Reno Crash

[Sirota]

Our thoughts and prayers for all those injured and killed at Reno. God Speed.

Dave & Carla

[Tom Steber]

Just read elsewhere. It sounds really bad. Horrible situation.

[Antique Tower]

I've spent quite a few years working for Vintage on the flightline at Oshkosh.

I just saw my nightmare on CNN - orange-vested volunteers attempting to help stricken spectators. God help those folks.

[Hal Bryan]

This is devastating for all of us, to say the very least.

We'll be updating this story as appropriate, just FYI:

http://www.eaa.org/news/2011/2011-09-16_reno.asp

[Bill Greenwood]

Jimmy was a friend. He has visited here and I have flown into Leeward Air Ranch many times.As I go to bed tonight I'll say a prayer for him and his wife and the two Sons I know and for all those others who were injured.

It looks from one of the photos that a trim tab may have come off on the elevator, only a preliminary observation.

[Antique Tower]

[JIM BAUMANN]

Jimmy Leeward was a Gentleman and a tremendous ambassador for the Warbird community as well as the Air Racing community as a whole. He Loved P-51's, and it didn't take but a minute or two with the man to feel the passion for them that he possessed. He will be missed by EAA and Aviation as a whole.

[Jim Clark]

In 1998 a similar loss of trim tab on P51 "Voodoo Chile" is reported here: http://www.warbird.com/voodoo.html

[wa6ilt]

A news story says that the airplane didn't have a "black box", but that reminded me that the recent EAA article about this aircraft made some mention that the aircraft sent telemetry to the pit crew. Hopefully those data may help resolve the questions about what happened.

[steveinindy]

A news story says that the airplane didn't have a "black box", but that reminded me that the recent EAA article about this aircraft made some mention that the aircraft sent telemetry to the pit crew. Hopefully those data may help resolve the questions about what happened.

The in-flight image of the trim tab separation honestly is probably going to be far more helpful. I wonder if it's not something to do with the repeated stresses on the tail causing a fatigue failure. These aircraft experience some hefty dynamic forces that the smaller components of the tail just might not be able to handle from a cumulative perspective. Hopefully they figure it out (regardless of whether my guess is correct or not) so we don't lose more planes and (more importantly) pilots.

Jimmy Leeward was a Gentleman and a tremendous ambassador for the Warbird community as well as the Air Racing community as a whole

I hope you don't mind me saying but that's the understatement of the year. He was one of the finest war bird guys out there from a "good person" perspective (I don't know anything about his racing stats) which is saying a lot given the caliber of people in that community.