|
Well, it's an aerobatic plane so the wings likely are not 'wet' (containing fuel).
But, for the plane to be even slightly manageable, it would need to have a greater power:weight ratio, something single piston-engined prop planes are not known for.
True, it lost some weight when the wing tore off, but it also lost a ton of (if not all) lift, basically making the plane even heavier.
In order to have even an instant of control, the pilot would have to be walking the pedals like a stairclimber and the working the stick like a rowing machine, but there are no violent movements of the control surfaces. It's likely that the flaps and ailerons on each wing were mechanical (cables or push-rods) with no redundancy. With the wing separated, such a system would have either jammed or torn loose.
At that altitude, the engine could not make max power, so there would be little chance of keeping it in a prop-up attitude. It would have suddenly become so nose heavy that it would auger-in before the pilot had time to react.
The photographer could not keep the plane 'in frame' when it was airborn, but magically kept it center frame for the 'landing'.
Finally, and maybe most convincing that it's fake - there is absolutely no record of this incident in the files of the NTSB going back to 1999. If such a thing occured, the pilot, and the Tower, would have been required to report it. The plane type would have been grounded until the cause of the wing separation were discovered, and a fix implemented by NTSB order, or the type de-certified.
In fact, the only incident of wing separation on an aerobatic plane in the NTSB files occured on Feb. 5, 1975, and it was a two-seater aircraft. The pilot was able to evacuate through the windshield and parachute safely to the ground while the back-seater couldn't and was killed in the crash.
Personally, to me the thing looks and sounds like an R/C model.
|
Threaded Mode
