Others have given most of the answers but on a point of detail...

"Orval Fairbairn" wrote in message
news
In article ,
(builderbos) wrote:
but also that the turn in the air somehow elicited
some kind of excessive "G's" or whatnot (you'll have to fill in
whatever it is I heard elsewhere...I'm assuming it related to the
difficulty a human being would have to withstand the last turns at the
speeds that the plane was going at while maintaining control of the
craft, etc.).


No excessive G's. The videotapes show only small bank angles -- so no
high Gs.

The objection you may have heard about the G forces is not a physiological
one but an aerodynamic one. When a plane is being flown by hand, the forces
in a turn will tend to make the aircraft lose altitude and require the pilot
to make an adjustment in his vertical guidance. The pilots in question
seemed to be doing that successfully. But this effect can be learned on MS
Flight Simulator; it wouldn't be hard even for unskilled pilots to
understand and master. And, as Orval said, the bank angles were small so the
effect was minimal.

It's also possible to fly the plane in such a way that the forces imposed
will damage the integrity of the airframe, but although they were going
faster than they should, again the turns wouldn't have done any more damage.
Yes, I understand the distasteful image that conjures up, but they did need
the aircraft's wings to stay on until the point of impact.

-- David Brooks