Slightly OT- Model B52 Crashes

No not a joke. Have you ever flown an RC plane?????


You joke right?

ABLE1 wrote:
It was the dreaded downwind turn. Too low, too slow. Google foe vids.



That's a real shame. Do they know what happened?



"Howard Eisenhauer" wrote in message
. ..

For those of you who were following the posts about the model B52 a
few months back-

http://www.stukastudios.se/b52.htm

Yes sir, I have many years and hours of experience flying RC's, I was an RC
instructor for our club also. If you look at the video it had already made the
downwind turn and flew quite a while before the crash.

Jerry



ABLE1 wrote:

No not a joke. Have you ever flown an RC plane?????



You joke right?

ABLE1 wrote:

It was the dreaded downwind turn. Too low, too slow. Google foe vids.




That's a real shame. Do they know what happened?



"Howard Eisenhauer" wrote in message
m...


For those of you who were following the posts about the model B52 a
few months back-

http://www.stukastudios.se/b52.htm

My impression was that it 'stopped flying' before it looked like it stopped
flying. I think that's what dooms many a pilot because they continue to
pull after the aircraft as already stalled but before any sort of break.

Looked like the dreaded downwind turn to this old RCer

And yes, there is no such thing as a downwind turn except as an optical
illusion that effects the pilot.

"Jerry Springer" wrote in message
link.net...
Yes sir, I have many years and hours of experience flying RC's, I was an
RC
instructor for our club also. If you look at the video it had already made
the
downwind turn and flew quite a while before the crash.

Jerry



ABLE1 wrote:

No not a joke. Have you ever flown an RC plane?????



You joke right?

ABLE1 wrote:

It was the dreaded downwind turn. Too low, too slow. Google foe vids.




That's a real shame. Do they know what happened?



"Howard Eisenhauer" wrote in
message
m...


For those of you who were following the posts about the model B52 a
few months back-

http://www.stukastudios.se/b52.htm

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
om...
My impression was that it 'stopped flying' before it looked like it
stopped
flying. I think that's what dooms many a pilot because they continue to
pull after the aircraft as already stalled but before any sort of break.

Looked like the dreaded downwind turn to this old RCer

And yes, there is no such thing as a downwind turn except as an optical
illusion that effects the pilot.

It looked to me like it had already made the downwind turn and was turning
back into the wind when it crashed.
Bob

"Bob"
"Maule Driver"
My impression was that it 'stopped flying' before it looked like it
stopped
flying. I think that's what dooms many a pilot because they continue to
pull after the aircraft as already stalled but before any sort of break.

Looked like the dreaded downwind turn to this old RCer

And yes, there is no such thing as a downwind turn except as an optical
illusion that effects the pilot.

It looked to me like it had already made the downwind turn and was turning
back into the wind when it crashed.
Bob
I went back and looked again. It did look like a stall out of turn to me.
It appeared to be perfectly oriented for the 'downwind' turn type of event.
I've seen many dozens of them (done a few myself). The clouds and the sock
suggest that et was a blustery, variable wind day which just makes it even
more challenging to fly. There appears to be a momentary bump where the
nose drops and the bank increases well before the turn completes 90
degrees - that looks like a stall. Did this thing have true to scale
spoilers for bank?

Having said that, there's no way to know for sure without telemetry. Flight
instruments is part of what makes full scale flight easier in so many ways.

Damn what a fine looking ship!

It looked to me like the pilot might have gotten confused which wing
was low and then corrected the wrong way. As the roll was continued,
the nose fell through. When an RC plane is flying and the light is
behind it, its often easy to get confused which wing has dipped to
know which way to correct. In that circumstance, you only know you've
got it wrong when it responds the opposite of what you thought it
should. A normal turn would have been back towards the camera to come
back over the runway, not away as he ended up doing and crashing.

"Bob" wrote in message ...
"Maule Driver" wrote in message
om...
My impression was that it 'stopped flying' before it looked like it
stopped
flying. I think that's what dooms many a pilot because they continue to
pull after the aircraft as already stalled but before any sort of break.

Looked like the dreaded downwind turn to this old RCer

And yes, there is no such thing as a downwind turn except as an optical
illusion that effects the pilot.

It looked to me like it had already made the downwind turn and was turning
back into the wind when it crashed.
Bob

I understand the illusion of the "downwind turn" to an RC pilot and the
difficulty to keeping it straight in your mind which way to apply aileron
with the model coming at you.

However, there was a famous video involving a real B-52 at Fairchild AFB, WA
where the pilot was hot-rodding low passes and turns. The old bomber
overbanked and spiraled in just like the model did in the video - except the
real B52 only managed 1/2 turn before impact right in front of the camera.
I'm wondering if this is a real behavior of the B52 that was accurately
modeled in the RC crash. If so, it's a credit to the accuracy of the model
builders. Sad to see their loss.

Bill Daniels

"Jay" wrote in message
om...
It looked to me like the pilot might have gotten confused which wing
was low and then corrected the wrong way. As the roll was continued,
the nose fell through. When an RC plane is flying and the light is
behind it, its often easy to get confused which wing has dipped to
know which way to correct. In that circumstance, you only know you've
got it wrong when it responds the opposite of what you thought it
should. A normal turn would have been back towards the camera to come
back over the runway, not away as he ended up doing and crashing.

"Bob" wrote in message
...
"Maule Driver" wrote in message
om...
My impression was that it 'stopped flying' before it looked like it
stopped
flying. I think that's what dooms many a pilot because they continue
to
pull after the aircraft as already stalled but before any sort of
break.

Looked like the dreaded downwind turn to this old RCer

And yes, there is no such thing as a downwind turn except as an
optical
illusion that effects the pilot.

It looked to me like it had already made the downwind turn and was
turning
back into the wind when it crashed.
Bob

Wasn't that a B2 instead of a B-52?


Bill Daniels wrote:
I understand the illusion of the "downwind turn" to an RC pilot and the
difficulty to keeping it straight in your mind which way to apply aileron
with the model coming at you.

However, there was a famous video involving a real B-52 at Fairchild AFB, WA
where the pilot was hot-rodding low passes and turns. The old bomber
overbanked and spiraled in just like the model did in the video - except the
real B52 only managed 1/2 turn before impact right in front of the camera.
I'm wondering if this is a real behavior of the B52 that was accurately
modeled in the RC crash. If so, it's a credit to the accuracy of the model
builders. Sad to see their loss.

Bill Daniels

"Jay" wrote in message
om...

It looked to me like the pilot might have gotten confused which wing
was low and then corrected the wrong way. As the roll was continued,
the nose fell through. When an RC plane is flying and the light is
behind it, its often easy to get confused which wing has dipped to
know which way to correct. In that circumstance, you only know you've
got it wrong when it responds the opposite of what you thought it
should. A normal turn would have been back towards the camera to come
back over the runway, not away as he ended up doing and crashing.

"Bob" wrote in message

...

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
r.com...

My impression was that it 'stopped flying' before it looked like it

stopped

flying. I think that's what dooms many a pilot because they continue

to

pull after the aircraft as already stalled but before any sort of

break.

Looked like the dreaded downwind turn to this old RCer

And yes, there is no such thing as a downwind turn except as an

optical

illusion that effects the pilot.

It looked to me like it had already made the downwind turn and was

turning

back into the wind when it crashed.
Bob

"Jay" wrote in message
om...
It looked to me like the pilot might have gotten confused which wing
was low and then corrected the wrong way.

It's a little hard to imagine that a pilot susceptible to that particular
challenge of RC flying would be flying the B52. I flew for many years and
yet never completely got past my training that included pushing the stick
towards the down wing when it's coming at you. My brother is an
accomplished pattern flyer and I recently asked him whether he still used
that. He laughed and tried to explaing that he 'is completely in the plane
and always oriented". Anyway, it was a pretty simple turn, a large
aircraft, and close in... I don't think so.... but without a black box,
we're all guessing.

In any case, I've watched so many RC aircraft bite the dust in this way.
Usually on the turn from downwind to final. It was SOP to blame the radio,
and back in the 60 and early 70s, that was more than plausible. But I
remain convinced that the vast majority of those accidents were stall-spin.
Back then, all modelers had free flight and other experience. Practically
all RC planes were test glided before first flight (long after it was
practical for the higher loaded ones). A stall was known to require a nose
up deck angle and would typically have a clear break after a noticeable
deceleration.

On the otherhand, accelerated stalls and turning stalls occured all the time
and yet they were infrequently identified as such. The B52 crash is what
such a stall looks like. If you look closely, you can even see the break.
If he had been higher, a spin or at least a steep spiral would have
developed. But it is all just conjecture.

I watched a full scale glider do a such stall on the turn to final. The
reasons for getting too slow were unclear but the pilot immediately knew it
was a stall going into a spin. He saved his life by correctly applying
corrective down elevator and perhaps rudder. After recovering into a pretty
steep dive he leveled the wings and pulled out just in time to pancake onto
an interstate. Blew the gear and crunched the belly but didn't even ding a
wing tip. We got him out of there before the State Police even showed up.


As the roll was continued,
the nose fell through. When an RC plane is flying and the light is
behind it, its often easy to get confused which wing has dipped to
know which way to correct. In that circumstance, you only know you've
got it wrong when it responds the opposite of what you thought it
should. A normal turn would have been back towards the camera to come
back over the runway, not away as he ended up doing and crashing.

"Bob" wrote in message
...
"Maule Driver" wrote in message
om...
My impression was that it 'stopped flying' before it looked like it
stopped
flying. I think that's what dooms many a pilot because they continue
to
pull after the aircraft as already stalled but before any sort of
break.

Looked like the dreaded downwind turn to this old RCer

And yes, there is no such thing as a downwind turn except as an
optical
illusion that effects the pilot.

It looked to me like it had already made the downwind turn and was
turning
back into the wind when it crashed.
Bob

The issue I was trying to point out wasn't the control "reversal" new
R/C pilots experience when the model is flying towards them, it was
related to the limited (albiet fantastic) dynamic range of the human
eye. When the model is back lit you just see the black siloette. In
this circumstance, the image the viewer sees is ambiguous as to which
way the roll has begun and thus the pilot doesn't know which way to
correct. You can see this in the video because the camera is even
more limited than the human eye.

"Maule Driver" wrote in message . com...
"Jay" wrote in message
om...
It looked to me like the pilot might have gotten confused which wing
was low and then corrected the wrong way.

It's a little hard to imagine that a pilot susceptible to that particular
challenge of RC flying would be flying the B52. I flew for many years and
yet never completely got past my training that included pushing the stick
towards the down wing when it's coming at you. My brother is an
accomplished pattern flyer and I recently asked him whether he still used
that. He laughed and tried to explaing that he 'is completely in the plane
and always oriented". Anyway, it was a pretty simple turn, a large
aircraft, and close in... I don't think so.... but without a black box,
we're all guessing.