Thread: Official: Reno air race crash 'mass casualty situation'

Originally Posted by gunnut

RIP

My friend's friend was at the show. Supposedly he was at the spot where the plane crashed. He walked away literally 3 minutes before the crash and avoided being hit.

I saw photos of the modified P-51. The wings were chopped off. The ventral cooling duct was not present. I don't know where and how the radiator gets air. The canopy was much smaller and connected to a raised dorsal ridge to smooth airflow (my guess).

Would these modifications make the plane very twitchy?

Yes, any time you decrease the size of the control surfaces you lose some control authority of the aircraft; the trade-off is that this usually makes the aircraft faster (which you obviously want to do for racing). Since they're only making left-hand turns for most of the race without a lot of maneuvering, this makes sense; but it does make the plane less responsive to control inputs.

Apparently, the cooling system was a "boil-off" system, which negates the use of a conventional radiator.

one unusual thing about this crash, no fireball. you almost never see plaine crash with no fire.

Originally Posted by omon

one unusual thing about this crash, no fireball. you almost never see plaine crash with no fire.

I was thinking the same thing; one of the victims got avgas all over his back while running away from the crash, but it wasn't burning. Since the aircraft impacted at such a high velocity, and the fact that debris was scattered all over the place, it probably would've effectively created a fuel-air bomb if it had ignited. Would reticulated foam fuel cells have prevented fire from breaking out?

Originally Posted by gunnut

RIP

My friend's friend was at the show. Supposedly he was at the spot where the plane crashed. He walked away literally 3 minutes before the crash and avoided being hit.

I saw photos of the modified P-51. The wings were chopped off. The ventral cooling duct was not present. I don't know where and how the radiator gets air. The canopy was much smaller and connected to a raised dorsal ridge to smooth airflow (my guess).

Would these modifications make the plane very twitchy?

Those are all VERY normal for this class of aircraft. This was not a race for standard warbirds...the news is reporting that this was a vintage P-51 but that's like saying Tony Stewart actually races a Chevy Impala. I'd be very surprised if 10% of this aircraft was original or even 20+ years old. It had been rebuilt multiple times, including a ground-up rebuild in the last decade.

But yes, the performance envelope for these things is miniscule. From what I'm reading elsewhere, the loss of the elevator trim tab at the kinds of speeds these guys hit (mid-400s) would've thrown the aircraft into a quick nose-up at high-g forces...more than enough to make a pilot black out. In fact, that exact thing has happened to a modified P-51 racer before. In that case, the pilot had enough altitude to regain consciousness...if Leeward passed out, he would've only had a few seconds to regain consciousness, realize where he was pointing, then figure out why he wouldn't have enough strength to overcome the elevator being caught in the airflow...and find a way to regain control. As much as I would like to think he made some kind of conscious effort to avoid the grandstands, it's looking more and more like sheer luck and Leeward was unconscious through the whole thing.

Originally Posted by Jimmy

Those are all VERY normal for this class of aircraft. This was not a race for standard warbirds...the news is reporting that this was a vintage P-51 but that's like saying Tony Stewart actually races a Chevy Impala. I'd be very surprised if 10% of this aircraft was original or even 20+ years old. It had been rebuilt multiple times, including a ground-up rebuild in the last decade.

But yes, the performance envelope for these things is miniscule. From what I'm reading elsewhere, the loss of the elevator trim tab at the kinds of speeds these guys hit (mid-400s) would've thrown the aircraft into a quick nose-up at high-g forces...more than enough to make a pilot black out. In fact, that exact thing has happened to a modified P-51 racer before. In that case, the pilot had enough altitude to regain consciousness...if Leeward passed out, he would've only had a few seconds to regain consciousness, realize where he was pointing, then figure out why he wouldn't have enough strength to overcome the elevator being caught in the airflow...and find a way to regain control. As much as I would like to think he made some kind of conscious effort to avoid the grandstands, it's looking more and more like sheer luck and Leeward was unconscious through the whole thing.

Jimmy's probably right; these so-called "vintage" WWII aircraft have been tweaked way beyond what they were originally designed for. As Jimmy said, it's not unusual for one of these 65-year old airframes to have been rebuilt from the ground up two or three times, sometimes AFTER a crash. The original ("vintage") P-51 had a 1500HP Rolls-Royce engine, which was a lot for 1943; but they are now routinely rebuilding these engines (the Merlin in particular) to put out double that (for those of you interested in the two or three people worldwide who can actually rebuild these things, AND MAKE THEM WORK, go here). Take that, add a pilot that knows what he's doing, but is also willing to take risks, and it doesn't take much to "leave the envelope", so to speak.

^ It was a terrible loss of life and I do hope he knew nothing about it. I would like to think his last moments was to steer the aircraft away from a worse disaster. Condolences to the families of those who died. Hopefully the injured recover to full health.

Originally Posted by Stitch

Jimmy's probably right; these so-called "vintage" WWII aircraft have been tweaked way beyond what they were originally designed for. As Jimmy said, it's not unusual for one of these 65-year old airframes to have been rebuilt from the ground up two or three times, sometimes AFTER a crash. The original ("vintage") P-51 had a 1500HP Rolls-Royce engine, which was a lot for 1943; but they are now routinely rebuilding these engines (the Merlin in particular) to put out double that (for those of you interested in the two or three people worldwide who can actually rebuild these things, AND MAKE THEM WORK, go here). Take that, add a pilot that knows what he's doing, but is also willing to take risks, and it doesn't take much to "leave the envelope", so to speak.

Thanks for the link.