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Reno Air Race Crash


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There's one question I haven't seen addressed here, or on any other media outlet, and that is

why didn't the fuel ignite upon impact?

I can never recall a high speed impact like that without a resulting fireball.

My uneducated guess is there wasn't much fuel to burn. Fuel adds weight so they probably race with the least amount of fuel as possible. I remember reading that some victims were treated for burns so there was a bit of fire.

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My uneducated guess is there wasn't much fuel to burn. Fuel adds weight so they probably race with the least amount of fuel as possible. I remember reading that some victims were treated for burns so there was a bit of fire.

I think the fuel burns the skin just by comming into contact with it, so there still may have been no ignition.

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Being on the 4th lap of a 6 lap event, there was still plenty enough fuel to ignite; a miraculous fluke, as a fireball would have claimed many more lives

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With Jimmy's position in the cockpit at the top of the roll, I'm guessing his face/throat/chest made contact with the control stick as well.

P51cu.jpg

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That pic you just posted also raises questions about the theory of the seat back breaking and him laying back. In that pic you can see the bulkhead at the rear of the canopy. I didn't think that was an open space as some had suggested.

You're right, the aft bulkhead wouldn't allow the seat/him to lay back.

132188_800.jpg

wed-SG-0158.jpg

Edited by oldHooker
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Talked to someone "in the know" with experience at reno. One wing is full of fuel, the other is water for the injection. The planes fly so fast that the wing lift always wants to pitch the nose up so they are trimmed to an extreme degree along with the pilot pushing on the stick to keep the nose down. Once that trim tab goes the plane will climb. so he goes inverted and the plane "climbs" but obviously inverted its a dive.

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The thing about the infamous broken seat speculation is it seems to give some thought that he might have been conscious. If he really pulled 11 gees instantaneous, he would have gone right to blackout and the result would have been the same, broken seat or not.

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I don't like to speculate but having read this over I thought I would comment

With Jimmy's position in the cockpit at the top of the roll, I'm guessing his face/throat/chest made contact with the control stick as well.

P51cu.jpg

The problem with this comment is that if he was slumped forward and pushing against the stick as stated, he would be pushing the stick forward and the nose the plane into negative Gs (into an inverted outside loop with down elevator not up elevator as seen.)

You're right, the aft bulkhead wouldn't allow the seat/him to lay back.

wed-SG-0158.jpg

I don't see that in this photo. The "bulk head is only at head height. It's clearly open space behind the seat. Look at this photo and the area around this person's right shoulder. Its black open space. I think it's completely plausible that when the trim tab broke the plane violently pitched up breaking his seat with excessive G loading throwing him backward. It appears the plane had up elevator being applied through out the whole accident which would go against the theory of him being slumped forward and give some merit that he was throw back ward pulling the stick (up elevator)

Anyway pure speculation not meant to be argumentative what so ever

Cheers

Edited by ron
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A few years ago, Bob Hannah was flying Voodoo (at that time it was called Voodoo Chile), he was in the Valley of Speed (the back side of the course) when he lost the trim tab. He shot up pulling 9-10g's just like Leeward did this time. Hannah blacked out from the G's and didn't come too until the aircraft had topped out, and later stated he had black rubber from the hand grip on the front of his helmet, apparently where his head went into his lap when the aircraft shot up abruptly.

Think of it like this; if you were in your car going 400+mph and suddenly encountered a 30 or 40 degree embankment HEAD ON, would you be thrown back, or forward?

Also, due to the tremendous aerodynamic preasure, his/a body will not be enough to force the stick forward... if his upper torso went into his lap it went down on top the stick, injuring himself and affectively holding the stick in place. Hannah's helmet bounced off the stick and as he went vertical the speed bled off/aerdynamic preasure eased.

Lots and lots of speculation.... it's just like car accidents; sometimes you can't even tell it was an automobile and the driver walks away... sometimes it's relatively minor and it's fatal. It's likely no one will ever know all the factors that weighed into such a tragedy.

Edited by oldHooker
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Will the actual report ever be made public or will we always have to speculate? I know it will take months probably but just curious.

Don't know.... there's going to be (and probably already are) a deluge of wrongful death and personal injury suits come out of all this, and the lawyers are going to be blood hungry for someone to blame. I doubt the public will ever know more than the sanitized "media" release version of what caused it.

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I'm surprised there's not a disclaimer on the tickets for the event though. They have to know this is a dangerous event and something like this could happen at any moment. I would bet nothing will come of any lawsuits.

Anyone have a ticket stub from the event?

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Interesting that that video show at the very start of the incident, the wings bobble a bit and the aircraft starts to make steepen it's turn before presumably Jimmy corrected it and then the pitch up.

NTSB released an initial finding last Friday, but was nothing more than what we've all been speculating that the trim tab caused a sever G pitch up and the inevitable result. Also stated was that it would take probably about a year to complete the investigation, at which time the fate of the Reno Air Races would/ could be decided.

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The thing about a trim tab is if it breaks, it doesn't have to come completely off to cause problems as the aircraft now no longer has a control surface to put counterforce on the elevator as the thing is now essentially weathervaning in a vertical plane relative to the rest of the aircraft. So it likely started to break in the turn, broke fully when it went back to level flight, caused the pitchup and then possibly came off as it was fluttering in turbulent airflow (or critical damage was done to the hinge point either as part of the initial failure or collateral damage).

The dropping of the tail wheel makes me wonder if the high instantaneous gee forces caused it to drop. Granted I don't know how the P-51's tail wheel is controlled or if racing planes have this system modified (doubtful they would be as the stock tail wheel works fine for any P-51, so modification would likely be a waste).

Edited by Jay Chladek
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Granted I don't know how the P-51's tail wheel is controlled or if racing planes have this system modified (doubtful they would be as the stock tail wheel works fine for any P-51, so modification would likely be a waste).

I imagine it's definitely possible that the system is modified simply to save weight. Every oz. counts. But, that's just my guess.

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Looking at the new videos, Have y'all noticed that the plane is doing 75° Banking turns?? That's around 3-4 sustained G's on the turn itself... I have no clue what the Manouvering speed on this thing is, but I'm pretty certain he was over it, since this is racing after all...

Anyways, with the bobbling right before the pitch up, at those G's, Its like driving 120 mph on the highway and suddenly yank the wheel to a side. You'll flip, probably. In this case, The bobbling at those G's would definetly cause some damage. Now, the question is: Did the trim tab caused the bobbling or the bobbling caused the trimtab to fail??

Either way, I'm pretty certain that there was structural damage right after the bobbling...

we can only wait for the report.

Take Care

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