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FEs always fly the aircraft - the pilots just steer!
I had an uncle who flew both P39s and P47s in WW2. He mentioned something about that in a spin in the P39 the pilot was sometimes beat up badly by hitting his head on the sides of the canopy. It was designed for a pilot no more than 5 ft 8 in. I got the distinct impression he preferred the P47.
I too am not a pilot, but I was going to say the same thing and for the same reason.Not being an aviator I can only guess but I would of thought something like the Piper Cub, Storch, Lysander or Stringbag would be the most forgiving of ww2 aircraft to fly having such slow stall speeds it must give the pilot much more correction time if they **** up.
The P-39 had a tendency to enter viscious end-over-end spins that were almost impossible to recover from.
T-37 spin recovery procedures
1. Throttles-Idle
2. Rudder and Ailerons-Neutral
3. Stick-Abruptly Full Aft and Hold
4. Rudder-Abruptly Apply Full Rudder Opposite Spin Direction and Hold
5. Stick-Abruptly Full Forward One Turn After Applying Rudder
6. Controls-Neutral After Spinning Stops and Recover From Dive
T-38 spin recovery procedures
1. Handgrips raise
2. Trigger pull
IIRC the T-38 procedures were universally adopted for F-4, F-8 and always at the 'ready' for the F-14?
With hindsight being 20/20 had tricycle been the norm for combat aircraft of the period, there would of been fewer accidents and washouts because of zero time student attempting to master "torque abundant" tail draggers, especially in a cross wind. The design philosophy of the day was to go with a tail wheel configuration as it did better on dirt fields and adding the nose gear increased complexity and weight.As far as the discussion of trike vs. tail dragger goes most aircraft of the period were tail draggers so that is what the pupils of the time would have experience of and not really be a factor for someone just out of a T6
The toe, heel braking difference may have caused some consternation though.
It's basically complete - I'm going to post some info in my thread about it.Speaking of Piper Cubs, how is yours coming along Joe?