RE: SOME MIGHT REMEMBER THIS
I know it's been a year since there were posts to this forum, and it's interesting reading the comments. I was the one who originally posted this picture on line - I have the original photograph hanging in my office, given to me by Kelly, the person who took the picture. This all happened long before photoshop and the "make history say anything you want" mentality.
I can tell you it is authentic and I remember the day it happened. I was a supervisor at the Fort Smith, Arkansas Control Tower - Kelly was an FAA technician in Fayetteville who had gone to the Harrison Air Show that day. We met him a week or so later and he was showing us these incredible pictures he had taken at the air show. He had several pictures of the ditch left in the grass. But this particular photograph was a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Reading the posts, and follow-up, I was glad to finally find the tail number on this airplane and the history of Doug Shultz who was piloting.
The NTSB report from Oregon occured in 1994 - four years after this tail strike. It was, and continues to be, one of the most fascinating photographs I have ever seen.