A Eurofighter performing at an airshow in Italy has crashed, killing the pilot. Here is a video. The plane is small, but visible. Perhaps those who are familiar with such things can deduce what happened? Jacob
Looks like he made the same mistake that the solo Thunderbird pilot made at Mountain Home several years ago. The top of the loop was completed at too low of an altitude. When he reached the bottom of the loop Mother Earth reached out and showed him who was in charge. The cause of the T-Bird crash was the pilot did not properly set his altimeter prior to take off and miscalculated the top of the manuver.
The bottom of a loop always seems like a dangerous maneuver. Even at local air shows with a prop plane, they always seem to try to do a low pass at the end of a vertical loop. For 99% of the audience, they would be just as thrilled with a loop that ends at 300' AGL instead of 100' AGL. There are many other ways to do a low-pass in front of the crowd without the risk of the loop being involved.
Tragic. Not sure much calculation was involved over the ocean...pilot just had no clue what was required to accomplish what he attempted...Typhoon is a great plane. I loved flying it. But it can't do everything... RIP
Climbing turn to a Split S (roll followed by decending half loop)....seemed that he had enough altitude to complete the maneuver but just never completed leveling out. Medical? G-LOC?
Not sure how we can say it looked like he had enough altitude to finish his split S. You can start a split S at 500 fet AGL and it ain't gonna work...see T-Bird post above. GLOC is possible, of course, but seems less likely in that this dude was pretty well warmed up. Maybe fatigue nearing the end of the "show" makes it more likely. It's definitely a possibility. Argument against GLOC is that the Typhoon G suit is a full coverage G suit that is super effective. I used to rack 9G in that suit for minutes on end with NO anti-G strain whatsoever. That's how good it is. Another argument against GLOC is that GLOC usually occurs right at onset of G, due to poor prep. Split S starts fairly low G and load comes on smoothly and predictably through the maneuver, making Anti-G efforts fairly easy, even when tired. It's very different than hitting the merge at 0.8G and racking an instantaneous 9G pull.
Some great insight into flying one of these.....thanks for posting Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
