Don Johnstone wrote:

2. Pulling excess G can damage the airframe, however
the damage is likely to be far less than the damage
caused by flutter.

Both may cause the same damage : loosing the wings (and both have)

I am not sure that enough G could
be pulled at speeds below VNE to cause serious catastrophic
failure

Below manouevreing speed, no. Above it (and below VNE) yes !

I stand to be corrected but I suspect it is unlikely
that 8G could be attained at an airspeed less than
VNE.

If 8 g is the extreme limit this includes a safety margin and the real
limit is what is placarded (in most gliders it's about 5 or 5.5 g). And
this limit is only valid at manouevering speed, at VNE it is much lower.

yes 8 g may be attained well below VNE (if stalling speed is 70 km/h,
you may exceed 8 g at 198 km/h, as lift depends on square of speed.) At
270 km/h you'd reach 14.9 g !!!

3. Airframe flutter can occur at less than VNE. The
likelyhood of flutter increases dramatically above
VNE and the severity increases with the speed.

Nonsense. Flutter cannot appear under Vc, a design speed that is just
above VNE.

Not all modes of flutter are catastrophic (it depends of the damping)
but most are explosive. At any speed above flutter speed.

The N really does stand for never.

Yes, but the G limits are *never* to be exceeded too, even if nobody has
thought to call it GNE. It is exactly the same.

Will airbrakes effect the
recovery from a spin, I don't know yet,

That was the question. Thus if you don't know, please don't reply !

--
Denis

R. Parce que ça rompt le cours normal de la conversation !!!
Q. Pourquoi ne faut-il pas répondre au-dessus de la question ?