Bad Day, Lost A Friend

[Bill Greenwood]

Im sad to read on another site that we've lost Vlado Lenoch, long time EAA warbird pilot and a good friend.
And apparently with a passenger to double the tragedy.
I have known Vlado for perhaps 3 decades, I have flown with him in his P-51, MOONBEAM MCSWINE. and flown beside him in formations and many times flown airshows at Oshkosh and probably Sun N Fun when Vlado was the flight leader.
He usually did the briefing for our show flights at Osh and he was the speaker or moderator for the warbird forum.
He was very experienced in all things Mustang and Merlin, and a pilot who one could feel relaxed when flying next to.
He had a sense of humor also.

[mazdaP5]

Heard last night, very sorry to hear. Evenmore sorry for folks like you who knew him personally. it's a sad day for sure.

[Floatsflyer]

Bill, very sorry for the loss of your friend.

[avinuts]

6483

[Bill Greenwood]

, Yes Floats,He was a friend to all of EAA not just me or those who knew Vlado, and for those to whom warbirds or the heavy side of avaition are not your thing, I read the Vlado also was a homebuilder of a Pitts.
Mostly a nice guy, can still see his smile. He had sort of soft voice, I think he was of Indian heritage, not sure but I think he mentioned that once. He seemed like a bright and educated man and he was, grad degree at MIT, but seemed toughtful not dogmatic,wth good manners.

[Bill Greenwood]

I just finished watching the cockpit video with 51 pilot Alan Rockey., of Vlados act this year at Cleveland. Hard to accept his being gone. Alan said Vlado had flown their Mustang and he remarked how smooth he seemed to fly.

[John Cox]

I am at AirVenture now and the Loss Measurable.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[Bill Greenwood]

Is there anymore information on the cause of the accident? We have lost so many friends and seems a number of them have been from acro at low altitude in a P-51. Vlado was very accomplished and experienced, but all I have heard so far was about a severe impact.

[jstro]

No more information that I've seen. The Warbid Heritage Foundation is saying nothing about it until the NTSB concludes their investigation. All I can tell is that it went in hard.

[wallda]

Im sad to read on another site that we've lost Vlado Lenoch, long time EAA warbird pilot and a good friend.
And apparently with a passenger to double the tragedy.
I have known Vlado for perhaps 3 decades, I have flown with him in his P-51, MOONBEAM MCSWINE. and flown beside him in formations and many times flown airshows at Oshkosh and probably Sun N Fun when Vlado was the flight leader.
He usually did the briefing for our show flights at Osh and he was the speaker or moderator for the warbird forum.
He was very experienced in all things Mustang and Merlin, and a pilot who one could feel relaxed when flying next to.
He had a sense of humor also.

Bill, I will be honest, I didn't know Vlado personally and do feel that all aviation accidents are tragic. However, this one became personal a few days before AirVenture 2017. Last year I spent the better part of an evening in Warbirds taking photos of airplanes. Most of the pilots/crews had already tucked their aircraft away for the night and those who were still on the field were hurrying to get off to see their family's, friends, or dinner.

I stopped by one P-51 which still had a person working on closing it up. I didn't know it at the time, but this was Vlado. Even though I could tell he was in a rush, he stopped what he was doing and talked about the airplane and flying the P-51. I will be honest, when I got home from AV2016 I glanced at the photos, some of them were great, but life got busy and they sat on my computer. In the days leading up to AirVenture I went back to review the photos and burn a CD for the gentleman who went out of his way for me that evening. That is when I made the connection, the P-51 was Baby Duck and the gentleman was Vlade.

I am very sorry for the loss of Vlado.

Daniel

[rwanttaja]

Preliminary report out:

https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=20170716X62357&key=1

Ron Wanttaja