully. So crippling not destroying the plane.
It is launching from Malta, but you want a land landing, not water landing? Thus a failure in the air, within 5 minutes of takeoff (better 2 minutes), as Malta is tiny and surrounded by much ocean.
Sabotage the coolant system
Just put a glass vial of nitric acid in ...
3
Maim but not kill, that's a fine line to walk
So, you're forcing him to land an unflyable plane. You need some sort of sabotage that takes effect before the plane reaches parachute height.
A bomb or mechanical control-wire cutter activated by raising the the landing gear perhaps.
the aileron wire however seems to be is quite far aft of the wheel bay and you'...
4
A cup of sugar in the fuel is a fairly traditional way to go, and was recommended by contemporary sabotage manuals.
As @Milwrdfan pointed out in comments though, "sabotage" covers a range of outcomes.
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Cross-rig the trim controls. So when trying to correct say, nose-down, the 'correction' has the opposite effect. Not a guaranteed fail but quite possibly cause a pilot to conclude the plane is uncontrollable and bail out.
(RAF bases on Malta were very pressurised both physically and psychologically. When writing, make sure there is nothing casual about ...
4
The hard part is circumventing the pre-flight checks.
You could locate the ammunition belt for the 4x 20mm Hispano cannons and cram in a dodgy round that will just plain explode when the firing mechanism hits that round.
The Hurricane would climb to intercept and once lined up would fire its cannons and start a fire as the false round explodes, detonating a ...
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Perhaps one could subtly trim, or add weight to a propeller blade in a way that wouldn't be easily seen by eye.
The original Hawker Hurricane propeller was made of wood (perhaps later ones were as well I don't know), and tools such as wood drills and fillers existed and were available to good quality.
So let's say you get access to the hanger, or a spare ...
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I would think probably the best way to sabotage an airplane to virtually guarantee the aircrew is killed if they cannot bail out would be to damage the control cables or bellcranks for elevator and elevator trim, causing a nose down trim condition with no means to effectively recover. This would be difficult to conceal, and once discovered, would quickly be ...
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You could also pour a cup of carborundum polishing grit into the induction air inlet. This will get sucked up into the engine and quickly ruin it. This trick was used by air racers in the 1930's to sabotage their competitors' airplanes.
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The Achilles heel, a good single-point-of-failure source that will be hard to detect until it's too late, of a plane like a Hurricane would be coolant system.
If I was going to sabotage a Hurricane in a way that forces it to return to base while enroute, and that is unlikely to be detected until it's on its way to combat, is to loosen a coolant line fitting, ...
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