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Old September 29th 18, 06:52 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default Uncontrolled Loops Elevator failure

If the fuselage bows down under positive G's, that would reduce the declanage and therefore reduce the up elevator requested. If the pilot is looking at rocks and trees where the blue sky should be on his canopy, he's going to pull even harder to make the rocks go away. More bowing down reduces the angle of the horizontal stab even more and reduces the requested up elevator. Is this the reason these big ships end up going so fast? He's pulling back, but the ships going faster and faster and soon the wings start bowing up. I remember flying with the Chase 101 (no composite structure, solid foam wings with glass covering) the pilot got into a spiral dive and the wings bowed up in a big U...........sound familiar? Anyway, the pilot bailed out and later reported that the ailerons wouldn't roll him out of the spiral. Think about it, they're little more tip rudders when in the vertical position. Our composite toys are quite flexible structures, I watched a Discus land in a barley field, he touched down about 40 knots, caught his left wing in the barley and spun around. The fuselage bowed like a banana and the T tail laid over about 45 degrees. The ship came to an abrupt stop at about 180 degrees and the T tail snapped back up to vertical and just sat there and quivered for second or two! I don't have to worry too much about all this because my Genesis doesn't have a boom, but it does have a ballistic parachute! If I were still flying a big ship, I'd make damned sure one of us had his head out of the cockpit AT ALL TIMES!
My, how I have rambled on, sorry.
JJ