On the afternoon of September 3, 1996, I had just taken off from the Mineral Wells, Texas, airport where I worked as a test pilot for an autopilot manufacturer. The aircraft I was flying was an Experimental Lancair (N353RD), and I was conducting a test on an S-Tec 50 autopilot. Another pilot was supposed to have gone with me on this flight, but his weight would have adversely affected the aircraft’s center of gravity and I was doing a CG sensitive test. He would later thank me for not taking him along.
After takeoff on Runway 17, I turned southwest toward the neck of the woods where my wife and I live, approximately seven miles from the airport. I liked to fly over our house at 500-feet agl and look at the property, and my wife was usually home so she could get a glimpse of what I was flying that particular day.
