Quote:
Originally Posted by sperry
+1 on DARKSTI's comments...
Air Racing is kinda where F1 was back in the 60's. Whereas F1 had the opportunity to make tracks and cars safer, air racing is kinda foiled by the laws of physics as far as bumping up crash survivability, simply because a plane that can survive a 500 mph crash tends to be too heavy to fly.
While the pilots know what they're getting themselves into, the loss of these folks is still tragic, especially since it likely won't lead to safety improvements, it will lead to the termination of the sport.  |
There really is nothing to improve,but that does not mean that the sport needs to be terminated. Like I said, test pilots face the same danger and also lose their lives sometimes. Not to mention loosing our AF pilots in Iraq/Afghanistan/Vietnam etc.
I guess what I am getting at is that this is unusual to loose even one life at the races, sadly it has just been a bad year in general for airshows. Car races have had years like this also. People don't realize that a a lot of the accidents can happen to regular airplanes also, like an engine failing just after take-off, or getting caught in wake turbulence, there are even mid-air collisions that happen in general aviation.
I really believe that we will move on and hopefully not loose anyone else this year and have a better year next year. I will fight hard if there is any talk about stopping the races, it brings me back to the days when aviation was still growing and pushing it limits. In the long run we will learn from it and use it to our advantage.