Tandemrotor
I am glad you raised an objection to the cruise climb scenario because it reminded me of a piece of obfuscation in one of the inquiries that went something like this (as I recall without delving back through it):
Boeing for one estimated a rate of climb of 1000ft/min and a “speed” of about 150kts over the last period of flight to get where it ended up; an RAF man made the point that only about 400ft/min was possible at that speed thus confusing the inquiry; you do not have to be Einstein to realize that the 150kts was made up of the normal 135kts cruising air speed and the strong tail wind – while its ground speed could have been 150 it could still have been climbing at 1000 – so why the obfuscation? Why not help clarify the situation to the legal types?
There are many such examples throughout the inquiries – and sometimes on this site.
But pardon the digression – bluntly, the argument for the a/c being in cruise climb is strong and certainly strong enough to use as a parameter in a “what if” scenario.
Now I appreciate where you are coming from – that there is nothing certain enough to justify that (appalling, in my view) verdict – and this uncertainty would also, I suspect, appeal to many of you as it would neither leave a case for blame on the RAF as a body, to which many of you would have (justifiably) proud association. However, the consequences of this crash to a significant section of the British people were so severe that all effort should have been made to establish the whole truth. Besides, after 11 years the tactic has not yet born fruit – but if it could be established that they had been given an extraordinary task which could have impacted on their flight safety then the revelation of this at this stage would surely exonerate them in the clearest way.
I have been exploring the possibility of them being misled (intentionally or accidentally) in their estimation of their range to their intended turning point. Regarding my previous post on “cruise climb”: however well you argue against this scenario, it is not only possible and entirely reasonable BUT also it is one of so many aspects that CORRELATE - let me give you an analogy:
Say, we are all given a box containing the same jigsaw puzzle;
someone has mischievously put the wrong picture on the boxes;
I plod away and get all the pieces to fit and get a meaningful picture;
without getting many of your pieces together, you complain that my picture does not match that on your box!