Quote:
Originally Posted by KosmicRVTrider
For what it's worth, the planes are not allowed to fly over the crowd during an airshow, I believe it's the same in the air races. They can come from behind but not from the front or side to overfly a crowd. Thats the FAA rules. Statisticlly speaking your safer at an air show or air race than you are driving down some interstate. And, there are some of us who work on airplanes, have been doing so for over 20 yrs and love these "relics" as you call them. Stand next to one during eng start and if you don't feel the nostalgia then you'll never understand why some of us love them.
Chris
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Im pretty sure they arent allowed to overfly spectators at all, but crashing airplanes rarely go straight down. From what Ive read/seen, Galloping Ghost went well off-course during the crash.
And those 'relics' are probably more reliable than 60% of the cars and bikes on the road today. If everyone maintained their cars and bikes the way the FAA requires aircraft to be maintained (which includes replacing parts that have not failed, but are at their use limit), breakdowns would all but disappear, even with vehicles decades old. Since these planes are race vehicles, they are probably maintained at a level even higher than FAA regs require. Considering how many thousands of air races have been held, the fatality rate is far, far lower than that for road going vehicles.