- Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, suffered an explosion killing three and seriously injuring three while testing a rocket engine Thursday. Rutan's Spaceship One is the first private spacecraft flown into space and will likely be the first commercial spacecraft.
- Two news helicopters collided Friday over Phoenix, killing 4. They were filming a car chase.
- Two vintage P-51s at Oshkosh collided Friday, leaving one pilot dead.
- Jim Leroy, an award-winning stunt pilot, was killed in his biplane at the Dayton Air Show, Saturday. Leroy's teammate, Jurgis Kairys, barely survives a crash in a different plane 7 hours later.
- A Russian cargo plane, an Antonov An-12, crashed on takeoff Sunday from a Moscow airport, killing all seven on board.
- I also read that a Russian Mi-8 helicopter crashed this weekend but I couldn't find independent verification of this.
Monday, July 30, 2007
A Bad Day to Fly
This has been a bad weekend for the aviation community with multiple deadly incidents.
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I didn't hear about all of this until I read your blog today... Cora and Kelby and I were out flying Saturday afternoon (over Leavenworth with a retired TWA pilot) when Jim LeRoy had his accident.
I don't know if you remember this or not, but Jim LeRoy was part of the MOD (Masters of Disaster) "X-Team" that was flying in Canada two years ago when his other team members, Jimmy Franklin (whom I knew) and Bobby Younkin collided, killing both pilots instantly.
Ever since seeing Jimmy Franklin fly his jet Waco in 1999 (I had the privelage that summer of refueling his plane every Saturday while he practiced and made modifications), he became my favorite airshow pilot to watch until his passing.
There's really very little that compares after watching Jimmy in his jet Waco and Jim LeRoy in his modified Pitts S2S-- all other shows seems tame. In fact, I regularly checked their websites to see if they were coming around to the Kansas City area. I even had Jim LeRoy and the MOD X-Team as my desktop background on my new computer last week.
These performers were THE BEST OF THE BEST in the world. They're going to be missed by a lot friends and fans, and especially family, who've endured the loss of three close friends within two years.
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