Author Topic: 400 mph cartwheels  (Read 796 times)

Offline Becinhu

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400 mph cartwheels
« on: September 02, 2008, 09:12:51 PM »
Other than stating that is is Craptanic Tuesday..why would a Tempest flying at 16k at around 380-400 do cartwheels when dipping a wing to bank? And after losing 10k or so altitude recovering than proceed to do a noseover forward tumble into the ground at around 425 (5 min later)? Plane had zero damage and I had stall limiter off. By a forward roll I mean as in a somersault nose-tail-nose-tail. :furious
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Offline Sonicblu

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2008, 09:37:35 PM »
Do you have a film of it by any chance? I don't know for sure and would hate to guess on you, but i have noticed that when it T Tues it is like having thin air to fly in. If i try pulling up out of a spit S or if I am stall fighting near the ground the belly just fall out from me and I hit the ground belly first.


Offline BaldEagl

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2008, 12:04:39 AM »
I'm sorry but that's funny.
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Offline Guppy35

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2008, 02:19:12 AM »
From a wartime printing of the Tempest V pilot's notes.

"High Speed Stall.  If excessive g is applied in a turn or recovery from a dive, the ailerons 'snatch' and experience shows that either wing may drop. with further backward movement of the control column the aircraft will become inverted and finally spin"

Sounds like you high speed stalled it :)
Dan/CorkyJr
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Offline Becinhu

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2008, 02:56:36 PM »
Thanks BE..........no really.....I'm serious. That's what I figured happened for the cartwheel. It's the forward roll that really got me steamed. I'm sure the 190 I was chasing at the time got a kick out of it though. I didn't think it was aerodynamically possible for plane to flip nose over tail... :furious
Thanks for the input (except BE..gets out BE voodoo doll).
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80th FS "Headhunters" MA

Offline BaldEagl

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #5 on: September 03, 2008, 03:08:41 PM »
I can tell you that the high tourqe in the Tempest can cause some awfully strange things to happen.

One day I was climbing at about 40 degrees with three or four cons in tow.  As I got to the point that I realized I wasn't going to be able to outclimb them all I tried to dip the left wing against the torque to reverse and I couldn't do it.  So I cranked in full left rudder to help it and I did a complete flat 180 spin and was left facing directly at them all along the same flight path I had just come up on.  The spin was almost instantaneous.  You should have seen them scatter.   :rofl  I've never been able to repeat that although I've tried on occasion.

Anyway, were you trying to turn left?  That's were the anomolies begin and they are worse at lower speeds.

I'm going to have to try to summersault the Temp.  Sounds like fun.
I edit a lot of my posts.  Get used to it.

Offline Becinhu

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #6 on: September 03, 2008, 06:50:45 PM »
no it was a righthand bank that started the cartwheel. I'm not even sure what input started the somersault though.
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Offline Becinhu

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #7 on: September 03, 2008, 06:57:31 PM »
I had a really bad day in perk planes yesterday anyway. After the Tempest incident I upped a c-hog and it blew up on the cv runway..no plane there at all. I saw my prop bend while in idle and then I went BOOM!
After that I logged.
 :noid
Musta been a gremlin I guess.
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80th FS "Headhunters" MA

Offline Anaxogoras

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #8 on: September 03, 2008, 11:27:15 PM »
Tempests deserve to tumble and roll and dig a big hole. :rofl
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Offline Becinhu

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #9 on: September 04, 2008, 10:05:58 PM »
I actually will dogfight in a Tempest. I don't just run and pick. But I will pick a guy who's not paying attention.
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Offline vizwhiz

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Re: 400 mph cartwheels
« Reply #10 on: September 04, 2008, 10:37:15 PM »
I realize that this doesn't actually apply to the Tempest, but the phenom still exists out there...
My brother is a pilot in commercial airliners, 737's now, and he described one of their safety deals for higher speed descending back in the 727's...they can't get going too fast because the inner part of the wing will lose lift, and the center of lift moves back toward the rear of the wing.  Also because the wings are swept back, the center of lift also moves out toward the thinner part of the outer wing ends...that part creates more lift than the inner "thicker" part of the wing as the plane approaches the sonic barrier (which is slower at higher alts due to the thinner air).  So when that happens, the lift being generated is behind the center of gravity of the plane, like picking the plane up by the wingtips would tip it forward, and the plane does a sudden nose-down pitch that is nearly unrecoverable.  It is known as "mach tuck".

Sounds like the Tempest might be a plane that has some kind of similar bad habits at high speeds...high speed stall of the wing, especially with the high wing loading of the later war planes, would cause a sudden drop of the nose...a sudden loss of the upward force on the front of the plane...

Also, the original wing/tail arrangements had the wing producing upward lift and the horizontal stabilizers producing down thrust to keep the planes level.  Later on, they discovered that they could move the center of gravity further back in the plane and use the horizontal stabilizers to produce additional lift, adding to the total lift rather than canceling out some of the lift produced by the wing (up + up vs. up + down).  If you suddenly lost the wing's upward lift at high speed, and didn't stall the horiztonal stabilizer at the same time, you would suddenly have a big upward lift on the tail with no lift of the wings to counter, and you'd go nose down, or tail up and over.  At least the Physics says it can happen.

Oh, does sound pretty funny too!   :huh
« Last Edit: September 04, 2008, 11:00:23 PM by vizwhiz »
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