Doug:

Ah! A fellow full scale aerobatic nut!

I also had 500+ hours in my Pitts S1-T and think I understand the mechanics of a Split-S, Loop, and Reverse Cuban......In all my practice time, if I ever found myself too low coming out the backside of a looping maneuver, I NEVER cut the power.....it's gobs of power that saves your butt......Why intentionally get behind the power curve and get whacked by a G-stall, when the ground starts lurking and one instinctively starts sucking the stick into one's gut or slamming the stick into the panel doing an English Bunt.....

At EAA, the 15's & 16's, ANG and AF planes showing off, often come across the field low and slow, down and dirty, and then punch it up into a burner climb to 10,000.....I am always amazed at how fast they can transition from 150kts down and dirty to a vertical climb on burner....it like right now....I mean it's lite the burner(s), rotate to vertical, suck up the gear and go!
Still wonder why the #6 didn't do that when he started coming down like the shuttle.....did he freeze, or did the motor or control's freeze??

As I have lost several IAC friends to "Mush Accidents" coming out of looping maneuvers, and witnessed 2 professional airshow pilots do themselves in at EAA on backside mushes, I always respected the apparently simple maneuver when at low altitudes......
Randy Gagne(now deceased), my longtime aerobatic instructor used to pound into his students page 51 in Eric Muller's aerobatic monograph "FLIGHT UNLIMITED"....title "The stall after 270 on looping maneuvers"......Eric notes "There is an interesting phenomenon in flying, which is that the earth's gravitational pull is able to increase the aircraft's angle of attack without any change of power or stick position by the pilot. This is precisely what happens after 270 deg in a looping maneuver, if by that time you are very near the critical angle of attack: the aircraft will stall as if by magic"....Eric provided a schematic of the vectors acting on the plane between 270 and pull out if you are interested...

So whether you are flying a BobCat or Pitts and get mushy on the pull after 270 or are coming down like a greased man-hole cover in a Viper, EASY on the stick passing the 270 and kick the burner......

So it all comes back to: Did that Captain have power and control integrity coming out of the backside of the turnaround 1/2 roll, 5/8 loop on a steep upline or not?
Until those facts are known with certainty, all of your posts and mine are nothing but speculation based on our own fantasies of what really happened.

Regards,

Tom