Galloping Ghost P51 Mustang N79111,Crashes at Reno Air Races

Terrible terrible news.

Unbelievable.

Praying for all.

A terrible tragedy, and likely the end of the races.

Pictures of the crash of N79111 look to me to be faked I may be wrong but there doesn't appear to be a pilot and the tail wheel is down. CFL

I have not seen any faked photos.

There are various ideas as to why the tail wheel is down and the pit appears empty...all revolve around the G forces at work during the incident.

I initially wondered why the pilot wasn't shown through the canopy in the near vertical shot just before the crash. Closer look on my newspaper page suggests a centered faint line through the length of the canopy, suggesting possible editing out of the pilot took place in the photo. This could be done by centering a Trim function on the human image and collapsing it to a line, or less. Speed in getting the photo to the press deadline may have left a vestigial.

The aircraft's tail wheel down in the photo may be possibly explained by the very extensive mods done over the years to the Galloping Ghost. Removal of the tailwheel retraction/extension mechanism would lighten the aircraft, which had ten feet removed from the wingspan and ailerons greatly shortened, among many other mods. The decision to lighten the aircraft by removal of the retraction/extension mechanism would have been "weighed" against any computed increase in form drag of the aircraft.

The accident may have been caused by in-flight loss of the elevator trim tab, possibly visible in one of the photos. This is a current possible theory as to why control of the aircraft was lost, leading to the crash.

Here's a post from the Key forum that tries to explain this incident.... I do not believe the photo was tampered with to remove the pilot...

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1803173&postcount=149

Just to add a comment regards trim and the effects on the course:

The racers are all trimmed prior to entering the course with a large nose up trim bias, the idea being as they approach the race speeds they can relax the push, as the trim will be correct for the speeds, 400 plus, so one less item to think about, in what would be a pretty intense environment.

The in flight speed range of GG would be about 140 kts to 500+ kts, so it is acceptable to preset a high speed trim, while still accelerating, compensating for the required push until on the course.

in racing, as opposed to most normal flying, the combination of the angle of bank and the need to fly a line with increasing speed means you are using bottom, not top rudder in turns, and you are pushing the nose down in a turn with rudder, and when straight with trim, (elevator) this is opposite to normal input but required for the course.

The downside is exactly what has now probably happened twice, if the trim lets go at speed, the now untrimmed elevator will bias due speed to where it would go if the trim was not applied, full TE up, (nose up effect), and this then creates a situation of "see what wins", with the options being, Flutter, control system structural failure, high speed stall, or full deflection, with resultant effect,

in this case it appears the elevator was powerful enough and mounted securely enough to force a rapid change of angle of attack, with the following effect,

1: 10+ G immediate pull, pilot goes to sleep

2: Tailwheel uplock failed (main gear hangs in there, stronger uplocks)

3: deformation of the rear fuselage

4: rapid climb uncontrolled with a slight angle of bank still induced (he was still in a slight LH turn)

5: its a laminar flow wing, so it describes a parabolic arc, comes over the top, and due the still applied bank, comes down the other side, as lift once again increases, it starts to pull out of its dive, but not enough and hits at about a 75 degree down line.

6: He may well have woken up during this, as there would have been at most 3-4 G at the top of the arc, but by then he was probably well below the canopy rails, definately confused, and since he does not appear to come back up, maybe his seat had broken, which would mean he could not really get back up to see where he was.

I am not in any way playing NTSB here, this is merely my thoughts, and just commenting on the evidence, both written and video shown to date.

I have I never flown an unlimited on the course at Reno.

(However I have raced at Reno in the Biplane class, so I have a small insight into the various factors on the course)

This is mainly intended to expand on the trim issue a little, as some have asked.

Last edited by Moggy C; 20th September 2011 at 11. Reason: Small correction of typo for sense.