https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zejdh6Ab478&feature=player_embedded
Earlier this week, I spoke to our friend Lynn Gernon, who is married to Bruce Gernon, Rob’s co-author of The Fog. She said that she and Bruce were headed out to Reno for the airshow over the weekend. So Friday I checked one of my online news sites and saw that a WWII, P-51 fighter plane had crashed into the grandstands at the Reno airshow.
I immediately thought of Lynn and Bruce. I scrolled through my cell numbers, couldn’t find Lynn’s number, and ran to the back of the house to get the number from Megan. She is working part-time at a business their daughter owns and had the number. I texted Lynn and was relieved to find out they hadn’t attended the air show today.
Here are the details. Around 4:30 PM Reno time, the P-51 Mustang crashed into a box-seat area in front of the grandstand. It appeared that the pilot, 74-year-old Jimmy Leeward of Ocala, Florida, a veteran air man and stunt pilot, had lost control of the plane. Leeward was a stunt pilot for the movies Amelia and Cloud Dancer.
According to the Huffington Post, “the competition is like a car race in the sky, with planes flying wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.”
While reading about the disaster, I was struck by the name of Leeward’s plane, which may push this story into the realm of a global synchro: Galloping Ghost.
Why that name? If you’re a stunt pilot, flying in risky air shows, why would you even dare to call your plane anything related to ghosts? Isn’t that like, well, tempting fate? Or did Leeward have some inking of the future?

















