Sorry if I sounded offensive. I was more replying to @Bullitt than to you.
(air-)Brakes aren’t really relevant. You avoid collisions by manuevering, not by slowing down.
WWII era fighters did not have what’re now called speedbrakes; movable panels to create drag ion demand. Instead the propellor makes a pretty good speed brake. Pull the throttle to idle and real quickly the prop is acting like a big flat plate of drag.
Absolutely, just consider the twin towers attacks and the amount of seasoned reporters and TV anchors who were barely able to comprehend what they seeing.
So you are saying this is inaccurate?
Same here. Not too many P-39s/P63s left in any condition, let alone flyable.
The NPR story confirms that there weren’t any paying passengers on the B-17 at the time, which is some comfort. Also, it has some insight from someone who’s flown in air shows:
And that is why I said that it almost looks intentional. Chill out, dude.
Can someone explain what is meant by, from @scabpicker ‘s NPR article, that the P-63 pilot went “belly up to the leader”?
So it wasn’t just an accident. It was a major fuckup.
I assume it means he approached it with the bottom of his plane facing the B-17, which is obviously a blind spot.
Sad. The crew of the B-17 had no idea what had happened. They had no chance. They probably didn’t even have time to ask “What the hell was that?” before they hit the ground.
Like the guys at Pearl Harbor who thought the Army Air Force was doing the most realistic drill ever.
This one flew home and landed:
But it was just slashed by the wing of a Bf 109 (?); the P-63 yesterday apparently flew directly into the B-17.
Here’s a detailed video analysis of what an expert thinks what went wrong:
A few thoughts. Air show participation is based on a grid of the airport and surrounding visual cues. Runways, taxiways, and control towers are major cues to follow… Looking at various video clips I’m going to go with an initial WAG that the B-17 was supposed to follow a runway while the fighters were supposed to follow a turn on a parallel taxiway. The P-63 turned to line up on the runway by mistake instead of the taxiway. if this was the case the pilot would be looking down to track the turn. It would be very easy for the convergence of the 2 planes was such that the B-17 tracked the P-63’s blind spot in the turn.
If there were 6 dead then 2 to 3 of them were extra riders on the B-17. I don’t know if a B-17 needs an engineer for flight so I’m not sure how many riders there were. It’s not much consolation but their untimely deaths were mercifully quick and painless.
For anybody thinking these are tin-can relics from WW-II that’s an understandable thought. but these planes have all gone through a VERY thorough rebuild. They are for the most part better maintained than most airplanes. They’re rebuilding a B-17 in my area and it’s almost comical how few parts are original. It would be more accurate to say they’re building a new B-17 from scratch based on drawings and templates made from the old one. This process takes years and years to complete.
The only original part you need is the data plate. 
In the '70s at DAG, a friend of my dad’s was a flight instructor who taught his daughter to fly. He sent her out on her first solo, in a Cessna 150. Meanwhile, a bush plane was coming in from Alaska. Apparently, it did not have a radio. The bush plane pilot did not see the Cessna in the pattern below him, and looked as if he was going to land on top of it. The girl panicked and pulled up to get out of the way. She stalled, but she recovered. Then she got into a secondary stall and crashed with fatal results. Sometimes a pilot doesn’t see the other aircraft. Sometimes the other aircraft is mistaken for the impacting aircraft’s own shadow.
I live under the approach to Falcon Field, home of the B17GF Sentimental Journey, as well as a flying C47, B25 and I believe at least one Mustang. I get a thrill seeing the B17 fly over. “Bombers at 12 O’clock High!” we call. We always wave.
I think not.
The structure of the airplane, the location of its wings, and the interior of its cockpit means the P-63 has a massive blind spot below the airplane and at least partial obscuring of the view ahead of it.
But I am not very conversant with the P-63. I have been inside a B-17, but not the cockpit so I don’t think I can contribute much on that point, either.
I suspect that was a mixture of shock and disbelief more than anything else. You don’t go to an airshow expecting to see a crash.
He approached the other plane from a direction and angle that put the B-17 into his blind spot so he could not see the airplane he was approaching. Airplanes have blindspots, just like your car does.
This video does a good job of showing the limited visibility from inside the P-63, and on suggesting one possible reason for the crash. It’s worth viewing at least those parts of the video.
Just started watching this. At about the 3:30 mark there’s a zoomed-in shot of the crash. It looks to me as if the P-63 hit the B-17 on the port side with its belly.
Maybe you should duck.
And wave.
Does a P-63 really have a worse blind spot than a P-51, or any other fighter of the era. The guy in the video says that the forward-mounted cannon and nose gear mechanism contribute to its long nose, and resulting blind spot, but is that any longer than having a big V-12 engine in front of the pilot?