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Skip wrote
> One correction to your post -
the Columbia test pilot did not bail out
> because of an unrecoverable
spin,
I talked to the test pilot at the 2003 Lancair
fly-in just a couple days after this
incident. What I remember of his report
is as follows:
- this was a production copy of
a test item that had been tested years earlier and passed
- a series of spins was
performed, each deeper than the previous
- at some point an unrecoverable
spin condition occurred
- the chute was
deployed
- the spin was
recovered
- the chute had a guillotine
mechanism installed so that the chute could be released.
unfortunately the release links
jammed the guillotine so that there was no way to release the chute
- the pilot attempted to fly
with the chute dragging but could not achieve better than a 45 degree nose down
angle
- pilot ejected at a few
thousand feet or less
- airframe incinerated
itself
what I find most interesting about this is that the
production item behaved different than the prototype built to the
same drawings. what does that say about your
airplane vs. mine?
Colyn
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