This comment has received too many negative votesshow
I love aviation and airplanes but these races are stupid, and do nothing but eat up rare and historically valuable Mustangs that should be flying peacefully in demonstrations alongside their modern military cousins. Modifying them to race is a crime against history and nothing but a way for rich narcissists with death wishes to get their freak on.
@dirac33 I only agree with the thing about saving the actual ww2 airplanes. Apparently so do others in the industry since there is an all composite mustang coming out soon, designed to replace the ww2 planes.
I was there when it happened. The part they didn't mention too heavily is that, although the Lemon Valley lake bed was right there, he crashed it on a big pile of rocks right next to the (then) dirt road that connects Lemon Valley to the aiport. You can still find little bits and pieces of the plane in those rocks; I recovered two pieces of it a couple of years back. Some guys had hauled the engine up between two parked cars on the road and everything was on fire. It was awful.
Now that is a nasty one O_O!! I can imagine that there must have been a weird kind of relief to see Hinton against all odds being taken away in one piece! given this horrible crash.
I was 12 years old when I saw this on ABC Wide World of Sports. I'll never forget it. Many years later I met Steve at the Air Museum. What a great guy and truly great aviator. A modern day Howard Hughes
I was working on the race crew for #7 Ridge Runner and we shared a pit with the #6, so we were all pulling for John Crocker and then the RB-51 came by real quiet and we all watched as Steve tried to turn the plane and it disappeared below the end of the runway.
Later after the race a bunch of us got to go down and tour through the crash site.
Wow that is a true miracle
redsoxfan1324 1 month ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I love aviation and airplanes but these races are stupid, and do nothing but eat up rare and historically valuable Mustangs that should be flying peacefully in demonstrations alongside their modern military cousins. Modifying them to race is a crime against history and nothing but a way for rich narcissists with death wishes to get their freak on.
dirac33 5 months ago
@dirac33 I only agree with the thing about saving the actual ww2 airplanes. Apparently so do others in the industry since there is an all composite mustang coming out soon, designed to replace the ww2 planes.
Ralroost 5 months ago
i'm so glad that Steve come out alive on this brutal crash, soon i will go to this race, at the moment i will race with my rc plane...
zhamoua 5 months ago
I was there when it happened. The part they didn't mention too heavily is that, although the Lemon Valley lake bed was right there, he crashed it on a big pile of rocks right next to the (then) dirt road that connects Lemon Valley to the aiport. You can still find little bits and pieces of the plane in those rocks; I recovered two pieces of it a couple of years back. Some guys had hauled the engine up between two parked cars on the road and everything was on fire. It was awful.
styxxmann 5 months ago
What an amazing story! This was the first time I heard about it and just assumed he died after seeing that crash.
jrj575 5 months ago
"Tell Karen I love her..." Wow, just pull my heart out!
mrmcclear 5 months ago 10
@mrmcclear So sad reminds me of Jimmy Leeward this past Fall..
RFKFANTS67 1 month ago
=( i want a P-51 just to fly.
grimreapper 6 months ago
Wow this whole area has changed so much.
whootsley 6 months ago
Now that is a nasty one O_O!! I can imagine that there must have been a weird kind of relief to see Hinton against all odds being taken away in one piece! given this horrible crash.
Anacinc 8 months ago 3
I can belive he survived this...awesome!
MrElSatan 9 months ago
So was it ever dicovered what happened to Mac's plane?
GCD89 9 months ago
I was 12 years old when I saw this on ABC Wide World of Sports. I'll never forget it. Many years later I met Steve at the Air Museum. What a great guy and truly great aviator. A modern day Howard Hughes
CaptJackSpeed 10 months ago
I remember this day :(
I was working on the race crew for #7 Ridge Runner and we shared a pit with the #6, so we were all pulling for John Crocker and then the RB-51 came by real quiet and we all watched as Steve tried to turn the plane and it disappeared below the end of the runway.
Later after the race a bunch of us got to go down and tour through the crash site.
LonMoer 10 months ago
i remember seeing the tail section at Oshkosh this year
hawker445 11 months ago