Absolutely not a maintenance issue. It was a pilot proficiency issue. The pilot should have known about the blind spot, he wasn't paying attention early enough. He was directly over the B-17, it was under his nose, impossible to see from any angle unless the B-17 were to turn before the P-63 when the P-63 pilot could have seen it before his leading edge covered him up again. The air boss should have made the P-63 pilot aware that there was a B-17 under him, and to maintain altitude. Who knows?
Too many planes in the air in a congested area, and too many changes in altitude. The P-63 never made any last second effort to avoid the collision, thus my hypothesis that he never saw him. These pilots pay too much money, or maintenance time to want to just fly straight and level. Who wants to buy an F1 car and drive it 60 mph around the track. Airshows are like that, and they are all "Newbies" in a sense. I bet none of them have over 100 hours of seat time in anything they fly due to cost.
I remember when you could purchase a P-51 for between $300-500k. My dream plane. As soon as I made enough money to purchase one, that was what I was going to do, and people would get to watch me at airshows. Big dreams for a 16 year old. After being around Don and Howard, I realized that the purchase price was just a drop in the bucket. You needed to pour that much into it, annually, for maintenance and enough fuel to stay proficient, and this was on $2.00/gal 100LL.
These warbird pilots are living their dream, however, they were completely unaware of how much extra dough you must have above the purchase price to be safe in it. Something that my time as a mechanic and being around warbirds, and their owners taught me. It was a bitter truth, and a crushed dream.
I remember throwing full blown toddler temper tantrums when we had to go to church on Sunday night (my Dad was the song leader) and missing Baa Baa Black Sheep. No VCR, no recording it. I think my mom was the one that called ABC and had it moved to Tuesday night. I slept, ate, and drank WWII warbirds.
Yeah, F8F, I was bourbon typing, had to look this morning and see what I had typed.
CHIEF