Has anyone mastered the Rudder Reversal?

[Kats]

Just so there's no misunderstanding, I mean the technique where you zoom vertically to stall point and hammer the rudder to reverse you direction nose down.

So if your good at it, care to share some tips?

[Soup Nazi]

Manoble gave a good assessment of it.
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/Forum2/HTML/000302.html

[This message has been edited by Soup Nazi (edited 06-22-2000).]

[AKSeaWulfe]

it's called a hammerhead or a hammerhead loop. It's not a very quick manuever, but very effective. It's done at low speeds.
-SW

[MANDOBLE]

 

Originally posted by AKSeaWulfe:
It's not a very quick manuever

Actually it is a very quick maneuver, 2-3 secs to reverse vertically in 190A5. The problem is that if not properly done, you'll finish with a short tail slide and a flat stall, and then you'll spend 6 or more seconds to go nose-down again. Remember, hammerhead is not just to go up, stop engine and wait until the aircraft falls by itself (a very common mistake). In a well done hammer, you are not going to enter stall anytime, and you are not going to do any kind of tail slide.
Some pilots are confused by both maneuvers (Talslide and hammer), hammer is a good offensive movement while tail slide is just to put your tail closer to the enemy guns.

[niklas]

when engine torque pulls to the left, then fly the hammerhead to the right (hit right rudder). You can better control the manoevre in this way, because engine torque and rudder torque neutralize each other now

[Andy Bush]

Mandoble

How do you do this?

What view do you use to maintain a vertical attitude.

At what airspeed do you initiate the maneuver?

What control inputs do you use?

What is your throttle technique?

When and why do you use the maneuver?

[Jekyll]

Andy, I was teaching one of my squaddies the hammerhead a week or so ago.  I've always found it best to use side view on the zoom, so you can get an absolutely vertical climb.  It's essential to make sure you are pure vertical, otherwise you'll mush badly at the top and either flip over onto your back, or slide forward back into level flight.

I usually hit the hammerhead once airspeed falls below about 80 kts.  The key is to gently input rudder - don't just bang it all in at once.  As your speed decays through 80 kts, start feeding rudder in gently.  A little forward stick and opposite aileron can often work well at this time, to keep the 'hammer' nice and straight.

You can't really force the AH aircraft to hammerhead properly, you have to feed in the control movements and let the aircraft do it on its own.

Best use for the hammerhead IMHO?  You are on a nose-to-nose merge with either a Spitfire or another angle fighter.  Set up about 500 yds lateral separation at the merge and watch him blow almost all his energy trying for the lead turn.  Once he's committed, pull pure vertical.  He won't be able to follow you in the zoom, but 90% of the time he'll try to.  Then just hammerhead neatly onto his floundering carcass and blow him away  

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C.O. Phoenix Squadron
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/phoenix
'feel the heat .......'

[indian]

I thnky you may be talking about what I have heard called a wing over. You dont quite get to stall speed and kick the rudder over and almost instantly you are flipping over on the wing in the direction of rudder travel. You need good seperation for this move and lots of speed and alt.

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Tommy (INDIAN) Toon
Member Of The 1st Aces High Trainer Corps.
Everthing else is just Second place.
Indian's Homepage

[MANDOBLE]

 

Originally posted by Andy Bush:
Mandoble
How do you do this?

1 - Trim the aircraft to make a vertical climb, from +85 to +95 degrees nose up.
Ease throtle a bit, just to make torque effect minimal. Compensate with soft rudder and aileron to maintain into +85 - +95.
2 - Once you are "almost" unable to maintain nose up (vertical), FULL left rudder, FULL right aileron to force a quick "almost flat
spin" situation. At this point you stop climbing at all.
3 - FULL right rudder, push hardly stick and compensate aileron to force nose down.
4 - Full power (WEP), nose down, four guns spitting fire  


 

What view do you use to maintain a vertical attitude.

Left and right trying to put both wing tips at same level. Once your wingtips are at almost same level, use 6 view to track the con.


 

At what airspeed do you initiate the maneuver?

Just when you start to have serious problems to maintain a vertical climb. If you see the enemy stopping climbing early, cut throttle and force hammer to fall over it.

 

When and why do you use the maneuver?

When you dont have enough room to do a loop with the necesary advantage to cut the enemy climb. Hammer is a quick reversal, if you are not enough lucky to splash the bandit, you'll have some 4-6 extra seconds to extend.
For example, with a con at d3 tracking you and aproaching slowly, hammer is a good move to have a quick firing chance.

Just a note, after hammer, you'll be firing going down (so being a more stable firing platform) and the con, probably, will have a chance to backfire going up, so, if vertical HO is forced, the climbing enemy will fall to earth after you.

[Daff]

Cutting throttle will reduce the slipstream over the rudder, making it less effective (At least in theory..dunno if this is modelled).
I can do the hammerhead in all the planes I've tried, but still get the stallwarner buzzing, which it really shouldnt as it should never really get any high AoA in a hammerhead turn...this could easily be an operate error, though  

Daff

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CO, 56th Fighter Group