Spit 1, departure from controlled flight, film

[JCLerch]

Gents,

With the release of the dognut map, I found myself flying the Spit 1 in FT for a bit of entertainment.

More often than not, I would find myelf in an inverted, unrecoverable tail slide at the top of a rope a dope.   I'm usually pretty good at recovering from departed flight, but despite my best efforts, I haven't had any luck finding the way out of this situation.

In an effort to learn what's happening I went off-line and practiced,  here is a film to use as a "For Instance":

http://lerch.no-ip.com/Spit1_Departed.ahf 888KB AH2 film

Are Spit 1's known for this type of departed flight, and if so, is there a way out?  (In the film, the aircraft is doing 90+ mph, nearly tail / canopy first.)

[lasersailor184]

Lerch!  Why didn't you ask me?  I used to fly this thing all the time?  I'll see if I can figure out what the problem is.


Alright lerch, I believe what you need to do is to do the opposite of what you want.  It's kind of like a sailboat going backwards.  

You were upside down and going backwards.  So push your stick forward, ease off the throttle and get your flaps up.

Getting your gear out might also help.

[JCLerch]

Originally posted by lasersailor184

Alright lerch, I believe what you need to do is to do the opposite of what you want.  It's kind of like a sailboat going backwards.  

Interesting, control reversal does seem to be in effect.  

You were upside down and going backwards.  So push your stick forward, ease off the throttle and get your flaps up.

Getting your gear out might also help. [/B]

So far, I've been able to recover only once, and that was starting at 20K  

Thanks for the help, at the moment I'll just try to avoid that flight enviroment!

[RobMo68]

Laser is right, having your flaps out while inverted (in a spit 1) is WRONG move, they create extra lift when ur upright as long as you have forward momentum. But when inverted and no forward motion, they act as a big airbrake stopping the flow over the area, not allowing the wings to react to control movement, because they are stalled! And without the power of the engine to pull you out of it, I'm afraid that once you get in that situation your only choice will be to bail out, otherwise it's a crap shoot as to whether or not you get enough control authority to manuever out of it ( without a GIANT amount of ALT to recover) at low alt U R TOAST.

[Schutt]

watch your speed and dont get into that spin in the first place.

Really, best help is dont get into that spin. Other than that gear out might help, at least it does in hurry mk1.

During the bob scenario in ah2 that i took part in the lw pilots gained a skill to rope a spit in a way that puts the spit pilot into the back spin. So it might be that experienced enemys lure you into the spin, thats why its experienced pretty often.

[lasersailor184]

Or inexperienced pilots don't know how to stay out or get out of it.

[Schatzi]

Inverted flat/tailspins in the Mk1s (Spit and Hurr) are always bad, due to their eng cutouts.

I havent tried out Spit, but what did work for me in Hurr1 was:

Gear out!
Rudder input to try to get nose down attitude, in hopes to pick up a tiny bit of airspeed.

Once you have that, dont try to level off and startup eng immediatly, but just let gravity speed you up to 60 mph at least by nosing straight down. Than you can slowly pull out to level, get your eng running again.

Youll always need *a lot* of alt to get out of inv stall - if at all, so the best advice would be as said before. Avoid getting caught into one. Spit1 doesnt have the power to stay in a rope any way and not the firepower for those snapshots - so: keep your speed up and make them come to you .