[White Owl]

Suppose I'll add my own two cents here, since I've been hanging around subsim recently.

In real life I'm a certificated Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic, and also a Commercial Pilot. I know as much about airplanes as some around here know about submarines. I've been to the Reno air races twice, and greatly enjoyed the show.

I've seen the photos and the videos. This crash happened because of the mechanical failure of one small part. The pilot had no influence over the outcome, good or bad. Leeward was neither to blame, nor was he a hero. The aircraft age and modifications to the airframe may or may not have contributed to the crash; honestly it'll be impossible to say without studying the elevator trim tab they recovered and examining all the maintenance records.

As an airplane increases in speed it has a tendency to pitch upward. The downward force on the horizontal stabilizer increases faster than the upward force on the wings, so the plane wants to point the tail at the ground and the nose at the sky. To counteract this effect and maintain level flight as airspeed changes the pilot changes the pitch of the elevator, exactly like the tail planes on a sub. The pilot can constantly push forward on the control stick, but that gets tiring very quickly, and it's difficult to maintain exactly the correct pressure over time. So elevators (and other flight controls) commonly are built with trim tabs to maintain that constant push. Trim tabs are small movable control surfaces built into the trailing edge of a larger control surface. The pilot manually sets an elevator trim control in the cockpit, and the tab rotates up or down just a few degrees. If the tab rotates up into the airstream, it exerts a downward force on the entire elevator, so the elevator rotates downward and the airplane pitches down. If the tab rotates down, it exerts an upward force (or actually a decreased downward force) on the elevator, the elevator rotates upward and the airplane pitches up.

The faster the airplane goes, the more sensitive all the controls become. Especially the elevator and elevator trim. Before I started flying I had no idea how very sensitive an airplane is to small changes in the pitch controls. In a little underpowered training plane putting along at just 100 mph or less, if you turn the elevator trim wheel the wrong direction for a second, it can take a noticeable amount of muscle to hold the nose at the correct angle. By contrast, aileron and rudder controls are nowhere even close to as sensitive as elevator.

So this P-51 was flying at some speed just under 500 mph, most likely. Faster than P-51s were generally flown in combat. That's up there in the speed range where WWII pilots knew they had to be extra careful with pitching up, because if you pull back just a little bit too hard the Mustang will very quickly build up enough G-forces to knock a guy out. It'll happen faster than a healthy 25 year old fighter pilot can react.

At that speed, the airplane had a very strong tendency to pitch up, and the trim tab was cranked pretty far up to push the elevator down and keep the plane level. Then one end of that trim tab broke loose. I've seen the photo of the trim tab still attached at one end, with the part trailing aft of the elevator. I'm convinced the "gurgling noise" many people report hearing from this plane's engine wasn't the engine at all; it was that trim tab flapping wildly back and forth in the high speed airstream. It flapped around for a second or so, then finally broke the rest of the way off. As it flapped and broke off, that trim tab was no longer pushing down on the elevator, so the elevator rotated up. The airplane instantly pitched up, hard.

I'll leave it to the aerospace engineering geeks to crunch their numbers and estimate how many Gs Leeward was under at that first instant. It's obvious to me that he was instantly incapacitated, because the engine sounded like it was at full throttle all the way to the ground. If he'd had any control at all in that cockpit, throttling back would've been the immediate, reflexive thing to do. How many Gs would it take to force the tailwheel down against the hydraulic pressure holding it up in the retracted position? I don't know. A lot. The one photo that gives us a clear view at the cockpit before impact shows no visible pilot at all... I don't think he was just slumped down unconscious. If that were the case, I'd expect the seat straps to hold him up. I think that seat broke and collapsed under the G-load.

Leeward never rolled the plane to avoid the larger crowd. He was no longer a factor the instant that trim tab tore loose, and it would've happened exactly the same way if a young olympic tri-athlete champion were flying.

Moving the audience farther away from the racing planes may or may not prevent a recurrence. It was just random dumb luck the plane aimed where it did. If the plane had been in a slightly different attitude or slightly different speed it would've gone in a different direction. It's possible it could have traveled miles before crashing.

So why did the trim tab break in the first place? That's the interesting question to me.

I'll still go back to the races whenever I get a chance.

Magic, I'm glad your son isn't hurt.