While the deaths were bad enough, many of the injuries were pretty horrendous from what I've heard from Fire/EMS workers present and from photos. An instant Mass Casualty event if there ever was one, akin to a bombing.
Reno race crash in front of grandstands
- Thread starter MikeD
- Start date
While the deaths were bad enough, many of the injuries were pretty horrendous from what I've heard from Fire/EMS workers present and from photos. An instant Mass Casualty event if there ever was one, akin to a bombing.
fholbert
Mod's - Please don't edit my posts!
What I'm really saying is 22G sounds high to me.
Tram
Well-Known Member
CONSPIRACY!!!!
darrenf
resident denizen
Not to mention you can't see any large pieces of plane (engine, empennage, etc), so it must have been a missile.
drunkenbeagle
Gang Member
I was just with another p-51 team in FL last month, good friends of the beagle's girlfriend. Didn't want to comment until we knew they were okay. What I've heard was not happy
WacoFan
Bigly
I'm with Frank - 22 g seems high to me for the airplane to still be intact. I'll defer to the experts Mike and Hacker - but that number seems out of whack. Wild guess but I think a stock P-51 weighs around 7,500lbs empty with around a 4,000lb useful load. I'm guessing that airplane probably raced at 8,500 or so pounds (wild ass guess - fuel, the unique radiator, but less 10 feet of wing) so 22g is around 187k lbs. What was done to lighten that airplane I wonder - the original guys in that owned it in the late 40's called North American for a list of stuff they could remove for weight - so I'm thinking a lighter machine might fail sooner (based on lightening changes)? The 22g number just seems out of whack to me - but again, that is just a hunch.
When talking an instantaneous "spike" of G-loading or G onset, not sustained Gs, that number is normally fairly high. In this case, 22 specifically may or may not be accurate depending on a number of factors which the structures personnel on the investigating team would be obviously looking into. I can't say either way, as stranger things have happened, depending on how the load is felt by the airframe, in which particular directions, against which particular parts, which have or don't have reinforcements, etc, etc, etc. Because Im not privy to the investigation facts, I don't count or discount anything at this stage of the game. All evidence has to be examined, crosschecked, etc.
WacoFan
Bigly
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for that info. I would wonder if the tab could have done that, or if something more major caused it and the tab ripped off as part of a larger failure? I know about Voodoo Chile but that just seems amazing that a tab coming of the stab could render the airplane completely uncontrolable.
Jesus Christ. That is about the single scariest piece of footage I've ever seen.
As in causing the pitch-up? Possibly. Anything is possible. If that tab was doing some hard work in keeping nose-down trim at the speeds he was running at, then departed the airframe, where would those now-untrimmed elevator loads be transferred to and what direction would they go?
WacoFan
Bigly
Yeah...probably a little different than a Cub. Just hard to get my brain around the kind of speeds and forces that are at work here. The ailerons were cut down significantly - wonder how extreme the stick forces in that machine were.
Extremely so.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
I've got no Class to speak of, so I won't suggest that it's Classless to somehow equate people asking questions about huge political events with (imaginary) people wearing tin helmets in a totally (*until now!) unrelated thread, but I do think it's sort of pointless.
R
Roger, Roger
Guest
Eh, I thought it was pretty funny.
Bandit_Driver
Gold Member
If the pilot wasn't expecting and sitting properly for a G load that high, isn't it possible he could have broken his neck too. I have a friend that flies F-16's and said one of the guys in his unit did a rapid pitch up at the end of the runway showing off for his family and severly damages his neck as he wasn't seated correclty for it.
On another note, I agree that the General Media does a piss poor job at reporting anything aviation releated. Their so called experts are normally the first idiot to call the station has a PPL or saw the cockpit once of an airliner.
My thoughts and prayers are with those killed and injured and emergency people that had to respond to this.
