Interesting comparison of this accident to one in Cleveland air race in 1949.


http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/09 ... ities.html

lc

P-51 Mustang: Right for Racing?

Posted: Sep 19, 2011 1:57 PM PDT Updated: Sep 19, 2011 2:16 PM PDT

John Potter

Channel 2 News

The P-51 Mustang had a dicey record at the Reno Air Races even before last Friday. One pilot was killed in 1994 when his P-51 crashed next to the runway. Then another in 1999, when one broke apart in the air, scattering debris and damaging a house.

When it comes to aviation, it's hard to top Jim Lockridge's 55-year flying experience and love of flying. He crop-dusted his way through college, flew air force fighters for 13 years and then commercial airliners for 29. Now in Reno, he's written for Aviation Safety Magazine, and is a big fan of the P-51 Mustang. "It's a beautiful airplane. It flies beautifully. Pilots love it. And we won a war with it."

The P-51 Mustang was designed as a fighter and used in World War 2. Some have called it the plane that destroyed the Nazi Luftwaffe. But its role at the Reno Air Races is different: flying at speeds surpassing 500 miles per hour, racing in what's called an "Indianapolis 500 in the sky."

Planes at the air races are modified. But with about a million dollars in prize money up for grabs, pilots could be pushing their planes beyond their limits to win. In Lockridge's view, "We have airplanes where everyone is trying to break a record every time they go out there, trying to fly it faster than its ever been flown before. As a result of that, you're getting past the design limitations."

Lockridge's theory of Friday's crash centers around a picture showing a piece falling of the wing of Jimmy Leeward's plane. Lockridge says "It's a separating trim tab from the back of the P-51. And this has happened before in other air races in other places." The elevator trim tab controls the plane's pitch. He says this would have caused the plane to pop vertically, as it did, enough to black out the pilot. "I suspect that he did not come to, to do anything about it."

Jim Lockridge still thinks the P-51 is a beautiful machine. But he'd rather see newer planes designed to take on today's races over the classics. "We've got these old antiques, these old airplanes, and they're absolutely wonderful relics. We're out there beating them up."

As for Jimmy Leeward's age of 74, Lockridge says it's irrelevant, even though the F.A.A. has a mandatory retirement age of 65 for commercial airline pilots. "He had absolutely no control over what happened, and age was definitely not a factor in my mind."

http://www.ktvn.com/story/15498721/p-51 ... for-racing

Good vid of "flutter" here:

Good article on the rescue efforts from Firehouse.

http://www.firehouse.com/stateprovince/ ... w-disaster

Officials and those in the tightly-knit air racing community credit not only a detailed plan for just such a crash, but the type of people at the event: pilots, veterans and others accustomed to dealing with a high-pressure situation.
Doctors, nurses and military veterans from the crowd volunteered their services to emergency crews, said Reno Fire Battalion Chief Tim Spencer, a 29-year veteran who has worked at the air races for 27 years. Those without medical skills helped firefighters transport the injured.
"It wasn't uncommon to see one firefighter and three people in civilian clothes carrying a litter to the proper area" for evacuation, Tim Spencer said. "Everybody pulled together perfectly and worked side by side."

I think they should be more careful who they call experts...oh wait, maybe I could get a job with FOX or NSNBC as an aviation expert. Wonder what they pay....

mr scout wrote:I didnt read all the posts but we had 4 of the T-6s there. The 51 guys run with so much down trim they are known for shredding trim tabs. Probably 12+gs when you loose one going that fast. Add a highly modified seat assembly in the mix with blacking out and you get a tragic result. Its such a great loss in so many ways.

Lets turn the page and move on.

Actually, it's more common to shred rudder trim tabs - especially the phenolic kind. When the tab goes bang, the elevator halves usually do too.

Look at Strega, Voodoo, or Dago back in the day - a combination of the correctly set elevator incidence and thrust line reduced the need for the trim tab to be sticking up in the airflow.

11 dead now.

The Registration is canceled on that Piper in the above video. Lists the reason as destroyed. Go figure...

Look in this video from a different angle. That is a TIGHT loop, even at a pretty slow speed. This must be in excess of 7-9 g's, probably more I would think.

Starts at :41
http://youtu.be/e60_W4tuTNI?t=41s

Whole thing:

DonC wrote:http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/20/photos-suggest-pilot-in-deadly-reno-air-crash-had-broken-seat-aviation-expert/

My limited experience with a 5 point harness in the Extra 300 tells me that it would be hard to slump onto the floor unconcious if it was tight but there's nothing to say that the pilot had it tight either. If he loosened up the shoulder harness to be able to look around better during the race, he could have slipped out of it in a 12g manuever. Or the seat could have broke during the abrupt climb. Mechanics aren't really experts in analyzing crashes, they fix things.

The pix show the tailwheel very obviously.

Does anyone know if the tailwheel was retractable in the GG, and if so, where is the lever or button or handle that deploys it, and why would it have been deployed just prior to the impact?


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=27.954712,-82.442369

WRITTEN BY A PERSON OF KNOWLEDGE. NOT ME!

Bob(z3skybolt)


What the hell just happened?!

What happened at the Reno National Championship Air Races last Friday was an absolute worst case, nightmare scenario-an aircraft into the crowd. Though there have been seventeen pilot fatalities over the years this was the first time in 48 years that the Reno Air Races has suffered any civilian casualties. Large aviation safety enhancements generally evolve after the fact. Im sure this will be one of those watershed events.

Based on the outstanding professional work of local photographers Tim and Brian OBrien who took crystal clear photos of the stricken aircraft moments before impact, the NTSB will soon be able to come up with the preliminary accident report. Unfortunately it appears that the events leading up to this accident are not unique. Investigators are focusing on the missing elevator trim tab clearly seen in Tims photos.

I witnessed this accident from a safe three miles away, on the other side of the race course. I spent the rest of the evening and next morning reviewing photos and questioning friends, professional pilots and colleagues who witnessed the crash and aftermath and were located as close as 30 feet from the impact area.

The accident aircraft was Race #177, tail number NX7911, named The Galloping Ghost a highly modified, experimental P-51D, and piloted by Jimmy Leewardthe 74 years old developer of the Leeward Air Ranch in Ocala Florida. Jimmy had been racing at Reno since 1972 and had yet to win an unlimited championship Gold Race. He was planning on retiring from air racing, but not without one more shot for the Gold win. Based on his hard charging performance during this last race, passing the Rare Bear (Race #77) on the 2nd or 3rd lap, and trying to close on the two lead aircraft Strega and Voodoo clocked unofficially at 490+ mph, you could tell he was serious.

I had the unique experience of crewing for Jimmy in the early 1980s as a ramp rat and aircraft polisher. Back then the plane was known as Jeannie and was all polished aluminum. This allowed me to gain a real inside, hands on view of the vicissitudes of Unlimited Air Racing. This experience also gave me the confidence to enter the races myself in the biplane class a few years later.

PREVIOUS RELATED EVENTS

In 1998 during the Saturday Gold Heat, Race #5, Voodoo another highly modified, experimental P-51D piloted by Bob Hurricane Hanna of Yamaha motocross fame suffered an inflight failure of the left elevator trim tab at approximately 450 mph. This resulted in an instantaneous, abrupt pitch up of the aircraft of over 10 Gs (10 times the force of gravity) temporarily knocking out Hanna in a classic case of G Induced Loss of Consciousness (G-LOC-lack of blood/oxygen to the brain). Hanna was able to regain consciousness at 9,000 feet and safely recover the aircraft. The owner promptly put the aircraft up for sale. Ironically it was this same aircraft, Voodoo, that Leeward was trying to catch in the number two position during his last race on Friday.

In 1999 another very highly modified, almost unrecognizable P-51D, Miss Ashley, piloted by Gary Levitz of Levitz furniture fame literally vaporized before our very eyes in midair after high speed flutter of the elevator caused the tail to fail and subsequent breakup of the airframe at full race speed.

Unfortunately it looks like Fridays disaster is shaping up to be a similar situation. Somewhere between the #8 pylon and the Home Pylon in front of the grandstands at approximately 490 mph Jimmy Leewards Galloping Ghost developed elevator flutter or elevator trim tab flutter, ripping off the left elevator trim tab. Flutter is the aerodynamic phenomenon of a movable control surface violently oscillating back and forth due to either a control surface imbalance, loose linkage, or excessive aerodynamic loads (speed).

I know, the elevator trim tab looks like a tiny part of the plane, how could it bring the plane down? As an airplane flies faster and faster, the wings develop more and more lift which tends to make the aircraft climb. In order to maintain level flight you need to hold more and more down elevator (forward stick). Soon this stick force builds up and needs to be relieved so you roll in some down elevator trim to relieve this force. Pilots always trim the airplane to keep the stick forces neutral. At racing speeds, the elevator trim is nearly maxed out in the nose down position to compensate for the huge amount of lift the wings are now generating, placing huge aerodynamic loads on the airframe. As soon as the trim tab departed the aircraft, the plane pitched up violently, so violently that the tailwheel extended and the pilot slumped over the controls, possibly G-LOCd (unconscious). With no further input from the pilot except for perhaps body weight on the stick the stricken aircraft continued to climb and roll to the right towards the grandstands until inverted (upside down). As the speed decayed, the nose pitched down, while continuing to roll to the right, descending almost vertically under full power to impact.

I have been debating about jumping in here. We had great seats, too great, comp from the Air Race old school Wayne Adams.
Turned out to be 50" from ground zero. Physically I am about 9.8, my wife 8, mentally I am close to 10 and my wife is still about 7. My impressions and the early thoughts from aktahoe1 based on his view of the whole incident seemed to coincide with what many if not most of you have said. I was content to follow your threads. I was sent over the edge and decided to register at BCP to vent my rage at a Reno Paper account and interview with an "expert private pilot". If I had not been seated 6 rows in front of where he said that he was, maybe I would have believed the story. Anyway by the time I was approved for membership I had cooled off.
All I feel like adding now is that I just got off the phone with a "trusted source" who said that the Ghost pit telemetry indicates a max G force of 11.5 and (no surprise) full power to impact.
Yes I will go to the Races again, no my wife will never again go. I hope there is a next time.

Chance

Happier times:

chance wrote:I have been debating about jumping in here. We had great seats, too great, comp from the Air Race old school Wayne Adams.
Turned out to be 50" from ground zero. Physically I am about 9.8, my wife 8, mentally I am close to 10 and my wife is still about 7. My impressions and the early thoughts from aktahoe1 based on his view of the whole incident seemed to coincide with what many if not most of you have said. I was content to follow your threads. I was sent over the edge and decided to register at BCP to vent my rage at a Reno Paper account and interview with an "expert private pilot". If I had not been seated 6 rows in front of where he said that he was, maybe I would have believed the story. Anyway by the time I was approved for membership I had cooled off.
All I feel like adding now is that I just got off the phone with a "trusted source" who said that the Ghost pit telemetry indicates a max G force of 11.5 and (no surprise) full power to impact.
Yes I will go to the Races again, no my wife will never again go. I hope there is a next time.

Chance

Welcome to BCP Chance. We're glad you and your wife are okay.

I read an email yesterday from a Delta pilots' account who was sitting in the general area you were and it sounded unreal and horrific. Glad you're still with us.

Got this via email today

From UA Ret. Capt Bud Granley air show air race pilot.

Regards,
Cort


From other reports of telemetry, there was a power interruption.
(quote)

Telemetry downloaded from Galloping Ghost revealed an 11g pullup, fuel flow
interrupted on the way up, and then the engine restarted when fuel flow
resumed at the top of the arc. The aircraft was making 105 inches of MP on
the way down.
Colleen Keller

Sport Class Race 8 Crew

--------------------------------------------------

If this statement is accurate, with the power back the airplane would now need left rudder trim. This didn't happen, so the airplane rolled to the right. When power returned on the top, the airplane quit rolling. Bud

I got the same report, different email.That's the way I saw it and that's the way Kevin described it over the whole flight incident.
Air and Space had a reporter there and this is the story as filed. www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/Tragedy-at-Reno.html
Those photos are glorious Sticknrudder. Early AM desert light and the Ghost. Rather remember it like that than how I saw it overhead but much closer at 4:30 PM.