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#1 (permalink) |
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 14, 2014
Posts: 1
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Pulling G's in the Vertical
Hey guys,
First post here. I'm a CFI and a WWII combat sim enthusiast. Sometimes, the love for one overlaps with the other, hence this post. I'm teaching one of my acquaintances about the basics of flight, when the subject of lift came up. They asked about how WWII fighter pilots could pull up vertical in a propeller aircraft, since the max listed AoA was exceeded (for example, if max AoA is 30*, how can a WWII bird pull straight vertical?). Touching on regular turn aerodynamics - in a normal turn, drag is increased and lift is reduced unless nose-up is added to compensate for both. This has the net effect of decreasing airspeed. Similarly, to turn tighter, the pilot must increase the bank angle, therefore decreasing available lift even more, requiring either more power input or a trade of altitude for airspeed to maintain the turn. HOWEVER... Let's say that you pull the nose straight up in a WWII-era fighter, after building up a few hundred knots of airspeed, say 400kt. Straight vertical. This is in a prop plane with a thrust-to-weight ratio of less than 1.0. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I have three separate questions (and answers, if I worked through these correctly).
I've spent hours reading and cannot find any true technical l discussions of it, as most of the materials I've come across are either GA or aerobatic in nature and don't cover this in enough detail. I'd appreciate your help and input. Thank you. Last edited by Skyyr; 01-14-2014 at 04:03 PM. |
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#2 (permalink) |
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 27, 2005
Location: Los Angeles, CA, US (from Yerevan, Armenia)
Posts: 2,432
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Typing from my phone, hence a short answer.
AoA isn't really determined by the attitude your airplane is flying. In ideal vertical flight your AoA is equal to the angle of incidence of your wings and remains unchanged as far as you have forward(vertical) speed. Thus your wing never stalls. To negate the lift generated by the wings the elevator is used to generate opposite lift(forward pressure needed to sustain vertical flight decreases, as the climb slows down, Reaching zero at the top of ascent). Question number two. Higher G means higher AoA, thus the drag is higher when pulling higher G. Still to answer your question I would need a clarification Are you asking about a sustained G loop, or a transition to vertical Flight, during which maximum load reached(and maintenance until attaining to vertical flight) is 8/10G? |
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