In 1962 I had an employer who flew P51 in war, he bought one and was testing it - down it went. After all was said and done, many war flyers said -”It is a great plane unless it loses power or control then it drops - does not glide.” I don’t know much about this accident, but those words kept ringing in my head as I thought of a great guy lost in a P51.
Kind of like a Volkswagen.
It’s fun to drive when it’s running.
A good friend was an acrobatic pilot and flew a lot of WWII birds - I flew with him in an SNJ and we did fun aerobatics in it.
But these old birds are so old that they are well known for being accidents waiting to happen in spite of perfect maintenance.
My friend went in in a P-38 (Jeff Ethyll - Google him - great prolific aviation author) which his dad flew all through WWII, and both his parents and wife saw the fire from the crash over the trees. Tragic.
But the investigation said the cause was his unfamiliarity with the weird quirks of the plane even though he was certified to fly it.
No question in my mind the Reno accident was mechanical failure, not pilot error.....an old old bird souped up with lotsa hours on it. Undetectable metal fatigue is almost eventually inevitable with these planes.....