Looping during a commercial flight

"Dave Russell" wrote in message
om...
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
link.net...
About doing a barrel roll at night with relationship to passengers;
it is possible, and could be done. The passengers, within a closed
environment, would feel the onset of whatever positive g was used by
the
pilot to initiate the roll.

Dudley,

In the original post, the question asked if this could be done without
the pax noticing *anything* different from normal flight. Most
kerosene queens are flown with very little g loading to keep 'em happy
in back, but I can't barrel without pulling a bit on the entry and
exit. Now, maybe you or Bob can fly a barrel roll without exceeding
1.3-ish g's, but I know that I can't... and the last time I checked,
the grandma back in 23B noticed when the g-meter hit 3+.

Can you fly one with *very* light g-loads on the entry? If so, how do
you get the nose high enough to recover at that g-load without falling
out? Will you show me how to do it????

Thanks,

-Dave Russell
N2S-3

Hi Dave;

Yeah, I just noticed that reference to "from normal flight" myself. The
answer of course is "yes". The pax would indeed feel the g all though
the roll, but the kicker is that if the pilot was REAL good :-)) the pax
might not realize they were in a roll, and since the g would be on the
+Gz axis, it could be confused with a pullup, or a steep turn.

There's nothing wrong with the description in your post. It's right on!
You're perfectly correct that the pax would feel the g. I thought I had
made that point in the last post I made.
"The passengers, within a closed
environment, would feel the onset of whatever positive g was used by the
pilot to initiate the roll. If the pilot was very good, and kept perfect
control coordination all through the roll, all the passengers would feel
would be the positive g"

I didn't bother to mention the exit g as I thought it would be obvious.

To answer your question about g in the roll; you can execute a barrel
roll as tight or as wide as you want to do it, varying the g used to the
radius demanded by the control inputs. It's notable that in fighters in
ACM, you can execute a very tight loaded roll in 3 dimensions as a
vector roll, or you can initiate with positive g, then unload the
airplane through the top, then reapply positive g on the backside.
I would imagine that anyone trying to fool some pax in the back at night
might make a very subtle nose low to increase to entry airspeed, then
very easily bring it on up through level flight, blending in exactly the
right amount of aileron and elevator needed to get the widest roll
radius they could while keeping the airplane at as low a positive g
possible to keep that radius.
It would be tricky.....but it could be done by the right pilot. I would
add however that the exact heavy jet would be a critical item in this
theoretical equation of fun and games. Too heavy and the drag index
going up the front side might be so great that in order to complete the
roll, you would have to tighten up the roll axis and that would increase
the g. You might get through it, but it wouldn't be the smooth wide roll
needed to fool the gang in back! :-))

Just as an aside to this thing we're discussing in this thread, we used
to sometimes play a trick on the techs working with us on a flight test
project. Every month, they gave out a ride in a T38 to some ground tech
who did a good job with something. We would draw straws to see which one
of us would fly them :-)
The roll rate of the Talon is a bit of something to see at about .9
mach. It's restricted to a partial lateral stick throw to avoid coupling
the airplane, but once in a while since my test work was in coupling
anyway, I'd have some fun with the techs.
All these guys were pretty savvy in aerodynamics and were familiar with
the T38's reputation for a fast aileron throw.
If I got a new tech back there, I'd take him out to the restricted area
and do some basic aerobatics with him (they all liked that :-)
Sooner or later, I'd ask if they wanted to see a max deflect aileron
roll at .9. Invariably the answer was "great....do one!!"
I'd take the airplane out to speed and ask if they were ready. When I
got the answer, I'd jerk the stick quickly to the side laterally about
two inches and return it to level flight again in one quick motion. This
usually bounced their heads off the canopy on the opposite side of the
input :-)
If I was real good with the timing, I usually
got......"WOW".....MAN....THAT was FAST!!!!!" :-)) from the back seat!
Every now and then, I'd get one that I could absolutely convince they
had gone all the way around. I'd bring them back and we would hear about
them telling everybody in sight how "fantastic" the roll rate ACTUALLY
WAS in the T38!! :-)
Naturally, sooner or later someone "clued" them in on it.

Ah, I sure miss the good ole' days!!!! :-))
Dudley