ORIGINAL: Granpooba
ORIGINAL: Doug Cronkhite
ORIGINAL: kurt2022
The reports of the elevator trim tab causing the crash make no sense to me because the main elevator would have easily overcome its loss, I think! I wonder if the whole elevator was fluttering and about to come apart which made the elevator unresponsive. I don't fly my rc planes at 500mph so I'm not sure about this theory but would like to hear some input on this,
The trim tab failing can absolutely cause what happened. There are 2 tabs on the elevator of a P-51, the pitch trim tab, and a control boost tab. The trim tab coming off could have damaged the boost tab, instigated flutter, or any number of things. Likely what happened is, the trim tab failed, the boost tab went full down, driving the elevator full up. At those speeds, that would create 12 - 14G of pitch up almost instantly, which will put ANYONE to sleep regardless of age. That amount of G also probably overcame the tailwheel up-lock mechanism causing it to extend.
Trim tabs / boost tabs are SECONDARY flight controls. PRIMARIES should be full operational regardless.
At 400+ MPH these planes are at the limit of what they were designed for. ANY failure is critical. And in the case of an elevator control on a plane that already needed additional as the speed picked up, failure would be catastrophic. As in the case of the other one that climbed to 9K before the pilot regained control. Unforchantly GG did not have any spare altitude What is awesome is the plane did not drift 50 or more feet to the right through the loop. And at these speeds that would be easy. Not taking anything away from how bad this is, but it could have been so much worse. Have been and will be praying for all affected by this.