I realise this thread has wandered from time to time into what I’d view as odd areas, which I’d rather not get into.
Can I bring up something which seems to me might be fairly central in all this?
Something which has puzzled me is that it is said that AH had not rehearsed the escape manoeuvre mentioned, to act as a get out if things look wrong partway through a ~looping manoeuvre. That seemed unusual, for an experienced aerobatic pilot originally from a military background, carrying out low level aerobatics in a fast jet.
Then I started to think about his ‘normal’ every day flying environment and at the associated psychology/mindset. Back in his RAF days, I presume AH would have been used to rehearsing and practicing manoeuvres many times, including all sorts of emergency situations. Quite normal military practice, since after all most of their flying is very realistic ‘practice’ against the possibility of a real threat situation.
However, for more than twenty years most of AH’s flying had been commercial flying I believe. In general in that environment, emergencies are only practiced in the simulator during scheduled refreshers and re-validation exercises. The routine day to day operation is oriented towards completion of the flight. Emergencies are briefed on and ‘rehearsed’ verbally or internally, they are not routinely flown, quite understandably.
Could this then have produced an inadvertent but entirely understandable mindset in which the routine expectation was to complete the planned exercises, with emergencies being discussed or internally reviewed only? Hence it would not have seemed necessary to actually trial that manoeuvre, which would make it much less likely to be used.
It seems quite possible to me – this is not to criticise, simply to try to understand. I can think of a few times in my life when I realised in hindsight I was applying inappropriate criteria to a judgment call, because I’d not got the correct mindset running, so to speak.
Could this be an area where more detailed oversight and formal pre-briefing etc. could help encourage detail rehearsal and possibly avert an incident?
I’d very much like to know what some of the experienced folk on here think.