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I once had a student who claimed her sense of balance was so good she could keep the airplane righside up with no attitude reference. So one hazy gray featureless day we went up with a plastic bottle half full of drinking water taped upright to the instrument panel. I put soap stickers over all three gyro instruments and the altimeter, and she put the hood on and told me she would let me know when the plane departed straight and level flight. I eased in a little very gentle left rudder pressure and the plane very gradually eased into a spiral to the left. As the bank angle gradually increased the nose crept below the horizon and the airspeed gradually crept upward. As it did, I smoothly eased the throttle back to keep the engine and prop noise constant. As the bank angle approached sixty degrees and the Gs approached two she said: "You've pulled us into a climb, you tricky bastard!" By this time the nose was well below the horizon, the airspeed had increased by fifteen knots, but I had kept the RPM constant by gradually reducing throttle, and the water in her bottle still indicated straight and level.Saw a Youtube video about a Tu-154 that suffered a total electrical failure over the trackless forests of Siberia. They used a glass of water as an attitude indciator....
I replied that inverted flight was useless in combat and airplanes equipped with inverted oil and fuel systems were limited to acro demo aircraft.
saying that that you can see films of BF-109's firing at US bombers while inverted. I explained that those 109's were not really inverted but diving through and away from the formation in a Split-S or Immelman and had positive G's the whole time; they said that was absurd.
Welcome to the Flat Earth Society! The pigheadedness of upright, one G, sedentary aviation X-spurts knows no bounds. You should capture the image of the armchair aviator wings flyboyJ uses and share it with your deserving friends.Bob Hoover had a routine where he make of video of doing a barrel roll in his Shrike, all while pouring himself a glass of ice tea.
I think somewhere back in the murky mists of time someone posted that video on this forum.I remember seeing Bob Hoover's demo with the tea, it was really cool.
The lack of an inverted system was the reason the spitfire had to roll inverted and pull, rather than simply pushing into a dive, so the lack of the inverted system did affect their maneuvers.I replied that inverted flight was useless in combat and airplanes equipped with inverted oil and fuel systems were limited to acro demo aircraft. The P-40, P-51, F-86, etc. are limited to 10 sec inverted flight.
Yeah, but it can't fly inverted; you said so yourself! So you roll inverted 'cause you can't fly inverted? What kind of bullshit is that??The lack of an inverted system was the reason the spitfire had to roll inverted and pull, rather than simply pushing into a dive
But what do you do when blue and green are chasing each other around the dial? What then?Blue up, green down - that's good enough for me !
I hope there's sarcasm in that comment!Yeah, but it can't fly inverted; you said so yourself! So you roll inverted 'cause you can't fly inverted? What kind of bullshit is that??
Our club T34B was designed to sustain 90 seconds of inverted flight due to its pressure injection carb and its "clunk type" fuel and oil header tanks. NATOPS said 90 seconds. FAA certificated Airplane Flight Manual said 30. My own inverted endurance was closer to the P51 et al than the FAA AFM.That is why the P-51 et al only need 10 sec of negative G capability - it allows them to 'push' the aircraft over. There was no way that they needed sustained inverted flight capability.
Yeah, but it can't fly inverted; you said so yourself! So you roll inverted 'cause you can't fly inverted? What kind of bullshit is that??
I had a discussion about this a while ago but I cant remember who with. Bob Doe thought he would be washed out of training because he hated flying inverted but I assumed the Spitfire/Hurricane couldnt fly inverted because of the problem in the BoB. I was told that they could for a certain period but what they couldnt do was bunt over into a dive, flying inverted is 1G but bunting over is more and the extra Gs flooded the carb/engine. So they half rolled and dived then rolled again maintaining +G.The lack of an inverted system was the reason the spitfire had to roll inverted and pull, rather than simply pushing into a dive, so the lack of the inverted system did affect their maneuvers.