[OT] “Raise the nose, HAL.” “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Uknown sireeshkodali1 at gmail.com
Tue Apr 23 11:26:02 UTC 2019


On Tuesday, 23 April 2019 at 11:05:46 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 4/23/2019 2:42 AM, Uknown wrote:
>> Modern military jets are all "relaxed stability".
>
> The 1903 Wright Flyer was highly unstable. The Wrights didn't 
> know anything about stability :-) The pitch instability is 
> likely what made their first flight so short.
>
> The WW1 Sopwith Camel was famously unstable, killing some high 
> percentage of its pilots because of that (I forgot the 
> percentage). But in the hands of a competent pilot, he could 
> use that instability to enable high maneuverability in combat.
>
> The P-51 liked to flip on its back if you applied power too 
> fast.
>
> The WW2 Me-262 had control problems with flying too fast, you 
> could lose all pitch control.
>
> The Korean War F-80 was also unstable, it would abruptly pitch 
> up and the wings would come off if you flew it too fast. It had 
> an engine powerful enough to do that in level flight, you just 
> had to watch it.

Indeed. i'm agreeing with you here. The F-16 was supposedly 
controversial for being both relatively small and more 
manoeuvrable (used "relaxed stability"). Infact wiki states that 
its the first to use it to achieve better manoeuvrability. Pretty 
much all fighters since have used this. The Su-27/MiG29 families 
have both used this along with TVC for some fantastic post stall 
manoeuvrers at aero-shows.
The Eurofighter Typhoon used it to achieve better manoeuvrability 
at most dog fight relevant speeds, and is rumoured to be among 
the best dog fighters because of its agility.

The F-22 similarly is relaxed stability. The F-117 is probably 
the most obnoxious designed fighters to have flown, and is 
similarly unstable. The B-2 is also unstable. The LCA Tejas is 
supposedly the most longitudinally unstable.

In short I'm having a hard time finding exceptions to military 
fighters that don't have an unstable design, especially those 
designed after the F-16 came out.


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