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[LuseKofte]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b72_1316251626

this one was vry close

[hawker445]

He lost his trim tab, the torque caused it to pitch up at high G's fell forward flipped and straight down. No fireball because at maybe hitting the ground 500+kts the fuel just vaporized

[Vampire_pilot]

He didn't carry too much fuel anymore anyway. it was already some laps down into the... what, six laps? race...

fuel would have done .... undescribable things. remember Ramstein. it was the fuel that cost the most lifes.

[PDelaney]

In a podcast uploaded to YouTube in June, Mr Leeward said major changes were made to the plane before this year's race. He said his crew cut five feet off each wing and shortened the ailerons — the back edge of the main wings used to control balance — to 32 inches, down from about 60 inches.
The goal was to make the plane more aerodynamic so it would go faster without a bigger engine.
'I know the speed. I know it'll do the speed. The systems aren't proven yet. We think they're going to be OK,' he said.


...

[Wildchild]

In a podcast uploaded to YouTube in June, Mr Leeward said major changes were made to the plane before this year's race. He said his crew cut five feet off each wing and shortened the ailerons — the back edge of the main wings used to control balance — to 32 inches, down from about 60 inches.
The goal was to make the plane more aerodynamic so it would go faster without a bigger engine.
'I know the speed. I know it'll do the speed. The systems aren't proven yet. We think they're going to be OK,' he said.


...

From all the modifications he did to the plane, he took away the originallity from it when it flew in the 1946 Bendix race, and it didn't even look like a P-51 anymore. Even Strega, the winning P-51 from last year and a record setter this year, was not as heavily modified as what he did to Galloping Ghost. Its really a shame too of what he did to the plane





(Yes, these are accurate size's. He really did make the plane smaller...)

[congo]

I dont believe those sizes are accurate compared to the upper Mustang. Yes the wings were clipped and other extreme modifications were made but the aircraft was not shortened that much.

[BT~Tarik]

Yes of course, because why then the pilot in the 2nd one looks so small, it should have the same size as the first

[Wildchild]

Sorry, just noticed that...

Also, they have found the P-51's wing tip camera cards, which have the entire race on video

[Pursuivant]

In a podcast uploaded to YouTube in June, Mr Leeward said major changes were made to the plane before this year's race. He said his crew cut five feet off each wing and shortened the ailerons — the back edge of the main wings used to control balance — to 32 inches, down from about 60 inches.

I just heard about that, too. That changes everything about the crash scenario.

Cut 10 feet off a Mustang's wings and you've reduced wingspan by more than 25% and probably cut wing area by about the same amount. That means higher stall speed and more vulnerability to high speed stall. Cut back the ailerons and you've reduced maneuverability and ability to recover from a stall by a big chunk, too. Tune the engine up to the Nth degree, replace the standard cooling system with a bleed-off system where one of the fuel tanks used to be, and basically, you've got a plane that's really good at going around an oval at high speeds for 500-1000 feet for 20 minutes, but isn't much good for anything else. Take that plane out of the parameters it was designed for disaster is going to happen.

My new ignorant hypothesis: Leeward wasn't dead as he half looped,  but he might has well have been. He was OK going into Turn 3, then something fixable but bad happened. Perhaps the elevator trim tab came loose, perhaps something in the coolant system blew up. That made it impossible for him to complete his turn, as his plane couldn't turn sharply enough.

He completes 45 degrees of a 90 degree turn, flies over the stands and begins to pitch up in a half roll (due to loss of elevator authority?). Then, perhaps he got disoriented at the top of the roll, underestimated his altitude or suffered the beginnings of GLOC. He then tries to roll out of the half loop to get back to the airport, forgetting that he's got limited elevator control and altitude and his speed is too high.

At that point, he might have gotten into a high speed stall and dived into the ground because he had too little altitude to recover. Given the speed and the g-forces involved, I don't think that there's much Leeward could have done to alter his path to avoid hitting the stands.

Normally, vapor coming off the wingtips would be telltale evidence of a stall, but given the low humidity in the desert there probably wasn't enough moisture in the air to condense.

[Wildchild]

In a podcast uploaded to YouTube in June, Mr Leeward said major changes were made to the plane before this year's race. He said his crew cut five feet off each wing and shortened the ailerons — the back edge of the main wings used to control balance — to 32 inches, down from about 60 inches.

I just heard about that, too. That changes everything about the crash scenario.

Cut 10 feet off a Mustang's wings and you've reduced wingspan by more than 25% and probably cut wing area by about the same amount. That means higher stall speed and more vulnerability to high speed stall. Cut back the ailerons and you've reduced maneuverability and ability to recover from a stall by a big chunk, too. Tune the engine up to the Nth degree, replace the standard cooling system with a bleed-off system where one of the fuel tanks used to be, and basically, you've got a plane that's really good at going around an oval at high speeds for 500-1000 feet for 20 minutes, but isn't much good for anything else. Take that plane out of the parameters it was designed for disaster is going to happen.

My new ignorant hypothesis: Leeward wasn't dead as he half looped,  but he might has well have been. He was OK going into Turn 3, then something fixable but bad happened. Perhaps the elevator trim tab came loose, perhaps something in the coolant system blew up. That made it impossible for him to complete his turn, as his plane couldn't turn sharply enough.

He completes 45 degrees of a 90 degree turn, flies over the stands and begins to pitch up in a half roll (due to loss of elevator authority?). Then, perhaps he got disoriented at the top of the roll, underestimated his altitude or suffered the beginnings of GLOC. He then tries to roll out of the half loop to get back to the airport, forgetting that he's got limited elevator control and altitude and his speed is too high.

At that point, he might have gotten into a high speed stall and dived into the ground because he had too little altitude to recover. Given the speed and the g-forces involved, I don't think that there's much Leeward could have done to alter his path to avoid hitting the stands.

Normally, vapor coming off the wingtips would be telltale evidence of a stall, but given the low humidity in the desert there probably wasn't enough moisture in the air to condense.

I'm very sorry... But your right. 

[Stratodog]

Well, here's the thing.  If an airplane is designed to be trim neutral (elevator and horizontal stab aligned) at about 250 mph and it's going close to 500 mph, it will require a lot of down elevator trim at 500mph.  If the trim tab leaves the airplane, the elevator and horizontal stab will suddenly re-align with each other and that will cause a massive "up" command as the airplane tries to slow down to about 250mph.  The pitch up force in this situation would be so massive that Arnold Swarzenegger couldn't have pushed forward with enough force to keep the airplane from pitching violently into a loop.  The "G" force would be massive as well (possibly 12-15 Gs, even with clipped wings) and that would explain why he's pinned down in the cockpit.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is - If he suddenly lost the elevator trim while going close to 500mph, he would have immediately lost control of the airplane as it went into a violet pitch-up/loop and probably would have blacked out fairly quickly.  In other words, losing elevator trim at that speed could explain the whole thing.  Loop, blackout, crash...

The reason I say "trim neutral" at about 250 mph is that a typical cruise indicated airspeed (for a stock Mustang)would have been about 250 and it's common for manufacturers to design the airplane to be trim neutral in normal cruise.  Despite it's major mods, it's not likely that the angle of incidence of the horizontal stab would have been changed, since it's no small undertaking. 

[Wildchild]

Should we send this to the NTSB?

Also, here is a new video showing that he did a barrel roll into the stands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ha95cl2gvPI

And the plane really did disentagrate...





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