BEagle:
"Pilots were killed by trying it too low, failing to pitch up sufficiently to avoid descending, then hitting the ground at around the 90 deg to go point...... "
I can relate to that directly. I was once asked to do an Ad Hoc ten minute performance to fill in some time at an airshow where I was just supposed to land and be a static display.
I had not practiced any routine but I thought that a roll at about 300 feet in front of the crowd would do for a start. I did not realise just how much altitude you could lose doing that and very large amounts of rudder and forward stick was enough to get me out of it but my Nav and I were pretty ashen faced for a while afterwards. It was in a CF-100 which did not have that much of a rate of roll.