Anyone had a hard read through of Appendix H (the flight tests).
I'm struggling a bit with the comments that:
The 'bent' loop tests indicated that the apex height and airspeed of the accident manoeuvre was consistent with a maximum performance pull-up from 300 KIAS with significantly less than full thrust and with a 45-90 bend initiated approximately 5 seconds after pull-up They also showed that the apex height for a 'bent' loop was 300 - 400 ft less than for a straight loop when all of the other parameters remained constant.
But on the TP flying bent loops the report states "The pull-ups were flown in light buffet throughout " (so presumably this was what was meant by max performance and was perhaps the TPs only way of replicating the accident manouever "numbers")
Why would anyone entering the botttom of a vertical manouevre at low level knowingly low on energy deliberately fly the pich up from the get go manoeuver in the buffet?