Warbird Information Exchange

"The pilot is indeed lucky. The design doesn't appear to be very crash-worthy as evidenced by the disintegrating cockpit."

The disintegrating cockpit may have saved his life by absorbing the impact, disipating the energy. We'll never know for sure.

I took all these on Monday morning.

b29flteng wrote:The disintegrating cockpit may have saved his life by absorbing the impact, disipating the energy. We'll never know for sure.

I don't see modern racing safety organizations buying that theory. Everything around the cockpit should disintegrate and dissipate the energy, not the cockpit itself. My point is not to knock the Thunder Mustang, but to point out that pilot and passenger safety is frequently not a concern in light amateur built aircraft design.

How about the lost prop!
http://www.funplacestofly.com/blog.asp?ID=313

Wow, I'm glad Kevin made it out of that okay. I didn't realize he was racing this year.

b29flteng wrote:"The pilot is indeed lucky. The design doesn't appear to be very crash-worthy as evidenced by the disintegrating cockpit."

The disintegrating cockpit may have saved his life by absorbing the impact, disipating the energy. We'll never know for sure.

it happened right in front of me and it seemed to shed parts and lose energy for every departed piece, like you said we will never know but it looks like a pretty sound design to me.