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Fighters
are not totally aerobatic. They are
designed to travel long distances with heavy
loads but be maneuverable enough to attack
and escape. This article describes six
maneuvers necessary for most
fighters—take-off, flyby, loop, slow roll,
stall turn and landing. There are many
other tactical maneuvers too, of course, but
they are mostly combinations of these six.
For example, a split-S is half of a roll
followed by half of a loop.
Take-off
Taxi
into position and stop. Exercise all
control surfaces including the flaps. Most
warbirds take off with flaps in the up
position, but sometimes heavily laden planes
on a short runway use a partially down flap
position, never fully down. The airplane in
the video has a light wing loading, so the
flaps are fully up on takeoff.
Before starting, note the wind’s direction
and strength. Have a plan for what you will
do if the engine quits on take-off. Advance
the throttle slowly while concentrating on
steering with rudder. If your tail-dragger
airplane tends to nose over on rough ground,
hold full up-elevator at first, but release
it slowly as speed increases. The model may
tend to weathercock into the wind, and
engine torque will try to turn the model to
the left. How much varies greatly from model
to model. Airplanes with large amounts of
dihedral tend to roll away from the wind as
the wind gets under the upwind wing panel.
Be ready to level the wing with opposite
aileron.
Rudder corrections are needed mostly in the
early stages of takeoff. After many
flights, you will learn how to anticipate
the effect of wind and torque, and apply
rudder before it is needed. In this video,
there is a slight crosswind from the left,
so a slight amount of right rudder was
immediately applied at the beginning of the
takeoff roll and reduced as speed
increases. In this case, most of the
initial rudder corrections compensate for
the bumps in the runway.
Advance to full throttle, elevator in
neutral, and roll on the ground until well
above flying speed. At most, a bump of
up-elevator may be required to overcome the
wheel drag in the grass in order to lift off
(rotate, in pilot-speak). Be ready to push
down - elevator if the nose rises too
steeply - this is no time for a surprise
stall.
At
the point of lift-off, the pilot’s attention
includes the ailerons. They are used only
to hold the wings level at this point.
Meanwhile, the pilot continues to hold right
or left rudder until the plane has completed
the initial climb. Warbird ailerons are not
very effective at high incidence angles and
low airspeed, so turns must be corrected
primarily with rudder in this situation.
A
warbird should be trimmed for a shallow
climb at full throttle and a shallow glide
with power off. So, after lift-off, the
pilot should be able to release the
up-elevator as the plane gains airspeed and
continues climbing. In this video example,
the landing gear has significant air drag
that tends to lever the nose down, but the
landing gear drag disappears when the gear
is retracted. Also, some compression lift
is gained by closing the wheel wells. At
this point the pilot releases the
up-elevator.
Warbirds raise the landing gear immediately
after lift-off in order to gain altitude and
airspeed as quickly as possible. Top Gun
rules say to start the retract cycle at ten
feet of altitude - flight judges listen for
the click of the retract switch. |
