New Aeroplane books.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Yesterday I made a pilgrimage to Hylands in the city. Love that place! The elevator still is U/S so made my way up those creaky wooden stairs - seems fitting really - I'd do this on my hands and knees if required! I had a gift voucher burning a hole in my wallet so time to go shopping! This is what I picked up.

Da Nang Diary by TomYarborough - this is a current reprint of this classic story of flying Broncos in the FAC/COIN role in S.E.Asia in the late 60's/early 70's. Love the Bronco!

Blue Moon over Cuba - this is a book put together based on the memoirs of Capt. William Ecker - the CO of VFP-62 US Navy Light Photographic Squadron that flew extremely dangerous low level missions in RF-8A's over Cuba during those "13 Days" in 1962, when the world was on the brink of WW3. Many of his squadrons photos (many he took himself) were used to brief JFK and his inner circle on the build up of Soviet missiles in Cuba - then used in the UN by Adlai Stevenson to show the world what the Russkies were up to. Anyone who watched the movie "13 Days" will remember those low level missions of the Crusaders screaming over Cuba. Ecker was a consultant to that movie as well.

F-4 Phantom by Tim McLelland. OK, I admit it, I am a bit of a closet fan of this ugly beast of an aeroplane. It's an ugly brick with bent up and bent down bits on it, but it has a raw menacing brutish appeal. This book is a homage to this amazing aeroplane with some great stories and photos. Many volumes can be written about the "Double Ugly" and this book isn't the be all and end all - more a celebration of this amazing aeroplane. I love reading the "piloty" bits and there are some great stories in this book. One that caught my attention (and the reason I ended up buying this book) was a story by one Luftwaffe pilot getting training in USA. In this exercise, his IP told this pilot to accelerate straight and level in burner and go vertical, keeping the jet in burner. So up they scream into the burning blue until they run out of energy and the IP telling the Luftwaffe pilot to touch nothing. The jet then does a perfect tailslide, the nose flipping forward and downwards until vertically down, then they pull out. This being a demonstration of the stability of the Phantom - if left to recover itself without input from the pilot.
Next quirky thing I read about is the roll control of the Phantom. It uses a combination of aileron and spoilers. The ailerons only go downwards and use opposite wing spoilers - aileron down one side, spoiler up on top wing opposite. So, what can happen at high angles of attack is the spoiler is blanketed by turbulent airflow, thus not effective. So, at high angles of attack the pilot can get control reversal - wants to roll left, but in fact rolls right with nose swinging to the left - hmm, not a good feature! This if not corrected can develop into a flat spin - even worse day at work! Bet none of the off the shelf PC flight sims build in the quirky feature of the Phantom!
This really is a beautiful book and I know someone hear would like it, even though he says he doesn't read books - highly recommend this book to Phantom lovers.

[tor lives]

F-4 Phantom by Tim McLelland. OK, I admit it, I am a bit of a closet fan of this ugly beast of an aeroplane. It's an ugly brick with bent up and bent down bits on it, but it has a raw menacing brutish appeal.

Ahhhh great....now you have done it. We will never hear the end of this now from you know who
The only good F-4 is a civilianised F-4 (think Tracor Flight Systems).
TOR

[hrtpaul]

Next quirky thing I read about is the roll control of the Phantom. It uses a combination of aileron and spoilers. The ailerons only go downwards and use opposite wing spoilers - aileron down one side, spoiler up on top wing opposite. So, what can happen at high angles of attack is the spoiler is blanketed by turbulent airflow, thus not effective. So, at high angles of attack the pilot can get control reversal - wants to roll left, but in fact rolls right with nose swinging to the left - hmm, not a good feature! This if not corrected can develop into a flat spin - even worse day at work!

The ailerons actually do go up but only a few degrees. How do I know this? Cos I've actually seen it As for the whole roll reversal thing, the pilots used to use the rudder for rolling at high AOA and therefore prevent their day turning to shit with a flat spin Oh and I do read books. Just ones with pictures instead of words

[Cap'n Wannabe]

Pictures of goats?

[Adam the Akrodude]

Next quirky thing I read about is the roll control of the Phantom. It uses a combination of aileron and spoilers. The ailerons only go downwards and use opposite wing spoilers - aileron down one side, spoiler up on top wing opposite. So, what can happen at high angles of attack is the spoiler is blanketed by turbulent airflow, thus not effective. So, at high angles of attack the pilot can get control reversal - wants to roll left, but in fact rolls right with nose swinging to the left - hmm, not a good feature! This if not corrected can develop into a flat spin - even worse day at work!

The ailerons actually do go up but only a few degrees. How do I know this? Cos I've actually seen it As for the whole roll reversal thing, the pilots used to use the rudder for rolling at high AOA and therefore prevent their day turning to shit with a flat spin Oh and I do read books. Just ones with pictures instead of words

That's why you'd love this book Paul - lotsa nice pic's too! High AoA and rudder input sounds pretty close to a snap roll - try lots of back stick in a aeroplane then kick in rudder - WAHOOO! What essentially is happening is you are rolling around one stalled wing. Not saying what's happening here is a snap roll with the Phantom is at high AoA though. Sounds like one really needs one's head screwed on well operating a Phantom at the limits - pretty well like any other jet of this era - very unforgiving at the edge.

One of my many books on F-105's involves one pilot being taught how to snap his 105 in a emergency - rapid pull back of the stick followed by full rudder = result is a snap roll with very high roll rate. It massively washes off energy/speed though due to the immense drag generated. This pilot did it once over RP6 to get a MiG to overshoot - it worked. Now that takes massive brass ones I think!