Pace Plane

[wingman]

Best looking Pace Plane Reno's ever had. It was an enormous loss for aviation and for air racing when this thing crashed.

Neal

[Rarebearcat]

Re: Pace Plane

I wondered what had happened to that plane. I have a print of it leading the racers down the chute on my wall.

[Big_Jim]

Re: Pace Plane

The crash of the first Red Knight that killed Frank Sanders in 1990 was tragic....but a lot of people could see it coming. Frank was always the type of person who was going to do it his way regardless. He wanted to put the smokewinders on the wingtips inside the tip-tanks. People warned him not to do it because it put too much weight outboard of the wing spar tips. Frank won the battle and put them out at the tips. Frank lost the war when he let the journalist fly the plane and ripped the wings off the plane when trying to pull out of a loop at far too high of a speed.

You'll notice in the picture that the 2nd Red Knight had the smokewinders mounted just outboard of the landing gear.

[supercub]

Re: Pace Plane

The crash of the first Red Knight that killed Frank Sanders in 1990 was tragic....but a lot of people could see it coming. Frank was always the type of person who was going to do it his way regardless. He wanted to put the smokewinders on the wingtips inside the tip-tanks. People warned him not to do it because it put too much weight outboard of the wing spar tips. Frank won the battle and put them out at the tips. Frank lost the war when he let the journalist fly the plane and ripped the wings off the plane when trying to pull out of a loop at far too high of a speed.

You'll notice in the picture that the 2nd Red Knight had the smokewinders mounted just outboard of the landing gear.

If I remember right, the T-33's could carry tip tanks.........you mean the smokewinders weighed more then the tanks full of fuel? Or were the smokewinders added at the tips in addition with the tip tanks full of fuel? Just curious. Where did the accident happen? Thanks
Brian

[Big_Jim]

Re: Pace Plane

If I remember right, the T-33's could carry tip tanks.........you mean the smokewinders weighed more then the tanks full of fuel? Or were the smokewinders added at the tips in addition with the tip tanks full of fuel? Just curious. Where did the accident happen? Thanks
Brian

As I recall, Frank modified the tip tanks so that the front half was for fuel, but he sectioned-off and beefed-up the rear half to house the Smokewinders...so the smoke came out an opening in the back of the tip tank.

What I remember hearing is that the media flight they went on was a television producer/reporter from a local New Mexico station. He either had, or claimed to have jet and/or aerobatic time. This was Friday (May 4, 1990) before the airshow in Roswell, and they went out with either little or no fuel in the tip tanks....which 'may' have set up an aft-c.g. situation way out there on the tips. The theory (which was never reported in the NTSB report...which simply said pilot error) is that the aft-c.g. situation induced aileron/tip flutter, accelerating into wing-flutter, and as they tried to pull out of the dive it literally ripped the wings off and the fuselage lawn-darted into the hills. There were no hot seats on the Red Knight.

People from Lockheed told Frank not to mess with the tiptanks since they had had enough problems during testing just to get them to work correctly the first time.

Truly a sad day. Frank was Frank. He was always very nice to me, especially when I'd ask stupid questions.

[Reever]

Re: Pace Plane

Most interesting pace plane story was watching them try to shoe horn Hoover into the backseat of a Gnat. No way!

[supercub]

Re: Pace Plane

Thanks Big Jim.