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He did not answer why the plane seemed to try and pull out of the dive at the last minute.

Thanks for the good post.

Perhaps because with a failure of the high-speed trim tabs (or whatever) the plane is naturally inclined to “pull up.”

PS, I live here, was driving by within 5-10 miles within the hour after the crash, and can tell you that trying to be a reliable weather analyst from one direction in the sky is a fool’s mission.

I vividly recall that we saw the northern end of the “Sierra Wave” set up as we were driving to friends in Sparks. That’s a pattern that sail plane soarers watch for (one of the top three locations in the world) and I see it regularly.

It’s no relation to the high-speed low altitude crash, but reminds me that the Sierra skies look VERY different at different angles and directions at a given moment.

Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t live here to opine that “the clouds look wrong”.

**He did not answer why the plane seemed to try and pull out of the dive at the last minute.**

For a given flight control setting, the plane will try to settle on a certain speed. Slow it down (as in a climb) and turn loose the stick, the plane will naturally nose over to try to return to the airspeed the elevator is trimmed for.

Also, push the nose down, the plane will gain speed. At some point, the horizontal stabilizer will generate enough force (due to its position and trim) to raise the nose and try to return to its normal speed for that configuration.

Say you are straight and level at cruise, pull back on the stick to pitch the nose up 10 degrees, then just let go. The nose will fall and you will be above your cruise speed, at which point the nose will come back up (above the horizon) and you will slow below your cruise speed. This will continue, and hopefully, the departures from normal speed will be less with each oscillation.

I think we saw the plane’s airspeed go way above what the tail was set for, and normal aerodynamic forces were causing the nose to start to pitch up without any pilot input.

I spent the Friday within 1/2 mile of the airport. I even watched the F-18 demonstration earlier in the day when there were a few clouds. I was at my house at 4:15 and left for the Bonanza at about 4:20. I did not pick up a jacket since it was sunny with patchy clouds.
Here is the info from a weather station located within 1/2 mile of the site:

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KNVRENO9&month=9&day=16&year=2011

You can see from the tabular data when the clouds burned off and the temp started to rise. Some clouds came back in the early afternoon, but I do not think it was a heavy as in the picture. I still maintain the one picture is not time correct due to the heavy cloud cover.