Thunder Mustand crashes at Reno

[Yeager]

After losing the engine and making a decent dead stick, the guy caught a breeze and screwed the pooch.  
The plane basically seperated into three subsections.  Engine tail and main body.  Wings looked to stay on to main body.  Pilot walked away with minor injuries.  I cant tell you how many times I have pulled this stunt in AH.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e58_1285076147

Thunder Mustang is a reduced scale piloted aircraft that faithfully mimics the beautiful lines of the original P51D.  The company that made the kits went out of business a few years back but it appears the kit molds and intellectual property has been purchased by another group and should be available again.

http://www.thundermustang.com/

[Dichotomy]

very happy that the pilot got out okay

[RoGenT]

Glad he was okay 

[BiPoLaR]

Real life SAPP try outs?

[xNOVAx]

After being there and witnessing this accident, this is really nothing to joke about and to do so is bad form IMO.. I thought I had just seen someone get killed when it happened and the feeling was sickening..

In addition to actually seeing the plane crash, I had somewhat of a eerie experience with this accident.. Just about 2 hours before it happened, the group I was with went over to the sport hangar and talked to some of the crew members of the plane (rapid travel).. We were talking a bit about the plane itself and we got into some of the glide ratio aspects, and one of the guys said best glide speed for rapid travel was about 165mph.. He said, and i quote: "if you have an emergency, you might as well throw out a brick and see where it lands, cause that's where you're going to end up." He also said that rapid travel was a "very heavy bird" telling us that its weight was roughly 4,000lbs due to additional superchargers, cooling radiators, and telemetry etc.. Gross weight on a stock thunder mustang is around 3200lbs.

While it looked like he had plenty of altitude when his engine blew, it seems to me after talking to these guys more about the plane, he didn't have nearly enough to make a proper deadstick approach, especially with the winds the way they were (gusting over 40mph and all available runways had a crosswind or tailwind).. Maybe some of the modifications they made to this little plane were unnecessairly dangerous for the airframe, but who knows.. Racing aircraft are rarely 'safe'  

The guy did a very good job getting the airplane down considering the wind conditions and avoiding racing aircraft.. He did all he could under the circimstances he found himself in.. Just glad he was ok..  

[CAP1]

After being there and witnessing this accident, this is really nothing to joke about and to do so is bad form IMO.. I thought I had just seen someone get killed when it happened and the feeling was sickening..

In addition to actually seeing the plane crash, I had somewhat of a eerie experience with this accident.. Just about 2 hours before it happened, the group I was with went over to the sport hangar and talked to some of the crew members of the plane (rapid travel).. We were talking a bit about the plane itself and we got into some of the glide ratio aspects, and one of the guys said best glide speed for rapid travel was about 165mph.. He said, and i quote: "if you have an emergency, you might as well throw out a brick and see where it lands, cause that's where you're going to end up." He also said that rapid travel was a "very heavy bird" telling us that its weight was roughly 4,000lbs due to additional superchargers, cooling radiators, and telemetry etc.. Gross weight on a stock thunder mustang is around 3200lbs.

While it looked like he had plenty of altitude when his engine blew, it seems to me after talking to these guys more about the plane, he didn't have nearly enough to make a proper deadstick approach, especially with the winds the way they were (gusting over 40mph and all available runways had a crosswind or tailwind).. Maybe some of the modifications they made to this little plane were unnecessairly dangerous for the airframe, but who knows.. Racing aircraft are rarely 'safe'  

The guy did a very good job getting the airplane down considering the wind conditions and avoiding racing aircraft.. He did all he could under the circimstances he found himself in.. Just glad he was ok..  

that explains why it looked like he had such a steep approach......and high speed landing.


i love these mustangs. they're friggin BEAUTIFUL.

i'm glad the pilot got out ok.......

[BaldEagl]

Wow, that was a fast approach and a great job of getting it down in one piece.  It looked to me like he drove it off the runway and when he did it hopped and that's where the trouble began but it was hard to tell for sure in the video.

[xNOVAx]

Wow, that was a fast approach and a great job of getting it down in one piece.  It looked to me like he drove it off the runway and when he did it hopped and that's where the trouble began but it was hard to tell for sure in the video.

Well he didnt really get it down in one piece, but at least he survived.. I don't think he had the airspeed to get lined up with the runway, so I think he just pointed it into the wind and aimed for the biggest piece of runway he could find which was the intersection of 2 runways.. He touched down almost almost in a side slip, rolled for 100 feet or so and then hit the dirt which launched him up in the air.. Once airborne again it looks like there was a wing stall that rolled the plane over and caused it to cartwheel..

[cactuskooler]

I took these of the crash. I'd bet the high winds didn't help his deadstick landing.

[BiPoLaR]

this is really nothing to joke about and to do so is bad form IMO..

Now if he DIED then there wouldnt be jokes now would there? But since he didnt DIE ill use that "bad form" and pop off a few more just for you ok pumpkin

[betty]

wow! that is crazy! i was in reno at the races but had to fly out at 6am on sunday morning to come home. i am glad to hear the pilot survived