above show how close it was to his head, but it really slammed his hand hard into his plane
Skip the first 20 seconds if you want... the pilot merely learns that his plane engine has a problem, and signals the safety crew that he is DOA... then the stupid bastard behind him doesn't bother noticing the AIRPLANE HE IS GOING TO RUN INTO. Always have a rearview mirrow!
http://planelopnik.kinja.com/crash-proves-air-racing-is-equal-parts-danger-and-excit-1786855476
Being an occasional tail-dragger pilot, myself, I can say with absolute assurance you can't see a damn thing directly in front of you when the tailwheel is on the ground. While taxiing, you typically swerve back and forth to make sure nothing is in your way, but you can't do that during takeoff.
ReplyDeleteGiven that this was a race, the probably staged all of the planes at the end of the runway, with a flagman responsible for letting each plane know when it was safe to takeoff. Since three planes took off after he aborted, my guess would be that the flagman failed to notice that he was still on the runway, not as hard as you might think, given a very small plane on a long runway.