Plane Wing Falls Off During Air Show (Video)

www.youtube.com ^ | Aug 8, 2013 | Twev63

[Aria]

Quite the show! WOW!

Thanks for posting. :-))

[Yosemitest]

The Pitts Special, I've been told, is pure adrenaline.
My father lost a good friend at the Reno Air Races, in 2002.

Tommy "Ramblin" Rose.

Air racers come from all walks of life, there are farmers, doctors, lawyers, test pilots, business owners, astronauts, airline crew members, auto mechanics, Hollywood film makers, retired military, firefighters, police officers, real estate sales people, and even accountants, but despite their diverse backgrounds, they all share a common love of aviation and air racing.

Air racing, Reno style, is very fast and very exciting, but it is also extraordinarily dangerous and quite unforgiving as well. Each of the participants understand the dangers involved and each racer knows that the next lap could very well be their last.

On Friday, September 13th, (2002)Tommy Rose, a small business owner from Hickory, Mississippi lost his life while competing in the Sports Plane heat race with his Questair Venture 20, 'Ramblin Rose'. Tommy had been competing in the Sports Plane class for the last 4 years and was considered an excellent pilot that was well known and respected by other racers and fans alike. On lap 4 of his heat race, Tommy's plane had an apparent structural failure in the tail area (the exact cause may never be known) and his plane (from an altitude of 60 feet) nosed in to the Nevada desert at over 320 mph.

All of us at AVSIM offer our deepest condolences to Tommy's family and friends and his little 'Ramblin Rose' will always be remembered and missed.

— The AVSIM Staff

[Aria]

I actually witnessed a plane fall out of the sky at air races in Las Vegas. There was a big cloud of dust and two women standing next to me went running out to the site.

Have been haunted by that in the years since and subsequently by the deaths of boat racers I knew. What is the point? They leave families behind.

I find it interesting to watch these things as long as I don’t know the people at risk. I suppose the world needs people to do these things...to blaze trails in new challenges that fuel progress. That must be why God created men.

[Vaduz]

Obama’s subsidizing planes now?.

[Yosemitest]

Sooner or later, we all pay the debt that ALL men pay.
Better to go quickly, than in a long and drawn out and painful process.
I feel for the families that watch their love ones go "splat", but they died doing what they loved.
Pushing the envelope into new areas and creating new technologies along the way, is nothing to be ashamed of.
But those who choose this path must weigh the risk.

[Yosemitest]

Huh?
I must have missed that one.

[Vaduz]

Everything backs fails.
Stimulus deal ..............

[AngelesCrestHighway]

[Yosemitest]

One other thing, Tommy Rose was working on a Thunder Mustang and had decided NOT TO TAKE IT to Reno for that race.
He wanted it for the next year.
But his sons sold it, I think because they couldn't stand the reminder of their father's tragedy around the house.

[Aria]

I can totally understand selling it.

My husband’s Pitts is for sale....to my relief.

[hattend]

It’s an Extra, not an RV, and the plane with no wing is an RC.

Clever photo editing of a real performer and it’s scale model counterpart.