Reno P51
 

Just saw on the news a picture of the P51 in question. It shows part of the trim tab broken off and holding on by a thread at a right angle to the elevator.

It has me wondering if trim tabs would, if they detached, cause an uncontrollable aircraft? At some of the speeds the Reno birds do I wouldn't be suprised if the forces acting on the surfaces to be almost beyond a pilots strength in such an emergency.

Rocket

Correct me if I'm wrong as I know nothing about P51's but apparently this kind of accident had happened before. The trim tab comes off and pitches the aircraft up into an extremely high G maneuver. This is obviously not expected by the pilot and he blacks out and slumps down (apparently why you can't see the pilot in the crash video).

Apparently the thing clocked around 500mph in qualifying so it would all happen pretty quickly.

In an eerie twist of fate, an Australian was apparently asked to fly the thing at Reno but then the owner decided to fly it himself.

I do wonder about the structural state of these machines operating on the limit. Sure they are built maintained and operated very carefully, but are there constant engineering evaluations done on things like flutter.

I can only guess that is the cause of trim tab failure and at 500 knots :eek:.......Too much to contemplate an out of trim elevator.

Very sad for all involved directly and indirectly. Will this go the way of the Red Bull?

Ahh. Ever heard of photoshop! No Pilot. No main undercarriage, but the tailwheel is there.

They've just used a previous photo of the aircraft, doctored it, and pasted it with the aircraft vertical, claiming it is seconds from impact.

Maximum sensationalism! :=

I hope that's a wind up, you can't be serious.

Well, the P51 DOES have a retractable tail-wheel, so why is it extended in the picture?

WHY:
 

A very good question indeed:

Is it my imagination in looking at one of the photos to see what appears to be a "smoke" haze about the fuselage and rear gear area?

Secondly, when doing aeros, I was taught to wind in a bit of nose up trim, just so as you had to push positive on the stick, and if you blacked out in a high G, then the A?C should recover with a decreased G load while you recover.

Now if this happened as in the photo, almost inverted: and at such speed!

Food for thought maybe?

The aircraft appeared to fly a controlled manoeuvre that culiminated in a near vertical dive into the ground. I can't think of any malfunction that could cause the relevant control inputs. Could the whole thing have been deliberate?

The tailwheel pops out due to the high G load. Looking at another forum on Pprune a similar incident occurred a few years ago when another P51 lost it's trim tab. The pitch up was around 10G and the pilot got jammed between the control stick and the sidewall of the cockpit. Only difference between this incident and the accident is that this aircraft continued straight up to around 10,000ft where the pilot was able to release himself from the jam he was in and land the aircraft.

The smoke is steam from the modified cooling system in the aircraft. They are speculating that due to the large amount of coolant carried onboard it may have inhibited impact fire.

There are plenty of other pictures now from different angles showing the trim tab departing.

At those kinds of speeds, lack of trim would see the nose pitch up quite violently, right?

High-G knocked the pilot out, aircraft kept rolling as it was already in a turn.

Q: what happens if you roll and keep pulling?
A: The same thing that happens on many a pilot's first barrel roll: the nose ends up pointing straight down.

It makes sense to me. Lets see what the smart folks at the NTSB come up with.

Click on the "Flutter" video on this PPRune link.

http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/4640...ting-test.html

It may alter your idea of something as seemingly benign to be called that name.

As was stated in an earlier post, it seems (unconfirmed), that these guys trim slightly nose up for safety at the low level.Can anyone confirm this?

From reading other threads on this, apparently the thing to do if there is an issue is to exit the race vertically, and quickly, but surely if you are to do this at such speed, a blackout would be nearly instant if it wasn't carefully managed??

Im amazed that people are shocked when stuff goes wrong in situations like this.Their doing ridiculous speeds at LL in highly modified aircraft.Its bound to go to sh1t every now and again.

400 kts 100' altitude and you reckon you'd want to fly it out of trim?
Dunno, but me I think I'd rather concentrate on other things.

Never raced low level, but I would think that you'd trim nose up then when close to the ground so you need to push forward to fly level. Then if you accidentally gray out during a turn, the a/c will climb to safety.

and if you don't wake up quick enough, will finish you off at the end of the subsequent loop!

From Avweb AVwebFlash Complete Issue

Crash investigators have recovered memory cards that might have come from an on-board camera on Jimmy Leeward's P-51 that crashed at the National Championship Air Races in Reno last Friday. There was also a flight systems telemetry set-up on board that transmitted information on the aircraft's health and performance to his ground crew, according to an Associated Press story. Investigators have now confirmed their probe will focus in part on the aircraft's tail structure and the possibility that a failure of the left horizontal stabilizer trim tab was a contributing factor in the crash, which killed nine people, including Leeward and eight spectators. More than 60 people on the ground were injured and about a dozen remain in the hospital, some in critical condition. The near-vertical impact of the fighter left a crater in the concrete three feet deep and eight feet across and spread debris over almost two acres. More photos and videos have surfaced since the crash and while the primary focus has been on missing tail parts, there are a couple of other anomalies in the photos.

There was an incident during the 1998 Reno Air Races in which a trim tab came off a P-51 named Voodoo Chile. In that incident, the aircraft pitched violently up, causing pilot Bob Hannah to black out under a G load estimated at 10 Gs. He regained consciousness at 9,000 feet and was able to land safely.

In various images of the final milliseconds of the flight, Leeward can't be seen in the cockpit. Also, the retractable tailwheel is fully deployed during the crash sequence and it's not clear when that occurred or what effect it might have had. Officials are also casting doubt on earlier reports that Leeward made a single Mayday call before the crash. They told reporters there is no evidence of such a call. Two of the spectators killed in the accident have been identified. They are Greg Morcom, 47, of Washington State and Michael Wogan, 22, of Scottsdale, Ariz., a muscular dystrophy sufferer who was in a wheelchair.

I was told that some P51s had a fixed tail wheel...over to P51 experts

Not that one

Actually to call The Galloping Ghost a P51 is a far stretch. Check the May edition of EAA Sport Aviation magazine. BTW it had a retractable tailwheel.

I can't say I've ever heard or seen a P51 with a fixed tailwheel although other than D models could have.

As was said on another post, the only original part on these racing aircraft now days is the data plate.