Ken Burnstine

[supercub]

Re: Ken Burnstine

One of several druggy race pilots over the years. Wasn't he doing low level aerobatics when he crashed? Makes one wonder if it was suicide.

[planecrazy2]

Re: Ken Burnstine

Jeez what a thread! Thanks for bumping this old dog.

This is history! This is what AAFO is all about. Can't get this sh!t on facebook.

[Big_Jim]

Re: Ken Burnstine

One of several druggy race pilots over the years. Wasn't he doing low level aerobatics when he crashed? Makes one wonder if it was suicide.

No, it was not low-level aerobatics. Upon arrival (with Jim Maloney in the PoF's Spam Can) Ken radioed he was going to drop down onto the course and take a couple laps of practice. He broke off and did a split-s from altitude but when he went to pull out something went wrong. The split-s turned into a rolling dive from which he was unable to pull out. Though it was investigated by the FBI as possible tampering, they could never prove anything, but the prevailing thought was either something jammed the control lines when the plane rolled over, or someone had tampered with the control wires (as in possibly cutting some of the control line threads through the access panel under the horizontal stabilizer) that broke when he started pulling g's during his pullout. He knew that something was wrong, as he made a transmission over the radio when he first felt something wrong.

[Big_Jim]

Re: Ken Burnstine

Some of the remains of Miss Suzi-Q were still out at the crash site east of the airfield the last time I hiked out there a couple years back. The impact, while not perfectly vertical, was at a pretty steep angle and not a whole lot was left of the airframe. The scatter-pattern was over about a 100 yard area in the desert.

[Guest]

Re: Ken Burnstine

Some of the remains of Miss Suzi-Q were still out at the crash site east of the airfield the last time I hiked out there a couple years back. The impact, while not perfectly vertical, was at a pretty steep angle and not a whole lot was left of the airframe. The scatter-pattern was over about a 100 yard area in the desert.

Long before my time. Safe to say KB was one of, if not THE, most colorful characters in RARA history?

[John H]

Re: Ken Burnstine

Quite a rap sheet not just smuggling .

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32264423.pdf

[Jonnybg]

Just dropping back in here -- I was looking for the NTSB report, but when I go to the NTSB site, it says there not a narrative there. Any chance someone may have it or know where it is? I found this https://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/brief.aspx?ev_id=53689&key=0 but it says the narrative is missing.