''Miss Ashley II'' was a custom-built racing aircraft based on the
North American P-51 Mustang
The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter aircraft, fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team ...
.
Design and development
Built by Bill L. Rogers in 1996, ''Miss Ashley II'' was a P-51R; a hybrid aircraft consisting of the fuselage of a P-51D fuselage and a P-51H
vertical stabilizer
A vertical stabilizer or tail fin is the static part of the vertical tail of an aircraft. The term is commonly applied to the assembly of both this fixed surface and one or more movable rudders hinged to it. Their role is to provide control, sta ...
, a
Learjet 23
The Learjet 23 (originally Lear Jet 23) is an American six-to-eight-seat (two crew and four to six passengers) twinjet, high-speed business jet manufactured by Learjet. Introduced in 1964, it was Learjet's first model and created a new market f ...
wing (without
wingtip tanks) and
horizontal stabilizer
A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplan ...
, and
Piper Aerostar
The Piper Aerostar (formerly Ted Smith Aerostar) is an American twin-engined propeller-driven executive or light transport aircraft, designed by Ted R. Smith. It was originally built by Ted Smith Aircraft Company, which after 1978 became part o ...
landing gear. Power was provided by a 2,455 hp
Rolls-Royce Griffon 58 driving two 3-bladed
contra-rotating propellers
Aircraft equipped with contra-rotating propellers, also referred to as CRP, coaxial contra-rotating propellers, or high-speed propellers, apply the maximum power of usually a single piston or turboprop engine to drive a pair of coaxial propell ...
from an
Avro Shackleton
The Avro Shackleton is a British long-range maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) which was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the South African Air Force (SAAF). It was developed by Avro from the Avro Lincoln bomber, which itself had been a devel ...
.
History
''Miss Ashley II'' made its first flight in the spring of 1997. The aircraft made its racing debut at the
Reno Air Races
The Reno Air Races, officially known as the STIHL National Championship Air Races from 2016, is a multi-day event tailored to the aviation community that takes place each September at the Reno Stead Airport a few miles north of Reno, Nevada. A ...
later that year, piloted by
Gary Levitz. The aircraft carried the race number ''38'', which was also used by Levitz's original P-51D ''Miss Ashley'' and
Don Whittington's Griffon-powered P-51XR Mustang,
''Precious Metal''.
1999 Reno Air Races crash
On September 18, 1999, ''Miss Ashley II'' participated in the Unlimited Gold class of the Reno Air Races with Levitz as the pilot.
On the first lap of
heat
In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...
3A, ''Miss Ashley II'' was in fifth place coming around pylon 1 when the aircraft's
empennage
The empennage ( or ), also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third ed ...
control surfaces apparently separated from the aircraft. The nose of the aircraft pitched down and the left wing separated from the fuselage before the aircraft impacted the ground, killing Levitz and completely destroying the aircraft.
The wreckage struck two houses and a
travel trailer
A caravan, travel trailer, camper, tourer or camper trailer is a trailer towed behind a road vehicle to provide a place to sleep which is more comfortable and protected than a tent (although there are fold-down trailer tents). It provides the ...
, though there were no ground casualties.
The
National Transportation Safety Board
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...
investigated the accident. A spectator's video reviewed by the NTSB seemed to show that the rudder and vertical stabilizer had separated from the aircraft before the crash, as they were not visible in the video. However, a video technician noted that this may have been the result of "video smearing", as the video's
frame rate
Frame rate (expressed in or FPS) is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (frames) are captured or displayed. The term applies equally to film and video cameras, computer graphics, and motion capture systems. Frame rate may also be ca ...
may have been too low to accurately capture the rapidly-moving aircraft. Reconstruction of the empennage wreckage was also inconclusive. The final NTSB report determined that the probable cause of the accident was
flutter causing the empennage and rudder to separate from the aircraft, though the cause of the flutter was not determined.
''Miss Ashley II''
's
registration
Register or registration may refer to:
Arts entertainment, and media Music
* Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc.
* ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller
* Registration (organ), th ...
, N57LR, was canceled on August 8, 2002.
See also
References
{{North American P-51 Mustang family
North American P-51 Mustang
Racing aircraft
Individual aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1997
Aircraft with contra-rotating propellers
Low-wing aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft