You seem to have missed some stuff in the thread (or maybe - a LOT). Most of your questions there are answered previously, and most of it all makes sense if you understand how things have worked for literally decades.
I was an IP on the wing of a T-38 2 ship with a solo lead when an TA-4 blew right by what would have been 3's position. Solo lead and the A-4 didn't see each other and we lived to see our girlfriends that night. Why is the analysis about what the P-63 could see. He should have been looking at lead and been in trail. Where did lead think his wingman were behind him in trail? It was trail, not extended trail. When you are formation lead in whatever alignment you are responsible for where your wingman are. So lead took his threeship into a potential conflict or 3 thought lead was effing up going to the 1000' line and did his own thing. Goatrope.
It's all in context of what the Airboss was asking them to do. Guaranteed, he was setting them up for in-trail passes for photos and that wasn't rocket science for the pilots to know why you fly past the crowd like that - for photos.
Makes sense isn't the same as me saying it was OK. Just that if you understand context, you're more likely to come to an accurate conclusion.
Yeah, it's definitely possible that something caused him to lag and then try to catch up, but I think that the evidence is that he flew the Tora show on that 500' line in the "Hawk" replica T-6 for the Tora show, and at the end of that, flew a brief solo acro routine in the "Hawk" as well, so of the three fighters, he was the one that was already the most familiar with the show lines that day, so I think the other theory is vastly more likely.
Nope.. Just pilot error. The airboss was also incompetent as well.
Well, what's your solution?
I'm not suggesting a solution, only noting that destroying the organization won't fix anything. IMO, this was a series of mistakes with terrible consequences and with several responsible parties. The holes in the swiss cheese lined up. There are ways to fill in some, maybe all of those holes without tearing things to the ground. Altitude deconfliction seems like the first one, and I'm sure there are quite a few others.
All of our aircraft are. Some (especially warbirds) are just more direct about it. I know this guy with a Decathalon... (I also know a guy with an RV-6 and RV-10, and a Tomahawk once upon a time who hasn't shared all of his stories...).
If the swiss is bad enough, there’s more air than cheese.
571 pages of interviews in docket will have you shaking your head. Noteworthy are short on scene interviews with all. Also noteworthy is later extensive interviews with excruciating extent with almost all. One telling missing later interview is with fighter lead. I guess he didn't want to talk about it.
This all seems correct, from a non-interested observer's point of view, but the goal of the airboss was to bring them all down to the same altitude for the photo passes. That was a known element, one that would have been expected, and altitude deconfliction would very deliberately NOT be a thing. Space between the groups WOULD have been a thing. That was not a point that the pilots would have even had a reason to question based on previous years. This isn't as "cowboy" as some people make it out to be, it's a general pattern that all of them expected - and photographers like myself could basically predict with small variations for wind direction and other minor factors. The thing is that the turn and timing was so badly off, as to be completely out of character for the expectations of the pilots and it begs the question as to whether or not the ride Stearman caught him off guard, or if some other factor that we don't know about played a role.
Yes, and the fighter lead's radio transmission acknowledged a visual on the Fortress, which begs the question why the NTSB report didn't dig any further into that aspect when combined with the other statments.
