Hello sharpend, quote:
"Chris, with regard to your comment 'while still inverted after going over the top he became committed' I'm sure that if he realised he was in trouble, he would have rolled the right way up and aborted the manoeuvre. Thus he was either incapacitated or unaware of the danger."
Yes. In fact I was deliberately vague regarding the point at which rolling the right way up was no longer an escape option. I wrote:
"...at some point while still inverted after going over the top he became committed to completing a looping manoeuvre."
At the beginning of what I described as the intermediate segment of the descent (with low pitch-rate) that option was still available, IMHO. So, unless there was a control problem, the low pitch-rate
and not rolling upright can only be explained by your assertion above, which seems to cover the unintentional (incapacitation) and the intentional (over-estimation of height).
Can you fast-jet/aerobatic experts help me lay one remote possibility to rest? Early in this discussion, I
posted an observation about the dimensions of the Shoreham paved runway. IIRC, it's about a third of the width of a standard (instrument) runway and about half as long. Would it have been visible from the cockpit as the a/c was inverted and going over the top? And does my suggestion that the pilot might have been dazzled by the sun (in the south) and momentarily unable to read his altimeter make any sense?