P-51 Crashes !!

[Captain Crawfish]

remove the video its just too bad for anyone to watch. gimme a break

[Strychnine]

Just speculation, obviously, but ZYouL8R prob got it right.



From an P-51 air race incident in 1998

http://corduroyplanet.blogspot.com/2011/09/chilled.html

Button describes what happened to his airplane in Saturday's heat race. Apparently, the left elevator trim tab came off the airplane at speed, causing the bird to abruptly pitch up, subjecting driver Hannah to over 10 G's of deceleration forces, and causing him to lose conciousness! When he came to, the raceplane had climbed to over 9,000 feet of altitude. A shaken Hannah regained control and brought Voodoo in for a safe landing. Suspected structural damage kept the sleek raceplane out of Sunday's championship competition.



The raceplane missing the vital trim tab.

I do have one technical question....

In the article about the plane having an exotic cooling system and how they removed the lower scoop to gain less wind resistance....why on earth is the tail wheel extended in the dive pictures? To go to all that trouble and leave the tail wheel down seems weird.

Speculation is that high g-load knocked it loose... and led to the pilot losing consciousness.



Side note:

One of the most innovative use of resources that occurred almost immediately after the crash was the use of a nearby, restored, vintage Vietnam era Huey helicopter to transport patients to Pickett Park near Renown Regional Medical Center. On-site personnel pushed the Huey over to a fueling area on its attached skid wheels, had it fueled up and then placed multiple patients in for transport to the hospital facility. It was a novel and helpful asset deployment that most people did not realize occurred.

[bottlerocket]

I do have one technical question....

In the article about the plane having an exotic cooling system and how they removed the lower scoop to gain less wind resistance....why on earth is the tail wheel extended in the dive pictures? To go to all that trouble and leave the tail wheel down seems weird.

Not sure of the gear sequence of the P51, maybe initially he felt the problem and hit the gear lever incase he could recover the aircraft to the field? At that altitude everything is reflex and muscle memory. Might just be step one of the low level checklist and he followed it like any good pilot would.

[aggie97]

I do have one technical question....

In the article about the plane having an exotic cooling system and how they removed the lower scoop to gain less wind resistance....why on earth is the tail wheel extended in the dive pictures? To go to all that trouble and leave the tail wheel down seems weird.

[aggie97]

Amazing how these pictures have hit the net in less than 24 hours...more amazing is how people actually caught the cause. The picture with it about 75 feet before impact is scary.

[Strychnine]

Another close up vid: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/17/nev...ash/index.html







panorama of the aftermath: http://i.imgur.com/tUDYi.jpg

[Rustang]

They said he called a mayday before the crash, so I doubt health was the problem... one person said he heard a pop before that happened, I'm still guessing mechanical failure too. No matter what or how, terrible loss of life and a historical plane.
Almost looked like some of the crashes at our RC Pylon races, that thing scattered big time when it hit.

[bottlerocket]

tragic

[Sean88gt]

Can't get the above imbeds to load on the phone. Tragic accident

[roliath]

larger pic

http://www.rgj.com/article/20110916/EVENTS05/110916036/Plane-crashes-Reno-National-Championship-Air-Races

very scary

[DieselSmoke]

^Trim tab is missing.



Last time a spectator died at an airshow in the US was over 50 years ago. It definitely doesn't happen often.

And just a pet peeve, but angle of attack is the angle of the relative wind to the wing, so your usage is off. I think you're saying he impacted the ground at an almost vertical angle. If you watch the video, you'll see the plane violently pitches up, rolls, then almost does a split-s type manuever into the ground. I really hate to speculate on incidents like this, but looking at the picture and the video, it seems he might have lost his trim tab, resulting in a violent pitch up, which resulted in a lot of positive G, which possibly caused him to g-loc and pass out (which is why you don't see him in any of the pics). Just a very uneducated guess.

I'm not a pilot but aircraft mechanic, fighter and heavy, and that would be my guess. Trim tab not working properly is grounding issue.

Edit: but then a again who the hell knows. I went to CDDAR 'crash recover school' and hope i never have to use that training.

[onemeangixxer7502]

^Trim tab is missing.



Last time a spectator died at an airshow in the US was over 50 years ago. It definitely doesn't happen often.

And just a pet peeve, but angle of attack is the angle of the relative wind to the wing, so your usage is off. I think you're saying he impacted the ground at an almost vertical angle. If you watch the video, you'll see the plane violently pitches up, rolls, then almost does a split-s type manuever into the ground. I really hate to speculate on incidents like this, but looking at the picture and the video, it seems he might have lost his trim tab, resulting in a violent pitch up, which resulted in a lot of positive G, which possibly caused him to g-loc and pass out (which is why you don't see him in any of the pics). Just a very uneducated guess.

x2, its term in relation to the airfoil.I hated learning that crap. Relative wind,angle of attack, bernouli bla bla bla

[dumpycapri85]

Check this one out .

[dumpycapri85]

Is it strange that you can't see the pilot in the second pic ? I also see no control surface signs that he was trying to pull up . At his age its very possible it was a pilot heath issue .

[ZYouL8R]

^Trim tab is missing.

They are just so televised people think they happen more often then they do. Spectators being killed in an air show crash happens once every 30 years or so, very infrequent.

Looking at that video, that plane augured in, there was absolutely no chance he was attempting any sort of maneuver. It seems pretty evident it was either a mechanical problem (like strychnine mentioned) such as a stuck elevator/aileron, or the pilot suffered a heart attack or stroke. Unfortunately there isn't enough video from that last one to really explain what was happening. It seemed he his angle of attack was completely perpendicular to the race traffic.

Last time a spectator died at an airshow in the US was over 50 years ago. It definitely doesn't happen often.

And just a pet peeve, but angle of attack is the angle of the relative wind to the wing, so your usage is off. I think you're saying he impacted the ground at an almost vertical angle. If you watch the video, you'll see the plane violently pitches up, rolls, then almost does a split-s type manuever into the ground. I really hate to speculate on incidents like this, but looking at the picture and the video, it seems he might have lost his trim tab, resulting in a violent pitch up, which resulted in a lot of positive G, which possibly caused him to g-loc and pass out (which is why you don't see him in any of the pics). Just a very uneducated guess.