F1 great Niki Lauda has passed

Amazing F1 driver, godspeed.
 
Didn't really know that much about him till I watched the movie, Rush.
R.I.P Mr Lauda
 
I saw him at Watkins Glen in 1976 a few months after his accident- the garage areas for Formula 1 then were much more accessible to the public. You could see that his injuries made people around him cringe- he was a mess.

Most of todays drivers are too corporate- Niki was a character who will be missed.
 
Lol, they briefly mentioned his stint as an airline entrepreneur-
There's an episode of Air Disasters on Smithsonian that dealt with the crash of one of his airliners. He dogged the investigation teams & Boeing (?) until they found that the crash was caused by a defect (reverser opening mid-flight) that the maker claimed was recoverable. Only above a certain altitude, it wasn't. He was a man of integrity, wouldn't let the pilots get blamed for something beyond their control.

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He has been missing from the Mercedes paddock all season. I figured something healthwise was up. 3 F1 world championships. Iron Will. He will be missed.
 
He dogged the investigation teams & Boeing (?) until they found that the crash was caused by a defect (reverser opening mid-flight) that the maker claimed was recoverable. Only above a certain altitude, it wasn't.
I remember that, too.
 
Lol, they briefly mentioned his stint as an airline entrepreneur-
There's an episode of Air Disasters on Smithsonian that dealt with the crash of one of his airliners. He dogged the investigation teams & Boeing (?) until they found that the crash was caused by a defect (reverser opening mid-flight) that the maker claimed was recoverable. Only above a certain altitude, it wasn't. He was a man of integrity, wouldn't let the pilots get blamed for something beyond their control.

Sent from notthedroidyourelookingfor

Great man! Made Boeing blink, but the sad part, is that Boeing is still short cutting testing of their aircraft.
 
Great man! Made Boeing blink, but the sad part, is that Boeing is still short cutting testing of their aircraft.

Airbus and others have been eating them alive in the civil aviation market and that competitive pressure has proved unhealthy in terms of a/c safety. Now that the 737Max has exposed their desperation to sell and place product above all else, they are in a real shaky position.
 
I always marveled at the talk of his "rivalry" with "Hunt the Shunt". Those two were in different classes!
 
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