Has any information been provided that there have been some form of recording equipment on board specifically related to the test flight?
Hi PJ2, (good to see you here)
The following is from a Seattle news outlet:
"According to a statement from Hal Chrisman, president of Raisbeck Engineering, the aircraft was confirmed under lease to Raisbeck, and “… at the time of the crash was under the command of two highly-experienced test pilots, both with over 10,000 flight hours. The purpose of the flight was to collect baseline aircraft performance data. The entire crew of four also included a flight test director and an instrumentation engineer.”
According to Raisbeck, the flight was conducted prior to the installation of a Raisbeck modification, which is “standard industry practice that allows aviation engineering firms to establish baseline aircraft performance under a highly structured flight profile to later measure and compare the change in performance after any proposed modifications are installed. The aircraft was in this initial testing phase and had not yet been modified in any way.”
The above seems to indicate there was testing / recording equipment on board. If the memoriy modules of that equipment surivived the crash, they will likely be of significant help to the investigators.
Grizz