Eric Greenwell wrote:
To recap, one of the SparrowHawks built for Mississippi State University
broke up in flight Oct 18. The pilot parachuted safely.

I just finished talking to Greg Cole, designer of the SparrowHawk. The
program manager from MSU visited him Monday to discuss the data from the
flight and pictures of the pieces. The short story is the pilot
inadvertently exceeded Vne while performing a rolling maneuver as part
of the test program, and the glider broke apart at 171 knots!


Was the test point intended to be a roll with CASVne or was it not
possble for some reason to perform a roll without exceeding Vne?

Is there any indication of the speed at which flutter started?

Andy