I posted this on the other list, here's a heads up to something that happened
to me.

My plane is a Series 5, with IO-240B and with Trim Assist spring.

I was out of 8500 feet descending through a hole in the clouds, steep
nose down with 11 degrees of flaperons, and trimmed. Speed started to build
so I tugged in 22 degrees at about 80+ mph (something I normally do
not do, but I wanted to see if they'd slow the plane). What happened next
was with absolutely no warning.

Few seconds later I was holding a bit of stick pressure to keep the same
nose down attitude. Then with no warning stick control went away and
the nose dropped violently down, and everything in the plane hit the ceiling
or inside of the windshield. I hit my legs into the bottom of the instrument
panel and slammed up in my straps.

I'm pretty sure it went past vertical, and I grabbed the flaperon handle and
pushed it back out of 22, and got the stick forward a bit. Somehow I ended
in a nose down vertical dive and got it back under control. By the time I
pulled out I'd lost well over a thousand feet.

Pretty sure my flaperons blanked the tail, and it tailplane stalled. But I can't
say for sure. Anyway had it been in the pattern I'd have been dead. Which
very well could happen, as I've often thought to tug in 22 degrees
on a fast descent to try to slow down. But luckily never did do it.

I'll let the list figure out what happen, or the test pilots in the lot. Anyway
my personal opinion is that the variable incidence tail, with heavy nose,
the spring assist and too much flaperons all at the wrong time can put you
tail over nose in a bad way, a lot faster than you can imagine.

Regards,
Jeff Hays