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#11
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poor lateral control on a slow tow?
On Thu, 06 Jan 2011 09:09:39 +0000, Doug Greenwell
wrote: There's a chapter in Eric Brown's book 'Wings of the Weird & Wonderful' in which he describes flight tests of the GAL 56 flying wing glider in 1946. This was a 28deg swept wing with an aspect ratio of 5.8 towed by a Spitfire IX* (!!!) to 20000ft (!!). Coooooooooool. He describes the opposite effect, with a very strong (often uncontrollable) nose-up pitch on take-off - this was thought to be due to ground effect. In this case the tug span was similar (37ft) to the glider span (45ft), so the wake/wing interaction would be different. Definitely. I think that the slipstream and the turbulence of that huge propellor might have an influence, too. Interestingly he also reports that the GAL56 could be flown hands-free on the tow - unless the tug slipstream was entered, in which case all lateral and longitudinal control was lost. Robert Kronfield was later killed spinning this aircraft. Seems like some gliders actually stabilize themselves behind a tow plane. Here's an example of a free-flight test of a space shuttle model that flew well in aerotow, but worse in free flight. Ladies and gents, Great Britains only serious contribution to spaceflight - the Reliant Shuttle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdrlWR-yFM Andreas |
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