{"id":424,"date":"2011-09-19T01:06:04","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T01:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bigtirepilot.com\/?p=424"},"modified":"2011-09-19T01:06:04","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T01:06:04","slug":"a-very-tough-weekend-in-reno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bigtirepilot.com\/?p=424","title":{"rendered":"A very tough weekend in Reno"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a very tough weekend in Reno. \u00a0Most of you have heard about the horrific crash of Jimmy Leewards plane, “The Galloping Ghost”. \u00a0My prayers go out to all of those involved. I am not much of a writer but I can tell you, I was about 1000′ from the crash and saw it in its entirety. Its something that you just do not ever want to see. I just hope, like many other pilots do as well, that this is not the end of the Reno Air Races. The folks that put the event on, from the FAA to the Air Racing Association all the way to the pilots themselves, do everything in their power for the safety of all of those involved. \u00a0Its crazy how when an airplane crashes you hear all about it however, when you hear about the massive car pile up on the local freeway they just put it off as a bad accident. Here an airplane lost control and ended up in the crowd unfortunately. Now they want to shut it down possibly. Really? Things that are beyond our control happen. Thats part of living in a free country. Its a real shame that people take the stand that this is a “crazy” sport. Its just not so. At and rate, here are a few photos from this weekends event with a link to the entire collection of photos that I took over the weekend. There are two shots here of the Ghost prior to its crash. One is from my dad who was also in attendance and the other, if you look closely, you can see the elevator trim tab missing on her left tail. That photo came from someone on the internet.<\/p>\n\n\t\t