"a" wrote in message
...
On Oct 6, 2:59 pm, "Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote:
"a" wrote in message

...

My guess is he probably attempted too steep of a turn and
had no idea he was in any danger of spacial disorientation because
he
didn't
recognize that he was in instrument conditions. Unfortunately it's a
common
mistake for low time pilots and lots of them kill themselves that
way.

He was tracking right towards the airport, I'd assume on a/p. My guess
is he chose to hand fly and started his descent and lost it. There was
zero need for a turn at the place of the accident. A wings level
descent from 5500 feet to pattern altitude in 15 miles is what was
needed, so he needed to lose 4500 feet or so in 7 or 8 minutes. I
would rather go down slower, but less than 1000 fpm is not in itself
bad. Any turn other than course correction was not needed.

His aircraft was having intermittent problems with its autopilot. He may
have been preoccupied with it.

Personally I like to stay as high as I can, as long as I can. This would
be
especially true over water. Making a 1000 fpm descent is preferable to
descending too soon and needing that extra altitude at some point.

I don't remember reading about the a/p problems. But your notion of
too steep a turn planned by the pilot seems to be refuted by the
airplane heading and airport location. There is little doubt he did
enter too steep a turn but the narrative suggests several turns in
different directions as well as variations in altitude that would not
have been justified by rational pilot decisions. He was without a
visible horizon and without the skills to fly without one.

So is everyone who flies VFR over the top or on a moonless night. Are all
those pilots irrational as well? Perhaps, but if that's the case Kennedy
was no more or less irrational than thousands of other pilots who put
themselves into similar situations. That's my point.