Private Mach 2.5 aircraft crash and wing flutter failure

Kit-aircraft Mach 2 program in Nevada desert; sold engines from Pratt & Whitney military jet derivative with movie-star customers assembling the airframe themselves under FAA self-build rules. First aircraft blown up at 40,000 ft, test pilot killed. Second aircraft crashed; Tom called in by the owner (the second test pilot). Theory: supersonic wing flutter from a poorly adhesive-bonded lead damping weight detaching. No mechanical fastener backing up the adhesive bond.

I'll tell you another story. Some people would like to own an F-15, go Mach 2 or something like that, and they're fairly rich. But the government won't sell you an F-15 without all kinds of export controls. Some movie stars and others have enough money, they could buy the engine. There was this one company — I don't know where they incorporated, but they were doing their tests in the Nevada desert, and it was called Pereg— Green Falcon [Peregrine Falcon]. I think they were selling these aircraft for like $10 million. Basically you just buy the engine from Pratt and Whitney or whoever, and it was the same engine basically as the commercial version. I don't know if I want to say it's the commercial version, because this one would go Mach 2. It was a military engine, but it was sort of a commercialized version of the military engine that's in the F-15.

Reno-based homebuilt-loophole aircraft program: $10M deposit aircraft, second test pilot (the owner) killed at Mach 2 / 40,000 ft over Nevada desert. Tom's forensic finding: inadequate adhesive joint on the lead-weight damper at wingtip — wing flutter went unstable and ripped the wing off. Wreckage spread over 50 miles. Tom's signature observation: "Why they didn't put a screw in there to join the lead to the aluminum is beyond me."

A number of times I've been asked to go to Washington and talk to the regulatory agencies, in part because I'm at a university — I'm sort of a neutral party. Sometimes there's a lot of money involved. One day I didn't have to go to Washington because right up here by Burlington Mall the Federal Aviation Administration has offices — they have offices around the country, but these offices have to approve parts manufacturing if it's not the original.