Raamstein?..
I get the impression that Germans have a considerable amount of
disposable income...just about all of these jet flicks I see are either
from the Continent or the UK.
I also remember specifically being warned off building a swept wing jet
as my first one because of the tendency for yaw induced snap rolls. We
had an Hornet jock kill himself in a QF-86 some time ago in just that
manner - used the wrong technique crossing a ridge line, slat deployed
on the opposite wing and flipped him into the mountain...we had the
wreckage spread out in the hangar for weeks. Was easily and repeatably
duplicated at altitude...wild ride.
I was surprised they built the low vertical fin version; I would have
thought you would have wanted all the stability you could get.
I always wondered if the low vertical fin was a result of the turbulence
problems encountered when refueling from a KC-135.
That led to the tail falling off the one over Spain that dumped the
H-bombs we had to recover.
Pat
It would be interesting to know how they got the CG right on the X-1 to
allow it to both glide and fly under rocket power.
Because the engine loses mass as the propellant burns, the X-1 should
have been nose-heavy after the rocket firing.
Maybe the mounted it at the center of the fuselage and had it exhaust
through a tube at the tail, or figured out someway to slide something in
the nose backwards to balance things out.
Pat
What was he doing flying a QF-86 around? Delivering it to a target range?
Those self-deploying slats were always a problem; they used them on the
BF-109 and Me-262 and the things were always deploying unexpectedly or
one side would jam and the other would stick. IIRC, a lot of Me-262
pilots just wired them closed to avoid the trouble with them, and
accepted the poor handling during low speed flight or at high angles of
attack.
Pat
Those RC jets - even the moderate sized single engine ones - are very
different from the average giant scale RC plane. When they go in you
sometimes get get the fireball. You don't see that with glow fuel
powered planes. They're completely different animals and are flown only
by the most expert RC pilots. Even so, when stuff goes wrong it often
leaves a smoldering pile.
BobbyG
the luftwaffe training vid the history channel had in it's me 262 program
shows a shwartzganger working on a front one with a small hammer and some
pliers. pretty loe-tech adjustments. pretty funny.
Yeah, the mention that they have to make sure that they move freely.
Pilots used to curse the things... they'd be in the middle of a
dogfight, get their guns lined up on the enemy aircraft in the middle of
a maneuver, and have the slats deploy, throwing off their aim.
You would have thought that after the Bf-109 Messerschmitt would have
gotten enough negative feedback not to use them on the Me-262, but
instead the Me-262 had a even more extensive slat system than its
predecessor, covering the whole leading edge of the wing.
At least they avoided them on the Me-163B, using fixed slots instead,
which may account for why Luftwaffe pilots said it was about the
best-handling aircraft they ever flew.
Pat
From what guys tell me, the only jet aircraft ever produced that
actually has a correctly sized vertical tail is a Tornado...
That's why so many third-gen fighters have twin tails.
Depends on how heavy the motor actually is, but yeah, I suspect it has
an exhaust tube. Other than that it would just require a trim change,
I'd think.
Yeah...we used to be littered with QF-86s...until we shot them all
up....er...down...
He was basically joy-riding. He managed to talk OPS into getting him on
the schedule, and the result was what it was. I've always wondered why
there isn't a cable mechanism on free-fall slats to make them deploy
symmetrically. Me 109s had them, too.
It's a problem on the TA-4 as well - caught a training video on spin
recovery for the TA-4 while I was at NAS Kingsville and they
specifically mentioned that. The tendency of a swept wing to yaw-induced
snap roll is only aggravated by an asymmetric slat deployment - the film
mentioned that, too. If I recall, the snap always happens in opposition
to the direction of yaw...
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