Despite my earlier statement I'm starting to lean in the direction of Pittsextra.
In our society there is a strong tendency turn a blind eye to the "folk-hero".
We are as a society very willing to come up with all sorts of excuses if one of our hero's falls of his pedestal.
I am talking about soccer players, rugby players, boxers, kick-boxers, golfers and other celebrities in general when they are caught :
- drinking and driving
- involved with organized crime
- domestice violence
- caught cheating
In his quest to beat Strega it seems Mr Leeward took a step too far.
Being the self made man and (NASCAR like) hero that he was he got away with it till this fatal event.
The NTSB report is clear.
In addition, the “filler material” used on both trim tabs increased their weight and changed their center of gravity, they said. That made the aircraft more sensitive to pitch control.
“It is likely that, had engineering evaluations and diligent flight testing for the modifications been performed, many of the airplane’s undesirable structural and control characteristics could have been identified and corrected,” the NTSB said.
*** Warning *** OFF topic ***
And am I the only one to think the chair(wo)man of the NTSB is quite the looker:
