#180 @ 9:00 One sees the actual departure of the trim tab from the airframe. So, "broke off" is not an accurate way to describe the tail damage. It broke, but "off" came later, near the apex of the ascent.
The Roll to wings vertical prior to the climb is interesting in that it may involve other than control surface deflection. Look carefully at the sheet metal on the underside of the wing in the slomo. Either the light is changing, or the under surface is "unloading", losing its dynamic "crush" in a ....STALL?
21G? No comment. Leeward was in high G well before the mini roll left, and may have been impaired/incapacitated before the climb itself.
Them's some very short wings. AoA at the "Roll"? Anyone?
addend. Watch the slomo carefully. As the a/c is "rolling" left, notice the NOSE dropping, alot. The a/c then looks to have recovered itself, and the Pitch Up is dramatic, very quick. So this unusual 'snap' left may have been the port wing dropping in STALL. It would be the one to drop out, as Leeward arrested the left roll 'turn' he had just made, its velocity being slightly less than the right wing, due turn radius, and its aileron increasing its net AoA, drag.
It is the Nose Drop that would have violently overloaded the tail feathers, producing the longitudinal collapse of the tail section evident in the still photo (wrinkling). So if the geometry of the image is accurate, the photo will have been exposed in the split second before 'climb'.
Just as the tail collapsed, it also Pitched the a/c UP. I think the pilot was a passenger after that Pitch change.
At Nose Drop, there would be large negative G. At Reversal into climb, large positve. Add Roll, and Yaw, and the human body may have exceeded its physical limits, as well as the tail.
Last edited by Lyman; 29th Sep 2011 at 11:43.