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Old 03-14-2008, 04:52 PM   #51 (permalink)
Harpo
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Gainesville, FL
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Harpo's Honda - '05 Honda Civic VP
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RH77 View Post
I may have confused the full swept-back wing in stability issues. (Whichever military aircraft has the adjustable sweep).

RH77

That would have been the F-14A. Not a particularly fun airframe to fly. As wide as it was long with wings spread for takeoff and landing (cats and traps). Made it fly like a frisbee balanced on your finger at low speed. The differential tail had some weird effects as well. Definintely not something you want to do a V2 cut on. Of course, you didn't want that on an A-7E either!

Remember Lift = Drag for most part in autos.

We did downwind recoveries in the Red Sea as common practice because we'd run out of water otherwise. It's a busy shipping area. Not a comforting approach at night. Instead of making the approach at 135knots with a good 15kt headwing giving 2 miles/minute groundspeed, you'd have 150kt groundspeed and very high rates of descent to stay on glideslope. Then in close, you picked up ship wind and such. Neverless, home and your rack was but a three wire away. I can't recall the Skipper ever pointing us down wind on any launch. We stayed at Military Thrust on cat shots, and only pulled back the throttle at the beach if we had IFR wingmen in tow. Speed and altitude are life.

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