surely nose down trim and not nose up then as per Canadairs post? or am i miss reading his post on the techno side?

terrible news indeed. i was only just watching some of the reno racing from a link offered up by one of the forum members last week.

in the last turn they are doing between 400-450 knots and pulling between 2 – 5 g`s. the aircraft would i expect to be trimmed nose down to counter the lift forces of the wings at high speed and ease the control loads to the pilot.

if the trim tab failed at very high speed in the run in (but not as yet come away) then this would account for the sudden high G pull up at high speed as the aircraft lost its nose down trim. the sudden force forcing the pilot over the controls (harness may have been loosened after take off for pilot comfort, to be tightend again for landing) and possibly blacking out. there were some vague movements of the aircraft when inverted at the top of the roll which may suggest the pilot may have been regaining consciousness, the trim tab appears to become detatched around this point probably due to flutter.

the roll then tightens and the g`s increase again before entering its dive at which point recovery would have been impossible.

im only writing what i can see to a certain extent. no one can really comment on the pilots health at 70- 80 or age of the aircraft design as i know some 80 year olds that put me to shame in their youthfullness and the aircraft was modified to perform what it was doing just as much as a new design would have been.

unfortunalely it seems(?) a failure of such a small part may(?) have lead to the disaster, which at normal speeds would hopefully have been intervened by the pilot safely as long as hight and time allowed.

in true tradition of aviation lately they forgot to put the wheels down but with divine intervention they landed on a passing van and that saved the paintwork and the day?????

in amongst the fluffy clouds yesterday (monday)

helleva wingover, i thought he was gona lose it at the end when he was nearly inverted, it was almost going to be a barrel roll. cant believe that the DC4 is “what” 60 years old? the way he was throwing it around.

thanks for posting it

That’ll be Nej then… 😎

for all we know you might be swearing ha ha

its funny coz i had started a Stirling painting about 2 months ago but had to stall it due to work and hols etc. i may start again soon though to see how different weve approached the subject in our own ways

excellent selection of shots. you have both got some good panning action going on, it would be easy to get distracted with all that background whizzing by through the lense. its actually nice to see the ground in action shots such as this, it gives a better depth to the shot i think and inspirational from an aviation artist`s point of view.