posted 09-16-2011 08:25 PM               

It wasn't immediately known if anyone died in the crash but a spokesman for the event called it a "mass casualty event." Video showed a chaotic scene with several people apparently badly wounded.

Stephanie Kruse, a spokeswoman for the Regional Emergency Medical Service Authority, said 25 people were critically injured and another 25 people were seriously injured in the crash. More than 25 more people were treated for minor injuries, she said.

Kruse said the critically injured were considered to have life-threatening injuries.

posted 09-16-2011 08:38 PM               

The plane crashed near the bleachers at the National Championship Air Races, said Michelle Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Reno Fire Department. The pilot was reported dead, as were four others.

posted 09-16-2011 09:36 PM               

According to Reno Mayor Bob Cashall in an interview with Anderson Cooper, casualty figures are not yet known.

Anyone know if Hoot Gibson was at Reno this year? He usually flies the Sea Fury Riff Raff but the airplane was sold.

I know he was considering flying the Jet class. I am not sure if he had another ride in the unlimited class.

posted 09-16-2011 10:59 PM               

The 2011 National Championship Air Races has been cancelled

At approximately 4:20 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 16, during Unlimited Class qualifying, the P-51 Mustang "Galloping Ghost," piloted by Jimmy Leeward, crashed into the box seat area in front of the main grandstand. It is a mass casualty situation and local emergency personnel are on the scene. All emergency protocol established by the Reno Air Racing Association and local emergency responders is being followed. At this time, we do not know the status of the pilot or any of the victims involved.

posted 09-17-2011 01:58 PM               

It appears Hoot Gibson had his own minor mishap as well. Since the sale of his previous ride Riff Raff, Hoot is now flying the highly modified Hawker Sea Fury named September Fury.

posted 09-17-2011 05:56 PM               

The deaths include seven people who died on the tarmac, including the 74-year-old pilot, and two others who died at hospitals, Reno Deputy Police Chief Dave Evans said.

The higher death toll was announced at a briefing a day after the Friday afternoon crash. Authorities previously said that three people had perished.

As of Saturday afternoon, 40 of the 69 people injured enough to be treated at hospitals had been discharged. The conditions of those still held: eight, critical; nine, serious; 10 fair; two good.

posted 09-17-2011 06:44 PM               

If not, can the tailwheel nominally be deployed without deploying the main gear in a P-51?

posted 09-17-2011 07:25 PM               

Mark Kelly was in Reno for the annual aviation event as a guest of the Breitling watch company. He was supposed to perform acrobatics in a plane as part of the Reno air races, which were cancelled following a fatal crash.

posted 09-18-2011 12:34 AM               

Also, the tailwheel should not have been deployed at the time of the crash. The fact it is deployed does suggest the plane may have undergone some severe G-loads to dislodge it from the retracted position.

posted 09-18-2011 04:19 AM               

It does look like a trim-tab problem, possibly caused by a high-speed stall resulting in very hi-g motion. The same thing happened to another P-51 some years ago but the pilot recovered from the blackout and landed safely.

Having been to Reno the race takes place along way from the crowd line and in fact the scariest thing was the Thunderbirds flying directly towards the crowd (presumably before pilots were banned from directing energy in this direction). This was tragic and probably unavoidable in terms of the outcome.

posted 09-18-2011 05:38 AM               

I meant to mention this earlier but couldn't figure out how to link to the picture in the album posted a few posts up.

posted 09-18-2011 10:43 AM               

I was the last person to fly a Grob aerobatic aircraft in the early 90's before an elevator departed killing both occupants. The NTSB found the elevator was not properly balanced and fluttered. When it departed, the aircraft violently pitched nose-down blacking out both pilots. They never recovered.

The race pilot was most likely belted in the cockpit such that he could not have slumped over far enough to be out of view. That photo seems suspicious.

posted 09-18-2011 08:06 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by mercsim:
Modern race aircraft are usually set up so the trim tab is neutral at race speed to minimize drag.

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My understanding is that the Mustang is flown with trim to keep the nose down at those speeds. Lose the trim and the plane will pitch up...which is exactly what happened to Bob Hannah in Voodoo Chile.

quote:

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Originally posted by mercsim:
The race pilot was most likely belted in the cockpit such that he could not have slumped over far enough to be out of view. That photo seems suspicious.

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I assume this is the photo you find suspicious. I don't find it suspicious at all, especially since another photo from a different photographer shows essentially the same thing...that being no visible helmet through the canopy and the tail gear in the down position. Both photos surfaced very quickly after the accident, so there was very little time to doctor the image and get all of the details correct.

Also, the same photographer had captured this image a couple seconds earlier, showing the lost left elevator trim tab. Another key thing to notice in this photo is that the pilot's helmet appears to be far forward in the cockpit. If his full body isn't slumped over, then at least his neck and head are slumped forward.

posted 09-18-2011 08:47 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by mercsim:
Believe a photo or go stand next to one of those airplanes and look in the cockpit. I said there isn't room to get completely out of view when properly belted.

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I have looked into the cockpits of many vintage WWII fighters. Yes, they are tight, but there is room. And with a modified racing plane, the canopy is even smaller than on a stock P-51. Even if the pilot is sitting fully upright in this racing plane, the only thing you'll see is his helmet. It doesn't take much forward head movement (especially under a 10g load) to make that helmet disappear from view.

quote:

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Originally posted by mercsim:
The photographer would seem to have been on the other side of the field shooting an airplane moving 500 mph or so.

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posted 09-19-2011 05:01 PM               

On previous race planes I have consulted on, the stab was re-trimmed to alleviate this. A consensus (of pilots and engineers witnessing the race) seems to be the trim tab fluttered as he passed through Rare Bear's wake.

Since the plane carried all the down trim in race conditions, it pitched violently up when the tab departed. The consensus was probably 10-20 G's.

Under that much loading, the seat belts will stretch causing the pilot to be out of view in the photos. Is was also discussed the pushrod to the tailwheel probably failed under the high G loading causing it to extend as seen in the photos.

posted 09-20-2011 08:51 AM               

I understand there has also been some behind the scenes discussion about the location of the box seats, which are set up in an area where in years past, NOBODY could go on the flightline unless they were part of the aircraft prep crew (just the stands behind the flight line as normal). So, if it were like it was before the box seats were added and the accident happened exactly like it did, Leeward would have been the only fatality.

Of course, I think in this case the plane was little more than an unguided missile anyway. Granted it did seem to end its roll and go wings level after a couple snap rolls, so perhaps he regained just enough consciousness to instinctively try to execute a pull up manuever, which kept the plane out of the grand stands themselves. But, by then it was too late to avoid the ground.

I've been thinking about this whole incident since saturday and been torn emotionally. On one side, I love tinkerers and pilots who build air racers. The little tweaks that pilots do to their planes and engines is one of the spirits of innovation I love. But on the other hand, nothing really innovative has been done in air racing since the ill-fated Rutan designed Pond Racer. The concept behind that one was a valid one, do something new so warbirds and engines don't have to end up destroyed in the quest for speed. But it ended up in the desert like so many other planes. Nobody else has dared to push the boundary like that since.

Looking at the rest of the field, it seems like nobody has really managed to build a better mousetrap air racer anymore as the designs that are good today are about the same ones that have been flying for almost two decades (Strega, Rare Bear, Dreadnaught, etc.). Indeed Galloping Ghost was first flown in the 1946 Cleveland Air Race (the one that Tex Johnson won in Cobra II). It has stayed a racer for many years, under different names and ownerships. Look at the planes today and they could probably compete almost dead even with their counterparts from three decades ago as the formula for success in an air race is exactly the same, brute power, reliability and a low drag airframe.

posted 09-20-2011 09:46 PM               

It will take awhile for the investigators to figure this one out, but fortunately there is some transmitted flight data from the team, and there may be more, including cockpit video, on data cards recovered from the wreckage. These have all been sent to Washington for analysis.

The photos are good evidence, but their sequence and timing are critical. Is the obvious damage to the trim tab the initiating event or was it caused by the high-speed dive following the pitch-up? On the possibility of the pilot taking evasive action...all of the photos I have seen so far appear to show the flight controls, particularly the elevator, neutral.

I believe that the one photo (post-separation) shows the remaining tab "buzzing" or at least in some kind of motion which causes it to be blurred in the photo. An unbalanced surface buzzing like that would likely render the surface unresponsive to any pilot input.

posted 09-21-2011 07:42 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ejectr:
Quite possible the seat slid back and he grabbed the stick as it slid back causing the abrupt nose up attitude and snap roll to the right.

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That's possible, but the photo of the plane in the inverted position shows Leeward's helmet far forward in the cockpit, up by the instrument panel.

When Bob Hannah lost his left elevator trim tab in 1998, he says he woke up from his blackout feeling a sandpaper-like substance with his hands. He discovered his hand were both touching the floorboards. He was unable to lift his head out of his lap until he managed to reach up and pulled the throttle back. By then, he was over 10,000 feet in altitude.

posted 09-21-2011 09:22 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by mercsim:
I said there isn't room to get completely out of view when properly belted. I don't think you can get completely out of view even when not belted. I have been all around and in those kinds of planes and there just isn't that much room.

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There's about as much room in that cockpit as there is in many modern jet fighters (yes, I have the experience to make a comparison). You're strapped in to feel almost like part of the airplane, but it's not really claustrophobic at all.

If we'd had a problem, the biggest worry I had would be for my camera bag getting in the way of the parachute as I jumped from the bird. That, and the canopy release lever was only with the pilot, so if he was knocked out, I would have a front row seat to a very ugly demise with nothing I could have done about it.