Slightly OT- Model B52 Crashes

"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

In article , Howard Eisenhauer wrote:
I have no idea peter, just got the link off the Willys Tech mailing
list of all places.

She was in a pretty tight turn just before the dive, accelerated stall
maybe??

What about loss of radio contact (perhaps a transmitter or receiver
failure)? I've seen that happen. It looked like perhaps it was entering
a turn at the time, but carried on rolling until the nose fell through
as if some spoileron/aileron input had been added but never taken out.


--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"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

"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

"Jay" wrote

It looked to me like the pilot might have gotten confused which wing
was low and then corrected the wrong way.

That does not sound like a mistake that a modeler capable of making such a
beast would do.
--
Jim in NC


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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

Jerry Springer wrote...

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

If you mean the crash at Fairchild, that was a B-52.
There hasn't been a B-2 crash yet. At least that we know
of (1/2 :-)

Dave 'smoke and mirrors' Hyde

ShawnD2112 wrote:

Sort of. The B-52 crash at Fairchild was a simple accelerated stall, no
spin. It stalled at a near-90 degree bank angle and slid sideways into
the
ground. Very tragic. There was a white paper written by a USAF major
some time afterward that examined the leadership and airmanship climate
prior to
the crash that makes fascinating reading. I may even have an electronic
copy of it if anyone's interested.

Shawn


I read it off the web site, very interesting but took me about 1/2 hour.
Just goes to show what happens when people stick their heads in the sand
especially the middle management that were afraid to pass on "bad" news to
their superiors!
John