Originally Posted by
falcon900
...simply noting that nothing that has been said would contradict the possibility of the engine developing less thrust than the pilot was expecting for the given throttle setting. A question which is central to the accident sequence of events
Whilst this may be true, the whole POINT of having "energy check points" in an aerobatic display routine is to make it obvious to the pilot if something like a power reduction has occurred. I can remember Brian Lecomber saying (in his lectures on aerobatic display flying) that he would have a number of check points in a display, each explicitly chosen for a height or speed that would give an objective measure, and placed immediately before a manoeuver which could either be "ammended" (eg three flicks become two or one) or terminated altogether to suspend/abort the display.
The plain fact of the matter is that the aeroplane was both lower and slower than it should have been (both by massive margins) at what should have been an obvious energy check point. That the manoeuver or even the display was not aborted at that point is a matter of the pilot's responsibility - the cause of the energy loss is only a minor contributory factor. The pilot appears to have been drilling additional holes in the cheese. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that a car crash was due to the light rain at a tight corner, rather than the driver's choice to enter that corner at 140mph.