Hellcat into a truck?

[nevadasky]

The truck was parked in front of the Breitling tent this afternoon. Still runable. They put black tape on the corner of the hood but, if you look on the attached photo you can see the chop marks.

The truck is a "Raptor" a high dollar vehicle for sure.

[Jeffcarn]

Yes he did manage to hit two trucks, I guess he dragged the horizontal down the side of the one vehicle and then hit the other with the prop.
Jason

Is it my understanding that the Hellcat ran into the truck or the truck ran into the Hellcat? It sounds to me that that the plane has the right-away but someone (truck) was not where they were suppose to be. That is going to be very expensive on the Hellcat more than the trucks. Rules are if you have a prop strike the engine has to be tore down for inspection.
Jeff

[AcroGimp]

At least they have a sense of humor about it:



"Mutha was here"

I was wondering if that was Mutha in Mimsi III, bummer.

'Gimp

[Big_Jim]

According to a buddy Reno 78 taxi accident was the original Precious Metal ( Not Thom's) with Whittington chopping up the Datsun.

The incident you're referring to was 1977 not 1978. And it did, in fact involve the REAL Precious Metal (N5483V), not the currently-named version (N6WJ). Race Director Jerry Duty decided it would be okay to drive out on the ramp after the Championship Race and park it in the podium area to meet Darryl Greenamyer as he came in in the Red Baron....after all, when you're the all-powerful Jerky Doody you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want. Don Whittington, who had finished second, came taxiing in around the crowd of people who were starting to gather and thoroughly munched up Jerry's tiny little Datsun.

The real shame of that accident was that it destroyed a very rare and one (actually two) of a kind experimental thin-blade propeller. The other set was destroyed in the crash of the Beguine in 1949.

I am going to post two photos taken by Charlene Aro and one by Mark Daniels. I know both of them so I hope this suffices for posting someone elses photos...but they illustrate pretty effectively what happened.

[ChrisMX105]

De-railing thread..........

Was the "thin" prop more effective/efficient than a standard one?

[Big_Jim]

De-railing thread..........

Was the "thin" prop more effective/efficient than a standard one?

Yes, there were two sets of experimental blades that Aeroproducts built up for high-speed testing with NACA. J.D. Reed purchased one set for use on the Beguine, and Joe DeBona purchased the other set for use in Thunderbird, which he won the 1949 Bendix race with.

Reed's set was destroyed in the crash at Cleveland. In 1975 Ralph Payne somehow tracked down the set that was used on Thunderbird and procured them for Precious Metal that he was building up for Gary Levitz. I think Ralph told me once that at altitude/temp/power setting testing they had a significant speed increase over the cuffed Hamilton Standard prop--ironically the prop of choice these days. But I also recall him saying that the prop itself was scary, as it was so thin that during high-power run-ups on the ground you could literally see the blades bending forward because they were so thin.

[ChrisMX105]

I wonder what it would take to duplicate them. Or if the data is even out there.

[Coyote Chris]

[AcroGimp]

What is the story behind this accident anyway? Mutha drove Hornets and ran NAS LeMoore, seems like a careful, professional pilot, just curious how this happened.

Any witnesses?

'Gimp

[AAFO_WSagar]

Just thinking out loud here... is this one of those things that even though we know the FAA and the entire world knows about it, that it would be better if we sort of buried it here?

Seriously, NOT trying to diss anyone for posting anything, or over moderate!, it just struck me when I saw the last posts come in that this *could* be one of those events better discussed years later??

Opinions??