Whipped Cream Difficulties

The 2012 Reno Air Races are, in theory, just over two weeks away.

I qualify this with “in theory” because when I went to their site to check on the date, I got a big pop-up offering me the opportunity to donate money. You see, the insurance premium has gone up to $1.7 million this year, and has to be paid by September 1st. I’m not sure what’s going to happen if they don’t come up with the money by September 1st (though I’d be surprised if someone didn’t step up and make up any shortfall).

(Noted: “The Reno Air Racing Association is a not-for-profit, 501(c)(4) organization, which means that contributions to RARA are NOT tax deductible, though they are appreciated and much needed.”)

But I digress. What prompted this was a short article in the NYT claiming that the NTSB has figured out why “Galloping Ghost” crashed last year.

Rather than linking to the NYT article (which amounted to one paragraph), I thought I’d link directly to the NTSB report. Except the final report apparently isn’t out yet: what the NTSB has on their site is a press release, dated yesterday, and linking to a synopsis of the report.

In case you were wondering:

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the reduced stiffness of the elevator trim tab system that allowed aerodynamic flutter to occur at racing speeds. The reduced stiffness was a result of deteriorated locknut inserts that allowed the trim tab attachment screws to become loose and to initiate fatigue cracking in one screw sometime before the accident flight. Aerodynamic flutter of the trim tabs resulted in a failure of the left trim tab link assembly, elevator movement, high flight loads, and a loss of control. Contributing to the accident were the undocumented and untested major modifications to the airplane and the pilot’s operation of the airplane in the unique air racing environment without adequate flight testing.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2012 at 7:57 am and is filed under Clippings, Planes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.