B-26 Split-S

[eskimo2]

I belong to a monthly group that features local WWII and Korean War veterans who take turn telling their war stories.  Last night’s last speaker was a B-26 pilot.  One of his best stories was of doing a split-s in his B-26.  He said that he rolled it over and pulled back.  The yoke froze up while he was going straight down.  He pulled with all of his might but it wouldn’t budge, even with the copilot helping.  He glanced at the speedo; it read 450 and the craft was still going straight down.  He then spun the trim tabs as fast as he could; it slowly pulled out and leveled at 500 feet.  He started the split-s at 8,500 feet.

After getting shot down by puffy ack, he spent the last year of the war in a POW camp.  Many of his stories of being a POW were similar to scenes in the movie “The Great Escape”.  They dug a 96’ foot long tunnel and spread the dirt around by releasing the ends of tube sacks sewed inside trench coats.  They would do this on the volleyball court so that it would get kicked around and mixed in with the surface dirt.  In the winter they poured the dirt in the barracks walls where the insulation should have been.  Their tunnel was discovered days before they planned to surface however.

eskimo

[GreenCloud]

i love the old use trim tab..

but in real world...omggg

[Tails]

There's no reason it wouldn't work, assuming the trim tab can create enough force on the back of the control surface to move it against the slipstream.

As for managing it in a B-26 at 450ias... I have my doubts but, not having ever picked at the trim and control systems on a B-26, I'm not in a position to call BS.

[Toad]

General Doolittle's autobiography, "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again"

I should have suspected that Doolittle knew more about the B-26 than he admitted when he said "It's just another airplane. Let's start it up and play with it."

That is exactly what we did. We got in the air and circled to 6,000 feet, remaining close enough to the field to reach the runway if we had trouble. But everything went smoothly. Doolittle then shut down one of the engines and feathered the propeller. He got the plane trimmed and we did some flying on one engine, turning in both directions, climbing, making steep banks. The Marauder was a tame bird with Doolittle at the controls.

Suddenly he put the plane into a dive, built up excess speed, and put it into a perfect loop -- all with one engine dead. As we came to the bottom of the loop, he took the dead propeller out of feather and it started windmilling. When it was turning fast enough, he flipped on the magnetos and restarted the engine as we made a low pass over the airfield. We came around in a normal manner, dropped the gear and the flaps, and set the B-26 down smoothly on the runway.

The pilots and operations people who had been watching us were impressed. The flight was an important start toward convincing them that the B-26 was just another airplane.

[Tails]

"It's just another airplane. Let's start it up and play with it."

Sounds like something I would say... much with the same ammount of caution with bystanders as when a redneck says 'Hey ya'll, watch this'

[DipStick]

Originally posted by Tails
As for managing it in a B-26 at 450ias... I have my doubts

LOL!

[Tails]

I think I missed something there... too tired I guess.

[frank3]

I thought the B-26 couldn't fly with 1 engine?