HiTech can you explain why

[MANDO]

is so difficult (or even impossible) to perfom correct hammer heads, tail slides and wingovers in AH? All these moves were pretty common and easy to do in WB and they "seem" very easy to do watching acrobatic flight shows.

[hitech]

Because the are not very easy, And you can do them in AH.

HiTech

[MANDO]

Lets go with the easiest example, hammer head. I go near vertical as long as I can and then I stop the engine well below stall speed, I have no more representative lift, I have no more thrust. What would the plane do? Go nose down inmediately?

[Golfer]

I'm not one to jump in the ring with the heavyweight champ of the company when it comes to threads regarding his coding but I do have a fair amount of upside down time in airplanes.

The execution of a hammerhead in any airplane is not an easily accomplished task and I assure you if just any joe could do them, they would.

There is a LOT of work put into the maneuver through practice that makes that graceful look, I remember trying my first few torque rolls in a Pitts S2C...I fell out of the sky more times than I can remember.  I have forrest gumped my way into several tail slides during this but I am not accomplished to the point that I can do it right every time.

There are a lot of aerodynamic forces acting on the airplane, especially in below stall speed flight requiring lots and lots and lots of attention and coordination to be available at an instant.




Regarding your description of the hammerhead, that isn't how you do it.  It's done with power on and is not done 'stopped' in the sky.  You can get any number of books about aerobatics and they can do a very good job of helping you along with the process of trying these out in game.

Best advice is to simply avoid the low/slow corners of the flight envelope for a while.

[g00b]

Todays aerobatic aircraft have monstrous control surfaces and thick airfoils designed for post-stall control. The earlier WWII planes like a6m2, spit mkII, fm2, hurri mkI that are closer to current aerobatic planes are noticeably better at wing-overs and such.

I'm curious if tumbling manuevers like the lomcevak and such were possible with WWII planes?

g00b

[MANDO]

Originally posted by Golfer
Regarding your description of the hammerhead, that isn't how you do it.

I know, but what would happen in that case? inmediate nose down or not?

[hitech]

Mando: the answere to your questions is , it all depends. In reality it is not a postion you realy want to put an airplane like we are flying in. Nasty departers happen from that position.

And Im envying golfer, realy want to get some pitts time this year.

Next clear day, starting on my rolling circles.


HiTech

[MANDO]

I understand that these nasty departs may be present with engine ON, but what about an almost stopped powerless plane nose up? The speed is too slow to have any effective control surfaces response, you do not have any air flow comming from the propeller. Isnt the weight of the engine going to be mandatory?

[TequilaChaser]

Originally posted by g00b

I'm curious if tumbling manuevers like the lomcevak and such were possible with WWII planes?

g00b

lomcevak, is that the manuever where you fly inverted and proceed to go into continous snaprolls?

if it is, it was easy to do in AW/2/3/M  FR arenas

have not tryed it in AH any......

I am no expert on how to do aerobatic manuevers, but when I want to do a hammerhead/wingover, I go straight up vertical, watching hirozon out  left side or right, I hold little alieron & rudder to balance my climb and maybe a notch to 3 of flaps as I watch my  speed indicator slowly drop to "0"  , then kick full rudder either direction

I do same in tail slide except when I reach "0" on my speed indicator I chop throttle to zero  and sometimes can backslider her 400 to 1300 before the nose flops around.....can not do this everytime and have had a few tail slides where I did not chop throttle.... I find it alot easier to do these in spits, zekes, and  the P38 and F4U or F6f......P38 is most fun

I maybe doing them wrong but anyhow is fun to me.....( I do these in the TA though, very seldom in the MA/CT )

[hitech]

The weight of the engine realy has no effect in the determination of how the plane will react,(the engine wieght is just included in CG calculations) with out any areodynamic forces the plane will not change attitude in anyway. I.E. the nose will not fall down.

So as the plane starts to slide back forces will build from all areas. The way in which these forces build is what will determine the out come.

HiTech

[MANDO]

Then lets talk about an arrow being shot vertically. At the zenit, the unpowered arrow will nose down and will fall pointing down.

I understand that in the unpowered climb the CG has moved well backwards as the speed decreases well below stall speed. If you are perfectly vertical, the plane should go backwards until the speed is enough to deviate the angle. At this point, the mass of the forward (relative to the geometrical center) part of the plane will generate a force greater than the backward of the plane. The forward of the plane will have less problems against the drag force opposing to the fall. And, suposedly, the plane will end nosedown.

Isnt that working this way?

[hitech]

MANDO: Your close but not quite with an arrow discription.

Gravity (i.e. what you are calling mass) is continualy producing a force on the arrow, this is then creating an acceleration that is = at all points of the arrow. I.E. it is not casuing the arrow to flip, or rotate.

As the arrow starts backwards the feathers are producing lift and drag forces. Because these forces are behind the center of mass they end up creating a torque that then rotates the arrow down.

But the key is, untill the force on the freathers occurs no change in rotational speed happens. So if you took away all the air and shot the arrow up, it would just fall down backwards.

Now in some cases a plane will end up like an arrow, but a plane also has a big wing right in its middle along with a prop spinning.

How it ends up you hope is nose down, but a plane can end up in a spin on it's back or front.

Btw tail slides are one manuver I don't even think about doing in my RV. Things like flaps and other controls can be effected very badly in sliding backwards.

Hammer heads on the other hand are my favorite manuver.


HiTech

[Angus]

I knew a guy who performed a wing-over in a DC-4, full of passengers!
Reason: Avoiding collision with a mountain.
The lucky thing was he was a WW2 veteran, and had practiced hammerheads quite much.

[mars01]

The P47 Hammerheads great in AH.  

If you don't know how to do them they are not easy to figure out.  

The most important part of a good HH starts with your upline.  If you are asking what is the upline...   The uppline starts the moment you pull vertical till you run out of momentum at the top.

As soon you pull vertical look at your wing tips and make sure they are even on the horizon giving you a nice strait line, if you are cocked one way or another, from the ground,  the plane will look like it is sliding left or right instead of looking like you are going strait up.  

Once you have established a nice upline hold it until you have lost most of your momentum.  As you reach this point you will need to push forward on the stick a little to keep from falling on your back.  Then kick hard left rudder and add right aileron.  When the nose comes around you will need to stop the pendulum swing with opposite rudder at the bottom.  Hold your down line and away you go.

If you have MSFS you can try a double hammer, as you pass through the first quarter of your HH, jam the stick forward and you will wrench around one more time.  I have done it in MSFS in an S2B that I found on the net.  Very cool.

I am hopefully going to get 20 hours in a real S2B come March so hopefully I will know what it's like for real eventually.  

As for how well they are modeled the only  thing I can say is it is better than AHI and as good as MSFS.

For a lumchavok, you pull into a hammerhead, and then near the top you push full forward with full left ailerons, and hit the right rudder. Once things look normal again, you recover.  I have not been able to do these that well with the WWII planes but in MSFS in an Extra or Pitts they come out nice.

[jigsaw]

Originally posted by TequilaChaser
lomcevak, is that the manuever where you fly inverted and proceed to go into continous snaprolls?

Lomcevak works on the principle of gyroscopic precession. You essentially tumble the aircraft around the prop once the precession has started. Requires a very large prop on a relatively small airframe. Not sure if the prop to frame ratio of the WWII fighters would work. Extra, and Sukoi unlimited class aeros are good at it. Not sure if it would work in a Pitts. I've done them in an Extra 300.