Originally Posted by ATC Watcher
Finally a stall in a Ju52 would not pitch down the aircraft to a vertical dive as suggested .
I sort of agree with you. an aggravated stall will not bobble the nose up and down the way AF447 did. Instead, an aggravated stall will induce a roll to inverted and the aircraft will dive. These older aircraft typically have rather rapid roll off in a stall.
In earlier posts, I mentioned the downward curvature of the vapor trail in the screen grab. This indicates steepening of the flight path, which if while maintaining a constant attitude, results in an increasing angle of attack. This was a 'gotcha' that D.P.Davies warned of in his book,"Handling the Big Jets." It would seem that the warning also applies to piston aircraft operating near their ceiling.
I too wondered whether the screen grab was significant since it was described as a picture of the aircraft shortly before the crash. When I saw the degree of angle of attack on the aircraft, it was clear that the aircraft was in extremis if the vapor trail was what it appeared to be. Following the vapor trail back, it became semi-transparent as a real vapor trail would. The fact that someone had already circled it meant that it was likely significant. Finally, did you ever ask why we only have a screen grab instead of the original video? I think it likely that the video would have been very distressing to those who saw it, but you can bet the accident board has seen it.