Thought the Aeroscale community would be interested in this story. Terrible accident occurs at Reno air races in Nevada, when a P-51 crashes into a crowd of spectators! Russell

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/16/plane-crashes-at-nevada-air-race/

Thats quite bad to say the least. I witnessed a Firefly crash at Duxford some years ago (killing both crew), thankfully away from the airfield and crowds. But this incident in Reno is a good demonstration of why the rules for any kind of air display here in the UK are very strict.

thanks
Mike

There's a good series of photos posted over at Hyperscale. It looks like the plane lost the trim tab and maybe some other structural damage on the tail. Pilot knew he was going down and tried to get it away from the crowd. As bad as it was, it could have been worse.

Yes a sad awful day, my thoughts go out to everyone involved, hurt or lost, their family and friends.

Thought I would post this here. Report from Fox News, about the tragic loss of life due to a P-51 crash at Reno. Some insight from another pilot included. He appears to have lost one of his trim tabs on his elevators. I don't know if that would cause him to loss control though, even at such high speeds. Russell

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1165472720001/deadly-plane-crash-at-air-show-in-reno

I suspect that the trim tab was merely a visible symptom of a much more serious malfunction. The accident review board will have to complete their investigation before it can be discussed intelligently. Any specultation before that would be both meaningless and counter-productive.

I think the "merely visible symptom" part is quite possible, and a very sound way of looking at it in any case...

Less well known at this (early) time is that the aircraft appeared to be smoking a little earlier in the race, whatever it may mean:

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/billingsgazette.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/9b/39b5462d-106d-534f-9fb1-4b5bddc864e1/4e7522fce75ed.image.jpg

From HS thread: http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/thread/1316298872/Galloping+Ghost+speculations.

Some of the speculation in that HS thread is clearly wrong: At high speeds, engine torque has little effect, and would be pulling to the LEFT in any case... And it would be an effect on roll mostly... At high speed, the flight assymetry is no longer engine torque related, and is reversed in direction from middle speeds onward: The high speed assymetry is caused instead by the increasingly violent spiralling airflow over the center wing portions and fuselage, this generated by the prop's blades and thus not the hub's torque, and this in the OPPOSITE direction to the engine torque, whose effect is diminishing with speed... Torque is a mechanical action/reaction effect, worsened in a throttle change, while the prop spiral is aerodynamic and speed-related in nature...

This can be seen in that, in most if not all right-hand turning propeller WWII single engine fighters (looking from behind), the faster roll rates at lower speeds are to the LEFT, but that reverses itself to the RIGHT above around 200-250 MPH. The differences are significant, especially at low speeds, but largely depend on the type for the amplitude: 10 to 30 degrees per second out of 60 to 90 in total usually... The Hellcat is a good example of that, in a roll rate chart I saw, as are the Gryphon-engined Spitfire Mk XIIs and XIVs, while the P-51D is known as a bit more symmetrical than most other US WWII fighter types in roll behaviour at higher speeds, as seen in the 1989 SETP test. It is however famously assymetrical at low speeds: Running it up to full power at 150 MPH will tilt it fully to the left, even with the ailerons fully deflected to the right!

I cannot count the number of times I have heard WWII, or Warbird, pilots confuse the two assymetrical effects, and thus speaking of "engine torque" at high speeds (250 MPH +)...

Gaston

I forgot to mention, in the above, that the high speed/low speed roll side preference effects described are of course reversed in the case of the opposite rotation of the Griffon-engined Spitfire Mk XII and XIV...

On those two, at low speed the faster roll rates are to the RIGHT, and, above 200-250 mph, the faster roll rates are to the LEFT, but in both cases quite low even then, as the Griffon-engined Spitfires had remarkably slow peak roll rates in wartime: About 50° per second at best on the Mk XII (similar to Mk IX), and as low as 40° per second on the Mk XIV, this being the BEST they could do in one roll rate chart... Their roll rate also peaked at a very low speed: 200 mph, so above 300 MPH the Mk XIV and XII were down to 20-30°...

Strangely enough, this might have been due in part to wartime aileron linkage or hinge construction, as post-war improvements show Spitfire Mk XIVs rolling at near 100° in air shows today, but pilot accounts of the day make it very clear that the wartime roll rate charts are correct in depicting a slow rolling ability during WWII (The Spitfire Mk V was much better at 70-80°, but still at a low 200 mph peak)...

Gaston