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[bearfoil]

henra

I think you are quite wrong. The Vertical Stabilizer is NOT a wing, it is a FIN. It has ALL LIFT designed out of it. It is symmetrical in chord, and falls ballistically. The concentration of mass is low and Frontal, so the expected aspect is as I describe, it FALLS bottom down. There may be excursions in spiral, but these are slight, and eventually degrade into "0" as the Rudder Centers. The Rudder has no desire to remain deflected in ballistic trajectory, there is no impetus to sustain it. BEA is wrong if they project a conclusion based on the Fin acting as a wing.

Of course the flying wing is unstable, it has camber, and is not aerodynamically docile, as the Fin is designed to be. Come to think of it, the upward bending lower ribs solidify the opinion of entry into the water exactly as I have said, forward lower corner down, at not insignificant velocity. I think BEA have no opinion on the lower LE damage, as I do. If the VS popped out after impact, it had lost almost all of its energy, but almost certainly too much of it to end up as the significant damage expressed in the LE. It is a stretch to believe that the Fin "Rolled" over the Dorsal Fin, causing the damage to LE.

I'm out on a limb I know, I've gotten a little too explicit and may be extrapolating too heavily, but my picture of the VS portion seems clearer and more in line with Occam than BEA.

have an excellent day,

bear

edit SaturnV Some help please. If the Brazilians were searching FluidFlow's impact point in the days after the crash, why would they be expected to see anything? Drift?