His diagrams make it clear that he observed the bird first from the side, about 200 feet away and 50 feet high. That view showed him that the bird was "largely black" with white trailing edge of the wing and white visible both on the upstroke and downstroke. He also noted the manner of flight. Certainly his notes thus far are in agreement with the view he had. Then he observed the bird fly away from him while it gained altitude, giving him a clear view of the back. It is not clear from the notes exactly how long he saw the bird from the latter angle. He mentioned he saw it at that angle "after the final downstroke", but his drawings indicate the total view was 5-6 seconds and the latter angle was almost half of that, which implies (though he doesn't explicitly state it) that the bird was gliding upward after the final downstroke. At the very least, an accounting of his dorsal view as 1/16th of a second does not agree with the diagrams he drew.
Ilya, from your problematic "1/16 of a second" you have done quite the long distance personality profile of Tyler Hicks, with assumptions about how much of a fraud he is (apparently not "complete"), his capacity for self-delusion ("really really wishes", not "truthful with himself"), and his veracity ("outweighed his honesty"). Might I suggest, Ilya, that your "gut feeling" is that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct. Based on that, you have made a series of impolite assumptions about Tyler Hicks which fits your gut feeling. I would suggest that such a personality profile performed over the Internet without any actual contact with Mr. Hicks is extremely unreliable.