"It's a one-G maneuver. It's absolutely nonhazardous, but it's very impressive."
So Tex Johnson explained himself to Boeing president Bill Allen after performing an impromptu barrel-roll in the 707 prototype before a Seattle gathering of IATA bigwigs. Equally impressive, but more subtle, was Bob Hoover's demonstration, watchable on YouTube, that he could smoothly pour water from a pitcher into a glass while rolling an Aero Commander, and people sitting back in the cabin might be unaware that anything unusual had occurred.
Almost any airplane can be rolled, but few can be rolled legally. Normal and utility category airplanes are not permitted to exceed a bank angle of 60 degrees. Only acrobatic category airplanes may be rolled, and then only when the occupants are equipped with parachutes. Nevertheless, the enforceability of such regulations at several thousand feet and in remote places being somewhat problematic, a good many Cessnas, Cherokees, Cirruses and their ilk have, in fact, been rolled-or so I would surmise, never having seen it done myself.
There is something not only impressive but viscerally delightful about turning an airplane on its back and bringing it round upright again; it is the same delight children feel when they turn somersaults in swimming pools. We are not surprised, therefore, to read of a man who, after seeing a Beech 18 and a Baron rolled, wanted to try it in his own newly purchased Baron. I will call him Joe. Joe had over 1,000 hours, acquired over a three-year period, and an instrument rating; he had recently gotten his multiengine rating as well.
A friend of Joe's reported having been with him on the return flight from Sun 'n Fun, where they had seen the Beech 18 rolled in an airshow. As they cruised at 9,500 feet, Joe said, "I want to try something." He banked left and right and then said, "I believe it's possible to roll this airplane." With that, he entered a shallow dive, banked left, pulled back and rolled to the right. The friend in the right seat, displaying an assertiveness and independence of spirit rare among right-seat occupants, grabbed the controls and leveled the airplane, telling Joe, "I cannot do this."
"I believe it's possible to roll this airplane," Joe repeated. He then descended to 7,500 feet, leveled off, inexplicably caged the right engine-nothing was wrong with it, but it did have more hours since overhaul than the left-and continued to Griffin, Georgia, where he restarted the right engine for the landing.
Another pilot, who knew Joe and had flown with him, considered Joe's flying skills to be "below his standards." He "was known for overstressing the planes he flew," said the pilot, who had himself predicted, with remarkable prescience, that Joe "would probably crash an airplane within the next year."
Another friend, when Joe told him that he thought he could roll the Baron, replied that he, Joe, "was stupid," and cautioned him "not to do anything in the airplane that could get him hurt."
Two days later, Joe, together with two other men and the 13-year-old twin sons of one of them, was returning in the afternoon from a fishing trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama. They were cruising in mild and clear weather at 9,700 feet with a groundspeed of 191 knots. A witness, fishing in a boat on a lake near Hamilton, Georgia, heard the approaching Baron and judged from its engine sounds that it was performing some kind of aerobatic maneuvers. He looked up, but could not spot the airplane. As the engine sounds increased in intensity, he looked again and this time saw the Baron, high and descending rapidly in a steep dive. As he watched, he saw a part separate from the airplane. The Baron disintegrated in flight, raining pieces down over a path almost a quarter-mile long.
When an airplane breaks up in flight, the sequence of events can usually be inferred from the order in which parts lie along the so-called "debris path." The National Transportation Safety Board's report on the accident devotes seven single-spaced pages to a minutely detailed description of the Baron's debris path. The breakup began at the tail and progressed forward. The first item was the rudder, which had torn away from the fin. The tip cap and balance weight had broken off and the rudder showed marks of overtravel in both directions. Next were the left horizontal stabilizer and elevator, which were heavily fragmented, followed by the right stabilizer and elevator. Then came the vertical fin and portions of the aft fuselage structure, followed by the cabin door, left wing, right wing, engines and so on.
