From Coleen
Sport Class Race 8 Crew

*Subject: : 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.. He was warned about the forces being put on that one tab. It
failed.. He had at least a 10G load when the plane pitched up from the
loss of the trim tab and he went "nighty night" and probably never woke
up.

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 im ediately 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.

*Photo one is the airplane taxiing, note the pilots head in the canopy*.

*Fast forward to 2011 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 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.

*A friend of mine was supposed to be there but didn't go and he has
several friends in the hospital right now. 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*.