Galloping Ghost Crash

[Tribunus]

I’m not sure that anything written below is correct. But it’s the first thing that I have seen that offers any sort of explanation

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Galloping Ghost crash

Ok... here's the skinny on the accident....

A P-51 normally has two trim tabs.. one on each elevator... this one had one and other one was fixed in place..

The pilot was warned about the forces being put on that one tab.

When it failed, he had at least a 10G load when the plane pitched up from the loss of the trim tab and he most likely passed out from the sudden G load. (Remember, the pilot Jim Leeward was 74) and he probably never woke up.

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Here's the “theory” of the crash from experienced racers.

In 1989 this type of thing happened to another pilot but he lived to tell the story.

When flying a P-51 at 450+mph you need to have full nose down trim to keep the plane level.

The elevator trim tab broke off and the aircraft imediately went in to a 10G climb, confirmed by the G-meter.

The pilot came to, from the sudden blackout and realized he had slipped through the shoulder harness and was looking at the floor of the airplane.

He was able to reach the throttle and pull it back to slow down and was able to recover and land.

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Fast forward to 2011

Photo one is the airplane taxiing, note the pilots head in the

canopy.

Photo two is typical oil canning as a result of the tremendous torque these engines put out at high power.

Photo three is a photo of GG upside down with a missing elevator trim tab. Note all you see is the back of the pilots head indicating he is being forced down in the cockpit.

Photo four is a view of the left side nose down with the tail wheel extended and no view of the pilot. The tail wheel is held up by hydraulics only with no mechanical uplock, thus indicating a high G-force causing it to extend.

Photos five and six are from the left side prior to impact, note no view of the pilot and the tail wheel is still extended.

Photo seven is the debris just after the crash. To the right of center above the crowd it appears to be the wing with the leading edge down. The people were mostly hit by chunks of concrete, asphalt and aircraft debris. They were also hurt by the trampling of people getting out of the way.