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Sirota
09-16-2011, 06:56 PM
Our thoughts and prayers for all those injured and killed at Reno. God Speed.

Dave & Carla

Tom Steber
09-16-2011, 07:04 PM
Just read elsewhere. It sounds really bad. Horrible situation.

Antique Tower
09-16-2011, 09:14 PM
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
09-16-2011, 09:47 PM
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
09-16-2011, 10:37 PM
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
09-17-2011, 05:04 AM
500

JIM BAUMANN
09-17-2011, 08:07 PM
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
09-17-2011, 10:16 PM
In 1998 a similar loss of trim tab on P51 "Voodoo Chile" is reported here: http://www.warbird.com/voodoo.html

wa6ilt
09-18-2011, 12:15 PM
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
09-18-2011, 09:43 PM
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.

John Owens
09-18-2011, 09:53 PM
There was a mention this evening that he had an in flight camera, and they might have recovered the memory card, if true this could be a help in determining what happened.

Dana
09-19-2011, 11:02 AM
There's a good report on the crash from someone who was there and witnessed it over on Homebuiltairplanescom:

http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/hangar-flying/11072-galloping-goast-crash-reno-2011-a.html#post109885

Zack Baughman
09-19-2011, 11:54 AM
This was posted on another forum I frequent, and I thought it appropriate to share here:

Flight is freedom in its purest form,
To dance with the clouds which follow a storm;
To roll and glide, to wheel and spin,
To feel the joy that swells within.

To leave the earth with its troubles and fly,
And know the warmth of a clear spring sky;
Then back to earth at the end of the day,
Released from the tensions which melted away.

Should my end come while I am in flight,
Whether brightest day or darkest night;
Spare me no pity and shrug off the pain,
Secure in the knowledge that I'd do it again.

For each of us is created to die,
And within me I know,
I was born to fly.

-- Gary Claude Stoker

George Herzog
09-22-2011, 09:23 PM
In 1998 a similar loss of trim tab on P51 "Voodoo Chile" is reported here: http://www.warbird.com/voodoo.html

A pilot unprepared for an onset of high G forces is particularly vulnerable to G-force loss of consciousness, and GLOC may explain the very clear left side photo of the diving aircraft (infield location of photographer) that appears to not show Leeward's head in the cockpit and may indicate that he had slumped forward.