While I appreciate that it is more exciting to see the aircraft banking 60 or 70 degrees and it is quite difficult to get an idea of the scale from the diagram I would have thought it was crazy to fly aircraft at coming up on 500MPH in an arc that requires them to have control to keep them from going off the arc into the crowd.

In my mind, from hearing rules and guidelines, I would have thought that the only possible way to lay out a course would be with the long straight parallel to the crowd line and the last turn perhaps a mile or so before. That way the aircraft should be straightened out before entering the vicinity of the spectator zone.

An alternative, perhaps, would for the spectators to be within the race circuit, with usual distance clearance, then any fast aircraft going astray is far more likely to crash outside the perimeter. Some of the best views and pictures I have taken have been of aircraft flying an arc concave to the crowd line seen in almost plan view but some shows I have been to have been constrained by traditional air show mindset and a total lack of imagination on the part of the organisers. One in particular uses the longest runway as a dispersal and static show and sits the crowd on the North side of the runway in use. It is nearly impossible to get a good picture and on a clear day even to watch the aircraft comfortably because they are against the sun. Doesn't anyone think of these things?

Where we have been sitting in the stands for the last 12 years is perfect for watching the race. Moving the home stretch back much would take a lot of the effect away and putting the stands inside would obscure over 80% of the track so nobody would go. Yes, for a second, friday, we thought we were done but we won't go back if they try to make it 100% crowd safe and make the race boring. They might as well just close down the last air race in the world if that is the only solution.

If closing down the Reno air races is their solution then we had better close down Nascar too because people in the crowd get killed there too. Didn't somebody get killed with a baseball and a golf ball in the last 10 years too? We could make this world really safe if we outlawed all of these sports. Soccer will have to go. Remember the stands that collapsed. The list goes on.

Just some observations of the picture posted above by FoundationMetro (post 162) and particularly the trim tab and elevator position. The aircraft is in a left turn not disimilar to its last turn before the abrupt pitch up. The elevator appears to be in the slightly nose up position as would be expected to keep the nose up during the turn. But the trim tab looks to be in a nose down trim position suggesting that in high speed level flight (racing) nose down trim is required to maintain level flight and give the pilot a rest as he is always pulling in the turns. This means the tab is always in the high speed airflow and with the loss of the tab, an immediate pitch up could be the result due to the loss of nose down trim force.....not to mention a large change is static and dynamic balance of the elevators.

The other telling thing about this pic is the HORIZONTAL reflection of the ground in the spinner ! As mentioned previously, the reflections in the picture of the aircraft supposedly in a dive do not match up. The same photo was shown in one of the links to a news website but the photo was shown with the aircraft horizontal and it looked correct there. I think that pic might be genuine but turned through 90 degrees to make it more 'dramatic' !

Quote:

---

The other telling thing about this pic is the HORIZONTAL reflection of the ground in the spinner ! As mentioned previously, the reflections in the picture of the aircraft supposedly in a dive do not match up.

---

They do actually, the spinner is dark because its reflecting a dark surface, more commonly known as the ground. :rolleyes:

If you think the image has been rotated 90 degrees the sky on your planet must be a very peculiar color. At what point in the accident sequence was the aircraft straight and level at the same plane as the photographer to get a perfect side on shot?, and where was the photgrapher standing in relation to the aircraft at the time to get this perfect side on straight and level shot? You know, angles, distances etc etc. In your own time.:rolleyes:

Funny that none of the photoshop keyboard warriors has come up with a plausible explanation as to why a photographer with a world wide syndicated image of such a widely covered accident would risk his career in manipulating such an image. The only way a photographer or agency would 'manipulate' such an image is close cropping, you don't need to see blank sky, the close vertical crop works for this image and emphasises the 'story' being told by the image. i.e. the aeroplane is pointing at the ground ...

Hmmm lots of thoughts of a photographic nature on an aviation forum but not much opinion of an aviating nature...sure you belong here Jumpseater ?

Who said anything about photoshopping ? I said the photo looks like it has been turned through 90 for dramatic effect.....not neccessarily by the photographer.......plenty of unscrupulous news papers/stations to do that sort of thing.

Look again at all the photos on page 6, especially posts 104,111,& 120.

In my world the horizon runs from left to right or vica versa.....since when has it gone vertically ?

In post 111 with the 2 pics side by side , with the aircraft rolling on its back the reflection is along the a/c longitudinal axis as expected, with the a/c in a dive pointed at the ground.....the reflection of the horizon is still along the longitudinal axis....what Lost in Saigon says about the reflections is hard to dispute !

PS at what point did the a/c roll left because thats what the ailerons are demanding in that photo ( unless it is aileron upfloat that we are seeing ) !

reflection may be hangers, not planes
 

I'm sure the photograph is real: reputable photojournalist, underside of wing is well lit, top of tailwheel door is shadowed, etc.

As far as the reflection goes and Saigon's claim: bright spots in the spinner are probably hanger roofs at the airport. If you look at the google aerial view of the airport you'll see that right near where the plane came down there rectilinear hangers with bright white roofs against a black tarmac.

Google Maps

Can we please drop the conspiracy theories now? please!
-Rob

Quote:

---

Hmmm lots of thoughts of a photographic nature on an aviation forum but not much opinion of an aviating nature...sure you belong here Jumpseater ?

---

More knowledge than thought, well from some quarters that is...

Whether I belong here isn't for you to question, we'll leave that for the mods to decide, but if the board ever becomes professional aviation licence holder only to be a member, I'll still be here, will you?

Quote:

---

PS at what point did the a/c roll left

---

Just before it hit the ground actually, didn't you know? :rolleyes:

Sorry, I don't think you mentioned it, just remind me where was the photographer standing in relation to the aircraft? Angles, distances you know that sort of stuff ...

Preliminary Report
 

I was rather surprised to find that nobody had posted a link to the preliminary report from the NTSB, posted yesterday.

Nothing there that hasn't been discussed here already, but if it saves you the time of searching for it:

http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/Acciden...2011120000.pdf

This unhappy event is fresh in our minds now, but in decades, someone is going to pour over reports, and read:

Aircraft: NORTH AMERICAN/AERO CLASSICS P-51D, registration: N79111
Injuries: 11 Fatal,66 Serious.

and ask "What the heck?"

And perhaps:

"the airplane sustained substantial damage"

Is a bit of an understatement...

forgive me if this comes across as insensitive bearing in mind the tragic events, but a friend who saw the pictures asked me (as an aero eng. undergrad... like i'd know) why there was no explosion or fire in the crash. the more i thought about it, the more it puzzled me, as surely it would have been carrying enough fuel for the rest of the race plus the usual safety reserves. the only other time i have heard of such an explosion-less crash was ken wallis' wellington during the war, and that was because it had been run completely dry.

rip mr leeward and the spectators. may the awesome spectacle of the races continue to run in future years

This is an amazing read....
Ignomini Home

Some amazing footage....

Link to the best video of the accident. No impact footage.

Seen two double fatal crashes with steep descent resulting in no fire whatsoever. Firefly at Duxford, T.34 at Mildenhall. Seen some fiery ones too, unfortunately.....

You haven't heard much then.

patowalker,

I readily admit that compared to the minds on here, I am but a huge noob with much to learn about the world of aircraft and how they work. i was simply wondering what would prevent the presumably large amount of fuel from catching fire as in my limited experience it always usually finds a spark or hot piece of debris and catches alight. i would be grateful if someone could offer me an explanation, by PM if neccessary if not suitable for the thread, for me to further my knowledge of how such situations work.

Odd thing that time dilation stuff. I saw a Phantom crash at Coningsby back in '75 (XV 416 for the pedants) . I was out on an aircraft and looked up to see a 'toom doing a roller but trailing black smoke. The Speys didn't smoke unlike the J79 so that was unusual in itself. I kept my eye on it and the crew banged out, the a/c rolled slightly and crashed into the River Witham. I would say the whole episode lasted a couple of minutes until I was told by a mate in ATC that the whole incident had lasted about 10 seconds.

Also have you noticed that from the time you chop the throttle, do the flare and actually have tires on tarmac can seem quite a while but when you watch someone else do it from the ground it takes no time at all. Or maybe I just float down the runway for miles........

The eyewitness account was thoroughly chilling, glad the man only had minor injuries.

Mat777,the reason,or at least one of possibly several,there was no explosion is that the fuel tanks are filled with fire retarding foam,same as in most racing cars/racing bikes.According to some witnesses the foam,blue in this case was everywhere,thus no pooling or gushing effect,and rapid evaporation.
You can also get a fine foil which has the same retardent effect..Google ..`Explosafe`,..also `exmesh.co.uk ` made in Hartlepool..

sycamore,

you may be right, of course. However, Pete Law, the thermodynamicist who designed the Ghost's cooling system, is quoted in Air & Space magazine as saying that the anti-detonation injection (ADI) fluid (a 50/50 mixture of methanol and distilled water)
The Ghost carried 1 gallon of ADI fluid for every gallon of Avgas or 150 gallons of each on every flight. Link to the article:
Tragedy at Reno | Flight Today | Air & Space Magazine

Also, within the article, there is a link to another great piece on the Ghost's modifications in EAA Sport Aviation (haven't seen it posted here, so apologies if I missed it). There, Leeward was quoted as saying that
EAA Sport Aviation - May 2011

Your Video
 

Even though the resolution isn't super high, and the camera is a great distance from the plane, if I had to place a bet I would say pretty certainly this was tail flutter. If you look at the aircraft just before the even occurs, things like the exhaust stacks are reasonably sharp. After the even begins, virtually everything on the aircraft is more blurry.

Before the aircraft begins climbing, there is a short abbreviated roll left and right. It doesn't look like much here because of the distance; however, I suspect in the cockpit it was quite violent. If the flutter was related to the trim tab it could have become asymmetric (caused the elevators to become out of phase with each other with one moving up when the other one is moving down. At these speeds and with such a highly modified aircraft, who knows what that might have caused in the way of controllability problems.

If the pilot was seated as shown in the picture I posted earlier in the thread, I think he might have been out from the first roll left and right. Everything from there on was just physics and aerodynamics.

Video
 

It probably has no bearing on the accident, but what strikes me is that he lifts off A LOT further down the rwy than anyone else.

172driver,

from the EAA article:

Quote:
Nothing wrong with not knowing why the Ghost didn't explode, I don't know either, but to suggest that the last time there was an 'explosion-less crash' was 70 years ago is a bit OTT methinks. For recent examples search for "There was no fire" on the NTSB site. No use doing it on the AAIB site, because the search function is useless.

Again, only speculation, but perhaps the very high speed near-vertical impact into the hard surface means that the structure of the aircraft and the uncontained fuel is dispersed too rapidly and widely for any flame front to keep up.

"Again, only speculation, but perhaps the very high speed near-vertical impact into the hard surface means that the structure of the aircraft and the uncontained fuel is dispersed too rapidly and widely for any flame front to keep up."

Many years ago I read a story about the development of Napalm. They wanted to use an explosive to scatter it far from the impact site. But if they made the explosion too powerful, the speed at which it traveled simply exceeded the flame propagation rate and no fire occurred. I wonder if the crash conditions created conditions necessary to allow this type of to phenomena to occur?

Tailwheel down
 

Appears to be quite early on in the sequence. To my uneducated eye it looks as if it pops out well before maximum positive G. Perhaps some disintegration of mechanical structure in the tail section?

The tailwheel looked like a mechanical extension, not a broken mechanism, overcome by inertia. So is it possible that Leeward was configuring? His roll left at the beginning was controlled with right aileron, and the intitial climb seemed an input/climb. His later roll left (prior impact) mimicked a pylon hug, (there seemed to be some 'pull'); so had he started to regain consciousness?

Depending on the proximity of the high octane to the cooling Water/Methanol mix, the vaporisation rate may have blended the volatile fuel with water, creating a non explosive, non flammable (transient) mixture. High Octane Fuel burns more slowly than lower Octane, but I doubt that had too much to do with it. I guess about 40 gallons of fuel left, the size of an SUV fuel tank, so on its own, one would expect a fire, if only a brief (flash) one. Are we sure there was no 'brief' combustion?

Likely because of the shortened wingspan. Less wingspan = less lift = more airspeed required to take off = longer ground roll.

Based on what?

I would assume that these guys run on the absolute minimum of fuel required for the race plus landing plus a very minimal reserve - perhaps just five minutes worth of fuel. Not the standard +10% +alternate +one hour reserve that is taught during PPL VFR training. In that respect, 40 gallons sounds like a lot to me. But I have to admit I don't know the typical fuel flow of such a racer, and I don't know how far into the race this accident happened.

The Galloping Ghost specs quote 400 G.P.H at race power.

In that case 40 USG on board at the time of the crash indeed doesn't sound all that extreme.

What had to have caused the Reno crash...
 

Very good article from a veteran aviator about what caused the Reno crash.

http://aerobaticteams.net/news/what-...aft-crash.html

I calculated seven gpm at full chat. Airborne for ten minutes, one third of which is "less than full go". Forty gallons at this stage of the heat is about right, perhaps generous.

He doesn't need more runway, necessarily, he has plenty gitemup to reach rotate v in a hurry. A measured acceleration, wild ass torque, etc. no 'hurry' to get in the air. With that wing loading, below 200 knots, I think caution is indicated. This is NOT an 'aerobatic aircraft'. It is built for velocity, stop.

Jim Howe's article is a good one, but a couple comments. First, the "g" was not horizontal, pushing pilot/seat back, it was vertical, pushing pilot/seat down. There was no wild g on the seat's rails, fore/aft, but on the rails and floor of the cockpit, down. This stopped as he reached the apex of the climb, and the a/c rolled gently, right. I too think he may have suffered a broken neck, but not from interference with the dorsal frame of the cockpit. Unless he had seriously tight straps, his chest went forward, and down, onto his lap. The rotation of the initial climb would force his head to roll forward, to subject it to the full force of the ascent.

The first problem with this flight was not the climb, as Jim has written. The a/c was rolled just right to the left (exiting the turn), when it started to continue to roll left, and the wings were vertical. Jimmy stopped this roll with aileron, and the a/c started to roll out to level as it exited the turn. This then was followed by a sharp rotation to begin the g event.

I was not present at this race, so my call on the gee is subject to inaccuracy. I didn't see 10-12 gee. I saw perhaps 6-7, but less than gloc value for a healthy fit pilot.

Google 'GeeBee'. It makes the Ghost look tame.

In post 111, we see a photo of the Ghost on her back. Looking closely at the photo, we see a bowling ball sized object much lighter in color towards the front of the cockpit. Almost at the junction between the canopy and skin.
Now take a look at the photo in post 157 where he is sitting in the cockpit. There is open space almost up to the junction between the skin and canopy. Right where this round object appears in the prior photo.

I'm thinking that in the first photo that the object in the first photo is the poor man's head and he is out cold. His head is buried in the dash. People familiar with the configuration and his helmet colors will have better input. But in the first photo his seat back by the top is still clearly visible.

We were directly below the galloping ghost when it rolled inverted coming down at us. He had to be unconscious from the beginning. Nobody of any age can stay conscious with a 10G+ pull up. Voodoo had it happen a while back and the same thing happened with that trim tab failing.

A suggestion on the WIX site is that the aircraft may have encountered wake turbulence from the preceding aircraft, hence the initial increase in left bank to what appears to be 90 degrees or more.

Also from WIX, 9g would have been sufficient to bring the tailwheel out - did that happen when Voodoo's trim tab went?

I have to call BS on that broken seat article. The pictures in post #157 clearly show no room or open area behind the seat.
Besides that is where the custom designed cooling system was installed according to the EAA article.
For now I'll go with the black-out after pitch up presumeably because of a malfunction of the elevator trim. Something that has happenend twice before with similar aircraft during the same type of race.

Agreed. The author seems to imply that the violent pitch-up caused a massive g-force directed backward along the fuselage, which is clearly nonsense.
In such manoeuvre the g-force would be directed mostly downward, towards the floor of the aircraft, i.e. no sliding back. Instead, head slumping forward, especially if the seat belts were not fully taut.

This photo has been posted elsewhere. It seems to show buckling of the fuselage.

http://www.aafo.com/hangartalk/attac...8&d=1316247134

I think when he did the 10+G pull up when he passed out who knows what his arm and body did to the stick. We saw the whole thing overhead and it appeared no throttle or control movements were made, it just was a projectile not controlled by anybody. Even though it looked like it would hit our seats for a couple of seconds I think time slowed down in our brains and it was less than a second after reviewing the videos.