Not only what 48Willy said, lets not forget the inertia starters, hand crank, hand crank with an electric motor as the primary spinning it up plus the hand crank as backup. ( weight, tech, safety, effectiveness, etc. plus battery tech of the time, which were used on many trainers designed before 1940 or so… ) Back in the 60’s, those were very much still around and were taught in the A&P schools of the time. 
May as well mention cartridge starters, too.
I remember cartridge starters. 
Jimmy Stewart’s film Flight of the Phoenix. They only had two or three to start the planes engine. They had to waste one to clear sand out of the ports. They were down to the last cartridge. Either the engine started or they were permanently stranded in the desert.
Funny how much aviation details are included in movies. Sometimes they even get it right.
Why was it a crash landing as oppose to a more or less rough landing.
I know the engine failed and he had to do an emergency landing, but why a crash landing.
Did the landing gear dig into the soft ground or did he come in at a too steep angle or too fast and the gear collapsed or some other factor.
I saw some pictures that show a gouge in the ground behind the plane, we can see a little bit of it in the OP’s picture.
Anybody has any insight.
No, it should look like this. Ryan STs are prettier with inline engines and spatted undercarriage.
‘Crash landing’ is, IME, a phrase used by non-pilots. Pilots would say ‘emergency landing’ or ‘forced landing’. There are also ‘precautionary landings’. A precautionary landing may occur when the pilot thinks there might be something wrong, but it’s not an ‘emergency’. For example, I’m flying in a helicopter and the low-fuel annunciator lights up. I make a precautionary landing so that it doesn’t turn into an emergency landing. Or I get myself into a situation where an off-airport landing seems like a good idea. For example, I’m flying over an ice field in Alaska. Weather is closing in and it would be dangerous to continue. So I land on the ice to wait out the weather. An emergency landing would be like if I had an engine failure where I have no choice but to land.
I haven’t had time to analyse the crash, and we should wait for the NTSB report. I did hear that the aircraft may have hit a tree, but I have no verification. My best guess is that the aircraft hit uneven ground, overstressing the structure of the undercarriage and wing attach points.
I don’t know a thing about planes, but I can’t help but think Ford chose the absolute right place to crash his plane. A GOLF COURSE.
Golf courses are INFESTED with doctors. He couldn’t have done any better if he’d smacked into the staff lounge on the third floor of Mercy General…
The real reason we like golf courses isn’t for the doctor infestation. It’s because they’re open spaces in otherwise crowded cities. When I lived in L.A., a Cessna (I think it was a 210, but I don’t remember) made a forced landing in the golf course in Cheviot Hills.
I have to disagree with you slightly on that. There is such a thing as a responsible crash landing. That is, a pilot can make an extremely hard and aggressive landing that will destroy parts of the airframe but will still be survivable to both the pilot and and bystanders. Look at how close he came to the fence and the houses just beyond that. It is obvious that he forced it to the ground very aggessively and that bet paid off. It ripped off the landing gear immediately and the ground roll (or plowing) was very short. That would not have happened if he made a simple emergency landing on a real runway.
It is lucky that the golf course was there but it is still completely different from even a grass runway. The terrain on a golf course is uneven by design and very much unlike an actual airstrip - even primitive ones. He may have just gotten extremely lucky but it looks to me that he ditched the plane in the most responsible way possible given the circumstances. My opinion is that he landed extremely hard in a full stall ripping off the landing gear on purpose in order to get the very short ground stop necessary.
If he wasn’t in a full stall, the plane would have likely just bounced and flown into the fence and beyond as soon as the tires hit the ground. You can’t land a plane like that on a golf course with a sustained flare and rollout required for a proper landing. The space wasn’t there so it was a very impressive outcome all things considered.
First I’ve heard the phrase. While you are correct that pilots can and do/have done aggressive landings to minimise danger to people on the ground – or even just to avoid hitting a building or something – I’m going to stick with ‘forced landing’.
I too would like to hear or see what actually happened. When I saw the picture for the first time, I think **Johnny LA **had the first link I saw, but the point being that the first thing I thought was that was because a full stall from height or done on purpose.
Then I heard he was a good & responsible pilot so I started leaning towards it was done on purpose.
To crush the gear in a bad flop in a PT 22 is a big drop. They don’t fold up that easy. ( Can you say 'military trainer? I thought you could. )
Think of how hard you would have to work to get an Stearman to fold up like that.
Why rebuild it to flying condition? Just patch it together and make it a wall hanging for some bar or something.
“Come see Mel Gibson’s Broken Plane”
Um, to FLY it? Duh?
How much of the plane needs to be replaced before its no longer considered the Ryan ST3KR?
See post 7.
Until he sells it to Theseus.
The technical answer is all of it except for the data plate. You can rebuild an entire plane to specs around a known data plate and it is considered to be the same plane as it always was. That isn’t usually economical except in the case of very rare planes with a ready supply of parts on hand but it is perfectly legal as long as the work is done by qualified people and it passes inspection.
Since the maintenance manual did not require the jet to be inspected, I’m guessing it’s a part that never goes wrong – until it does. Either that, or maintaining carburettor jets was so routine that it didn’t bear mentioning. But with aircraft, even things that don’t bear mentioning are usually mentioned.
How much did this plane cost when new?
Unit cost when it was manufactured was $10,000.
I posted in March that there were two for sale, at €65,000 and $67,500.