Broomstick, Mach Tuck, thanks!
I meant it more as an example than as a mandate. As usual, with discussing airplanes it’s a choice between being short and succinct, but not 100% accurate, or writing a novel-legnth post citing [del]chapter and verse[/del] regulations.
One photo of The Galloping Ghost was taken right before it reached the apex of its climb. The elevator trim tabs appear normal and in place. A second later, 2/3 of the left tab is gone, with the remaining 1/3 at an extreme amount of up trim. My conclusion from this is that a trim tab failure was not the cause of the sudden climb. The high G-forces of the maneuver, from the apparent use of almost full up elevator control imput, caused the trim tab to fail.
Leeward went into the last two pylons wide and was in danger of going outside the deadline of the racecourse. I feel he pulled too much elevator to prevent this, which caused him to blackout. The aircraft was on its own after that.
I think it is foolish to eliminate wing area to gain more speed in a pylon racer. The Unlimiteds at Reno spend the majority of their flight time banked in a turn, where more wingspan (to a point) results is less overall drag.
I would disagree with that. The air races are designed so that the planes are traveling parallel to the audience by the time they reach the spectators.
Here’s a diagram of the unlimited course. You can see that shortly after turn 9 the planes are parallel to the flight line. The red line on the diagram shows where the people are, but the first third of it or so is aircraft parking, the pit for the race planes, and some tents. By the time you get to the grandstands, you’re parallel to the audience. That’s why I said in an earlier message that the plane must have barrel-rolled towards the grandstand to wind up crashing so close.
In addition, there are plenty of manoevers at regular air shows that can put the planes on a vector towards the audience. My home show team, the Canadian Snowbirds, like to fly right over the crowd from behind. Their ‘bomb burst’ routine could easily put a plane into the crowd. But more to the point, even if they’re flying parallel to the audience, a mechanical failure or a mid-air collision could easily send a plane out of control into the crowd.
For that matter, there have been a few ejections out of military planes at air shows, and once the pilot ejects the plane could go out of control into the crowd.
Last year a Tiger Moth crashed into a crowd at an airshow in Germany, injuring 38 and killing one. Two years earlier, also in Germany, a Zlin aircraft veered off the runway into the crowd, killing one person and injuring 10.
I think this was a fluke accident. There have been more than 20 crashes at Reno, and a lot of emergencies that required extreme skill to put the airplane safely on the runway, and this is the first time any spectators have been injured, let alone killed. There’s no doubt that it’s an extremely dangerous activity for the pilots, but I continue to believe that the spectators are rather safe - at least as safe as the spectators at any other air show.
But let’s face it - any event that mixes thousands of people with high speed aircraft has the potential for tragedy. That’s not a reason to stop doing it - it’s just a recognition of the facts. Life has risks, and if we keep legislating risk out of life we run a greater risk of destroying the soul of the culture.
With the caveat that we’re all just spitballing here…
It would seem to be quite a coincidence that he would bank hard, black out, AND his trim tab would fail. And given the fact that another P-51 suffered a trim tab failure and that failure caused the plane to go into a 10g pull-up, I don’t think we really need to have an alternate explanation for the rapid climb.
Now, if he was actually flying wide (cite for that? This is the first time I’ve heard that), it’s possible that he applied a heavy control input to pull himself back in line and that put the load on the trim tab that caused it to fail. The NTSB will hopefully be able to determine whether it was flutter or something else that caused the trim tab to fail.
Someone earlier asked if clipping the wings could have contributed to the crash. Well… To clip the wings that far, Leeward’s team also had to clip the ailerons, which would have left the airplane with less roll authority. One possibility is that the loss of the trim tab put a rolling force on the airplane, and the clipped ailerons no longer had enough authority to counteract the roll. That could explain why Voodoo Chile survived its trim tab failure while Galloping Ghost did not.
Looking at the video it appears that the crowd is still exposed to the turn even though the planes are on a straight away in front of the stands. They may move the turn further back and make the next turn closer to the stands.
If (as CharleeSM points out) Leeward was wide on the turn and tried to tighten it up then that could have been a lot of stress on the plane.
The problem with blacking out in a high G situation is that the throttle will stay where it’s left. It’ not like the gas peddle in a car.
You can damage any plane if you exceed it’s structural limits. Imagine applying 8G’s to a Piper Cub. You’d probably pull the wings off. Heck, all you need to do is point it down until it VNE is reaced (Velocity never to exceed).
So do I understand correctly that earlier reports from spectators stating the pilot appeared to make last second adjustments which prevented him from impacting a more central portion of the grandstands are quite possibly inaccurate? All indications from close-up photographs suggest he was unconscious just prior to impact?
Yes. I sort of doubted those reports from the get go. Aviation people tend to want to view pilots as good guys, even heroic, and I think they wanted to believe that the man in his last few seconds of life acted to save others… but it looks unlikely.
Thank you all for the very interesting commentary on this tragic accident. What a terrifying thing to have witnessed, Sam. I’m glad that you and yours are o.k. Did the other poster ever get contact with, IIRC, their brother-in-law who was at the Races?
I’ve always wanted to go to the Reno races; just was never able to make it out there. FWIW, I’m not as sanguine as you are about the Races ever restarting. I had thought the Races were controversial (In the general media: I have no problem with the Races, and would like to see them continue.) due to the cost, danger to the participants, running out of Merlin parts, that sort of thing. It seems that a few degrees difference in the roll would have resulted in the airplane going through all of the grandstands, like the horrific 1955 LeMans accident, only much more so. I cannot see an insurance company willingly accepting that kind of potential liability, no matter what disclaimers the spectators agree to beforehand.
As far as the witness accounts that the pilot was aiming away from the stands, I just took it as wishful thinking. A sudden 10+G pitchup, even if the pilot normally could take that G-load, may have been violent enough to bang his head and induce LOC.
Granted that this is all speculation until NTSB does their usual thorough, professional writeup of the accident, but isn’t there a great deal of torque from a P-51 prop going full out? Articles such asthis one suggest that rudder and aileron inputs are required to keep a P-51 headed straight in a connected turn. Even assuming that both elevator trim tabs were lost—loosing only one would seem to impart a roll moment all by itself—wouldn’t the torque, asymmetrical prop wind, and prop precessional effects all lead to a leftward roll? This left roll, when coupled with the extreme pitch-up moment from the tab less elevator, would seem to lead to Sam’s hypothesis of Galloping Ghost barrel-rolling into the crowd.
I don’t have much else to add after the commentary from the pilots in the forum. Thank you all again for reminding me why I read this forum.
Thanks, Broomstick. Completely understandable, and I’m sure given the ability that’s exactly what he would have done. If true though that he was indeed unconscious, it’s probably an important distinction to be made. My guess is that there will be discussions going forward about whether or not it’s necessary to make safety changes in how air races will be structured wrt crowd proximity. In those discussions, the difference between whether this pilot was able to mitigate the effects of a crash and if there was in fact no control over a 500 mph missle heading toward the grandstands would, I’d think, be appreciable.
ETA: Written before Gray Ghost’s comments, which sum things up nicely.
“Howie” Keefe is a retired race pilot who flew the P-51 Mustang “Miss America”
for many years at Reno.
"I doubt the loss of an elevator trim caused Jimmy to dive in. At those speeds, we usually have a slight nose down trim. What might have happened is that if the trim blew off and he suddenly started to climb at what I called the Devil's Corner** it distracted him enough that caused him to go wide on the turn and in trying to get back as to not over fly the deadline ahead, he pulled back too hard and went into a high speed stall that, as one witness said, looked like he went into an involuntary lomcevak ( a sommersault.) I had that going wide at Devil's corner and choose to go behind the stands once and be disqualified rather then risk a high speed stall trying a tight turn to get back before the deadline came up.
Cutting the deadline (a line down the center of the runway that starts where the stands start, not down where the pits start) that in all air shows the FAA says must be 2,000 feet away from the crowd line, can cost you not only being disqualified, but also the FAA may cancel your license. But going behind the stands is considered by the FAA as making a wise decision, but, naturally you have to be disqualified for leaving the race course in that particular race.
** I called it the Devil's Corner, because it is the only pylon turn on the race course where if you go wide, you have to immediately decide to make the Devil's Decision of going behind the stands or risk a high speed stall to get back before the deadline starts. What makes it a critical point is that the turn comes at the end of a straightaway where you are going your fastest--its easily a mile long and you are going "downhill" from about a 200' higher altitude that adds to your "flat & level" speed---really screaming. In my 11 years of Unlimited Air Racing at Reno, I must have come at that pylon over 500 times reminding myself to start my turn at least 3 seconds before getting there so as not to go too wide. Being distracted in those few seconds is critical. I recall one race where Bob Hoover, who flew the pace plane to start our races and after the start flew overhead to keep an eye out for any problems, uncharacteristically dropped down on the race course flying a normally speed. I came upon him about a half-mile short of Devil's Corner and called out for him to hold his course because I was going to pass and make a turn right in front of him. He immediately left the course and later apologized."
HowieWe just found out two close friends had seats in the boxes where the crash occurred. They went to Virginia City and didn’t get back until after the crash. If they’d stuck to their schedule, they’d be gone.
That seems like a horribly unsafe course layout. Turn 8 appears to be the most difficult turn, and the tangent line goes straight at the crowd. Putting the crowd on the long straight away before turn 7 seems to be far far safer.
The fact that the P-51 didn’t explode into a ball of flames saved many other lives and injuries. I think the lack of fire was due to the unique cooling system that The Galloping Ghost used, which required that it carry as much coolant as it did fuel. When it all came apart, the two may have mixed and prevented an explosion. The coolant may also have been the cause of the reports of the burning of the skin of spectators that were showered with a liquid.
The almost full up elevator that the P-51 had is still a mystery to me. The G-forces on Leeward forced his head down into the foward part of the cockpit (which is what happend to Bob Hannah in 1998). From this position, it’s hard to picture how his body could hold back pressure on the stick. The small portion of the left elevator trim tab that stayed attached was in an extreme up trim position, but I don’t think it would provide the force required to maintain the up elevator travel at that speed. Photos from previous flights also show that the left hand tab was the only one providing down trim. The right hand elevator tab is in a neutral position. Does anyone know if this is normal?
As I said up thread, quite some time ago, a fireball is NOT an automatic consequence of a small airplane crash. I don’t think a “unique cooling system” was a factor, as plenty of other small airplanes have crashed without burning. It’s a bit of a crapshoot from what I can tell.
Also, avgas can be irritating to human skin. After an unfortunate incident I had a splash pattern in bright red on one side of my face where I’d had some drop on me from overhead, lasted about a week. Also melted part of my eyeglass frames, most annoying. It’s not like getting it on your hands causes deep chemical burns and agony, but it’s not entirely benign, either.
I’d be interested to know what this special coolant was supposed to be. I’m not saying it couldn’t have been a problem, but until I know what it is I’m not assuming either way, especially since gasoline can also be an irritant.
No, it wasn’t normal. Probably because part of the trim tab system was clearly broken. The remains of the broken side might have simply stuck in that position for all we know, jammed somehow.
I’ve been told (I’m not a P-51 expert at all) that the flight controls on those airplanes had springs to give them a tendency to center BUT the one that crashed was heavily modified so even if that’s true of a stock P-51 who knows what was the case here?
While the speculation is typical after a crash this plane was so unique in its modifications that speculating is even more chancy than usual. I think we’ll just have to wait on the NTSB report for more information.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
The crash happened right in front of our seats, but we had decided to skip today’s trials and go tomorrow morning.
[/QUOTE]
I’m very glad you changed your plans, Sam.
“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
The loss of power may have caused the initial 1/4 roll to the right at the top of the climb. A new photo (I get these attached to e-mails so I don’t have a link) right before impact shows full left aileron deflection.
I don’t think I’d make it much past 4 g’s. I start to get tunnel vision at 3. Can’t imagine 11 g’s even wint a g-suit.
11 G’s?
Wow. And the plane stayed intact during that? (Somewhat)
I’m impressed.
Just curious of our current military pilots…what is the maximum G-force before blackout with current technology?