I say the pilots are all over qualified on this airframe. Send them all off to crop dusting school first.
Yep, would also improve their turnaround time between passes. While they're at it maybe re commission a couple Stearmans to relearn some stick and rudder.
The plane is absolutely fine. It needs a new prop and an engine inspection.
The Air Force test pilot school arranges for students to fly unusual aircraft as part of their training. This has included EAA's B-17...multiengine prop taildragger. Some of them found it a handful....
tailwheel column in my logbook shows about 3800hrs of tailwheel, but about 1800 hrs of that is glider time, so 2000 hrs of airplane tailwheel time.
My roommate went to the USAF test pilot school and got to fly a Hawker Hart biplane; I was quite jealous. Sadly, Eric lost his life in the crash of a Bombardier Challenger some years later.
The contracts were for a tiered approach, with minimum 10 hours in something like the Super Cub, moving up into a "medium tailwheel" followed by a minimum of 20 hours of "heavy tailwheel" transition before the AT. One of the things that was going to be an obstacle was that the last-tier IP would have to have a minimum of 500 hours of turbine tailwheel time. These were a selection of the requirements:
I have regretted not trying a bit harder for the contract, but I would've had to go into massive debt or find a partner with deep pockets to make it happen and I've got a family reason to not move to Oklahoma.
Trainer, it does have two
They are not bad on a heavy landing. I’ve had to bring a couple back full because of dispersion system failures. Also did a couple jobs where I had to ferry a partial load to a far away place. Landed with a couple hundred gallons in the tank. Topped off water and fuel to get the field done and then recover back home.
Having recently got my tailwheel endorsement in a cub (and a Stearman), I believe the first 5-10hrs for any pilot, including Airforce, should be in a low and slow tailwheel without instruments. I Learned more, gained more confidence, and had more fun than any of my previous flying. (I now understand why J-3 cubs are so expensive lol).
USNTPS was also using the B-25 "Panchito" a few years ago as well. One afternoon as we were leaving the hangar, the wind was howling. I heard a round engine, and turned around to see their orange & white DHC Beaver taxiing out. They took off, climbed to about 1500-2000 AGL and proceeded to hover over the airfield! You never know what you're going to see at Trapnell Field.
Can you clarify the difference?
Yet another threadjack aside, who is "they" and when was this change adopted? There's been plenty of work done and documentation available on e.g. asymmetric stores carriage and flying qualities on asymmetric (sic) airplanes and configurations.
They who wrote the Merriam-Webster dictionary define "unsymmetrical" as "asymmetric." If you're referring to some specialized technical definition, do you have a source that explains this meaning?
Did you every come back to the boat with one on the other side afterwards? Most of the emphasis (IME) on handling/testing with asymmetric stores was/is concerned with lower speeds and/or higher AOA.
Hung stores and bringback are big drivers in opening up the lateral asymmetry envelope, as are oddball loadings required for operational considerations (like wider sensor FOV). You don't always get a vote, unless you want to send the racks and launchers with them
It's highly model-dependent, as you might expect.
Gubmint in a nutshell. Millions spent for a marginal improvement. Coulda just left the light bar on the nose to get in alignment, and a grease pencil x on the windscreen. But, if it ain't broke they gotta try.
Gubmint in a nutshell. Millions spent for a marginal improvement. Coulda just left the light bar on the nose to get in alignment, and a grease pencil x on the windscreen. But, if it ain't broke they gotta try.
I can probably guess the airplane, and later variants use the terminology "Acceleration limits - rolling maneuvers."
