You are missing the point of most of the post that are questioning this accident...My questions are just that questions about how the 12 is built, how it works and what would it do in certain situations.
Most people have no intentions of pounding a guy when he is down...The comments about transition training are valid regardless. We owe it to our community to advocate the use of transition training!!!!
John stated that he rolled out, the airplane pitched up 60° and he immediately applied full fwd stick and the plane continued to rare up, stalled and ended up busting the front end.
What else could John do? Not much I expect...
Was this caused by a trim tab that was not in the perfect place for takeoff? I doubt it since Larry did his own testing and determined that the plane is controllable when out of trim.
The real question here is why did this happen to John? With so many 12's taking first flights these days, I am sure many want to know this now rather than 6 months or more from now when the Feds make a final report.
It is clear that something was amiss and that something must be something that is easy to not notice or is confusing in some way or just different from what one would naturally think. If it is an out of place trim tab, there needs to be some stopgap in place immediately to prevent someone else from making this mistake!!
EDIT.....John stated in a PM that his stabilator/stick are correctly rigged......
I have asked a couple times and have got no response to my question about which way does the stabilator move in response to the stick???? Another poster already stated that it is possible to get the controls reversed since he did so and caught it on final inspection of the plane. Is this the case here? IDUNO but it is worth asking and if so, others will know to carefully check this out...
END of EDIT
Someone already mentioned above that this thread has served a great purpose in that it has caused someone to think twice about where they are in regards to being ready to take their bird on its first flight. If that is all this thread does, it will have served a great purpose!!!
I think Marty is right. Give the guy a break. Its over. The cause will be determined and all thats needs to be learned will be available to everyone. John is not hiding the cause and waiting for someone to discover it...its not a witch hunt...its an accident. John has already admitted he screwed up...maybe we can help him out instead of trying to convince him he doesn't know whats he's doing. I, for three (two I guess with Larry and Marty) that think its time to end this thread. Don't moderators have the authority to do this. It is no longer a educational experience. Its a pile-on.
