Ken Welter wrote:

  Yes and as you remember I told you at Arlington last year that Jim
was a accident waiting for a place to happen as the engine
installation was a compleat abortion and in addition to that he had a
aft CG problem and he would not listen to me about it and I told him
that it would be prone to stalling and spinning in the event of a
engine failure, then a couple months ago on a taxi test when he
lifted the nose wheel off the ground the nose came up and with full
stick forward he could not get the nose down and it stalled at about
ten feet off the ground braking the nose gear and one main gear and
damaging the hull. He repaired the damage but I do not know if he did
anything about the weight and balance but you would think he would of
at that point.
  Ken Welter

Its always particularly sad to learn of an accident that likely could have
been prevented.  You can fool yourself and perhaps others, but you can not
fool the laws of physics and aerodynamics - at least, not for long. I did
not know Jim, but my condolences go out  to his family and those who did
know him.

Ed Anderson

What doesn't make sense here is how he got an airworthiness cert if his W&B was
off. FAA (and presumably DARs) are pretty strict about W&B calcs; at least my
FAA inspector was.

Finn

Yes but do they actually check it or do they check just the paper work?
There is a saying in the professional A&P world. "I pencil whipped it."
Meaning I signed it off without actually doing the work. In my experience
the FAA rarely checks anything other than the paper work.

Paul Lamar
 
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