Reno Air Race Crash

I've done it a lot with small airplanes. Even hit my own wake. It's not much of a thing. I have also hit the wake of a slow, dirty, heavy jet and that was something I would prefer to never do again.

 

People have said they can feel Rare Bear go by because of the crazy spiral slipstream generated by its prop.

Wake turbulence in the classic sense is fairly small from a racer, but it still exists, and it cost Brad Morehouse his life when he flew behind another L-39 in the jet class in 2007 and wake turbulence rolled his aircraft into the ground. Additionally, wake turbulence is often thought to trail 'down' and aft but that's generally assuming a wings level attitude. When a racer is rolled up to 80 degrees of bank pulling around the pylons, the initial vector for wake turbulence is going to be to the outside of the turn, and since air racers must by rule, pass on the outside to ensure the passing aircraft always has visibility on the aircraft being passed, they put themselves right into the path of wake turbulence, especially when the pass is fairly close.

 

Tribute video from the Hanger Talk racing forum. Final flight of the Ghost. Puts a lump in your throat. Link is to the thread. Recommend the YouTube video link.

http://aafo.com/hangartalk/showthread.php?t=9356

 

To me that video raises more questions than it answers. It almost looks like Leeward tried to pull the last pylon really tight and the Ghost started to "snap" out from underneath him. Or was that the trim tab starting to go? Chicken vs. egg type of thing.

 

Thanks.. That was great....:up:

 

Did anything show up? All I can find is this.

 

The preliminary report will just state what happened, not so much of the why it happened.

 

Telemetry shows the initial g-loading spike was 22.7G which then settled to a pretty constant 11G all the way to impact. Nasty stuff.

 

Doug..........wouldn't 22.7 g's be fatal as in even if you wake up your not in any condition to fly a plane?

 

Not according to Mythbusters.

 

22 peak G's wouldn't be fatal. It's the sustained G's you have to worry about.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stapp

 

Short update today on AVweb.

 

Another update.

 

The NTSB has released some findings and some recommendations. You can read about it here.

 

Yep, was skimming through it the other day. Surprised me what they said about not testing the aircraft at race speeds before the race

 

Do you test your race bike at race speeds before every season?

 

Yes...

 

Going zero MPH is really easy...

 

Troubling findings.

A family friend was 50ft away from the point of impact, took a lot of shrapnel, got covered in fuel, and was concussed by the explosion. He's still unable to return to work (commercial airline pilot).

 

That stung a little. If I liked you it might have hurt more.

Waiting on parts again...waiting on parts.