loss | RobsBlogs

I was down at Renton and drove around the back of the ramp. There was a Cessna Grand Caravan parked up and I was tempted to get a shot. They have made that area a lot harder to see recently and I didn’t bother. However, I was up on the other side of the field at the overlook when it taxied out for departure. I heard the call sign was experimental which caught my interest and I grabbed some shots as it took off.

A few days later I heard of a plane crash up near Snohomish. I had seen this plane flying patterns up there when I was looking earlier in the day and, when I saw pictures on the news sites of the crash, I could see the registration was the same plane. I understand they were trialing something new – perhaps a baggage pod – but I have no idea what happened. It looked as if the wing had separated in flight since it was a long way away. The test pilot was one of the Kenmore Air staff. He died along with one other person on board. A very sad story.

There has been a string of losses in recent years of aviation individuals. When you see that there is an accident and someone has died, you wonder whether it is someone you have known. I wasn’t expecting it to be Vlado Lenoch. Vlado always seemed to be on top of whatever he was flying. A lot of my friends knew him a lot better than me but my time with him was always fun. He always put on a great performance when he was displaying but, when he wasn’t flying, he was a fun guy to be with.

I remember chatting with him up at East Troy where he was undertaking the first flights post restoration of Baby Duck, the P-51 in which he was flying when he crashed. The accident sadly claimed the life of his passenger too. We were sitting in the hangar and he was handing around fries that he had bought from a local McDonalds. He didn’t know me at that time but he was as friendly as someone I had known for ages.

On that day I was photographing the first two flights and he brought the P-51 down on a low pass giving me some great head on shots. Afterwards I thanked him for missing me to which he raised his eyebrows and asked “Where you out there?”. He always flew the plane with élan. His takeoffs were always impressive and he was always offering a spare seat to someone he could share the fun of flying with. Plenty who were closer to him will miss him more than me but I am very sad at his loss and that of his passenger. Others will express thoughts about him more eloquently. For me, it is just goodbye…