pretty planes

[summer_reine]

As a teen I had a chance to ride in a Stearman, the pilot was barnstorming. My dad wouldn't allow it after he spoke to the guy for a while and decided he was too inexperienced. Maybe I'll get a chance another day.

 

[EbersMoll]

The 104 certainly had it's flaws. They did get rid of the downward ejection seat! I heard a story at Eglin that they landed one and the flaps were not working and it landed at 200 knots. I read that German pilots were not trained properly, that was probably from Lockheed!

Coincidentally I read a good thread on Twitter/X which briefly touched on the F-104 in US and other’s service.

 

[mickyp123]

 

[Boat1]

Beautiful, sleek lines, great color scheme with contrasting landing gear!

 

[mickyp123]

Beautiful, sleek lines, great color scheme with contrasting landing gear!View attachment 2389593

Tiger Moth Variant

 

[BlueEyesInLevis]

I've always thought the Lancair was pretty (image stolen from their site)
View attachment 2388115

Like the curves of a beautiful woman.

 

[EbersMoll]

Pretty in a, ‘unique’, your mother loves you, kind of a way


My own photo
Desoutter Mk.I

 

[summer_reine]

Pretty in a, ‘unique’, your mother loves you, kind of a way

View attachment 2390605
My own photo
Desoutter Mk.I

Any idea why that rudder design?

 

[EbersMoll]

Any idea why that rudder design?

I know the folks at Shuttleworth so I’ll ask next time I’m there.

My suspicion is that it allows the top section of the rudder to enter the opposite airstream from the main rudder surface so improves control weight, a common aerodynamic trick seen on many control surfaces as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I also wonder, given its vertical distance from the longitudinal axis, whether it’s possibly a kind of adverse roll reduction device (Frise effect?)

Alternatively, with that thing, it might just be because that was the shape of stuff they had in the workshop the day they built it.

Good question! I’ll post here and tag you when I get an answer.

 

[EbersMoll]

Beautiful, sleek lines, great color scheme with contrasting landing gear!View attachment 2389593

Factoid: Geoffrey de Havilland named many of his early aircraft after moths because his mother gave him an illustrated book on moths as a child.

 

[summer_reine]

I know the folks at Shuttleworth so I’ll ask next time I’m there.

My suspicion is that it allows the top section of the rudder to enter the opposite airstream from the main rudder surface so improves control weight, a common aerodynamic trick seen on many control surfaces as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I also wonder, given its vertical distance from the longitudinal axis, whether it’s possibly a kind of adverse roll reduction device (Frise effect?)

Alternatively, with that thing, it might just be because that was the shape of stuff they had in the workshop the day they built it.

Good question! I’ll post here and tag you when I get an answer.

Thanks! That's far more technical information than I have the knowledge to parse I thought perhaps it was a prototype and the higher section was added when there wasn't enough rudder, save some weight by not aligning it with the rest. But now that I look again the taller part seems to be all rudder, I've seen some homebuilts with similar style. The rudder larger than the .. crap I forget the term, horizontal stabilizer is it or just tail.. I've been away from airplanes a very long time

 

[EbersMoll]

@summer_reine Sorry, I do tend to ramble on a bit when I get into technical subjects. Maybe I should have done it as a haiku

The fixed part is the vertical stabilizer, the moving control surface is the rudder.

Hope you’re able to get back in the skies soon, for me it’s my happy place.

 

[summer_reine]

@summer_reine Sorry, I do tend to ramble on a bit when I get into technical subjects. Maybe I should have done it as a haiku

The fixed part is the vertical stabilizer, the moving control surface is the rudder.

Hope you’re able to get back in the skies soon, for me it’s my happy place.

Thanks! My over thinker was getting the better of me. I was pretty sure it was the vertical stabilizer but then I thought well, it's stabilizes the horizontal, the elevators are the vertical control so maybe the names are reversed. But no, KISS has always been the aviation standard

*Edit* never apologize for talking excitedly about something that sparks your passion!

 

[EbersMoll]

*Edit* never apologize for talking excitedly about something that sparks your passion!

Thank you! I appreciate that very much

 

[EbersMoll]

The BAe Hawk T.1 is a very pretty plane, especially in black, sadly the pilot of this one is off for a “meeting without coffee”. To be fair there was a tech issue on t/o which necessitated a late abort and a trip through the barriers.




Altitude, Airspeed, Luck - you need two.

 

[EbersMoll]

My photo
Supermarine Mk.XIVe clipped wing (top) and Vought F4U-7 Corsair(bottom)

 

[summer_reine]

The BAe Hawk T.1 is a very pretty plane, especially in black, sadly the pilot of this one is off for a “meeting without coffee”. To be fair there was a tech issue on t/o which necessitated a late abort and a trip through the barriers.


View attachment 2391119

Altitude, Airspeed, Luck - you need two.

*Shrug* any landing you walk away from is a good one

 

[EbersMoll]

*Shrug* any landing you walk away from is a good one

Very true, although is it possible to have a landing if the preceding take off was aborted?

 

[EbersMoll]

Thanks! That's far more technical information than I have the knowledge to parse I thought perhaps it was a prototype and the higher section was added when there wasn't enough rudder, save some weight by not aligning it with the rest. But now that I look again the taller part seems to be all rudder, I've seen some homebuilts with similar style. The rudder larger than the .. crap I forget the term, horizontal stabilizer is it or just tail.. I've been away from airplanes a very long time

@summer_reine
I asked the experts about the Desoutter tail and the answer is surprising.

So the plane was originally designed by a Dutch aeronautical engineer Frederick Koolhoven (FK) as the FK.41. Koolhoven knew what he was doing. The FK.41 was designed as an air taxi operated by a single pilot who would have to swing the prop from outside of the aircraft to start the engine.

To avoid the propwash doing anything untoward while the pilot was out of the cockpit, the plane originally had a tee-tail with the horizontal stabiliser and elevator being mounted atop the vertical stabiliser.

Can you see where this might be going?

Eventually FK sold the design to Marcel Desoutter who was a pilot, and didn’t really know what he was doing. Desoutter decided, for aesthetic reasons, to move the horizontal tail plane lower from the top of the vertical stabiliser to the empennage but didn’t replace the now missing portion of the vertical stabiliser. hence the apparent missing piece of vertical stabiliser.

He made a number of other retrograde changes to the FK.41 which made the Desoutter a worse machine.

So there you have it, when I said it was what they had in the workshop that day, I was closer to the truth than I knew.

I hope this has been some combination of information or entertaining.

 

[subdudeme13]

*Shrug* any landing you walk away from is a good one

A friend once told me there are bold pilots and old pilots but there are no old bold pilots.

 

[summer_reine]

@summer_reine
I asked the experts about the Desoutter tail and the answer is surprising.

So the plane was originally designed by a Dutch aeronautical engineer Frederick Koolhoven (FK) as the FK.41. Koolhoven knew what he was doing. The FK.41 was designed as an air taxi operated by a single pilot who would have to swing the prop from outside of the aircraft to start the engine.

To avoid the propwash doing anything untoward while the pilot was out of the cockpit, the plane originally had a tee-tail with the horizontal stabiliser and elevator being mounted atop the vertical stabiliser.

Can you see where this might be going?

Eventually FK sold the design to Marcel Desoutter who was a pilot, and didn’t really know what he was doing. Desoutter decided, for aesthetic reasons, to move the horizontal tail plane lower from the top of the vertical stabiliser to the empennage but didn’t replace the now missing portion of the vertical stabiliser. hence the apparent missing piece of vertical stabiliser.

He made a number of other retrograde changes to the FK.41 which made the Desoutter a worse machine.

So there you have it, when I said it was what they had in the workshop that day, I was closer to the truth than I knew.

I hope this has been some combination of information or entertaining.

It's wild to me that someone would change a crucial bit of flight mechanics for esthetic reasons

I realize that most planes at the time were tail draggers. Given FK's reason for the higher tail I wonder if the advent of tricycle gear was related to that need to spin the prop manually (I've seen it done, scary as hell) or if FK sort of Burt Rutan'd a way to ease a problem.

 

[EbersMoll]

It's wild to me that someone would change a crucial bit of flight mechanics for esthetic reasons

I realize that most planes at the time were tail draggers. Given FK's reason for the higher tail I wonder if the advent of tricycle gear was related to that need to spin the prop manually (I've seen it done, scary as hell) or if FK sort of Burt Rutan'd a way to ease a problem.

I think it’s easy to be critical from our perspective but back then aerodynamics was very much a black art. Ten years earlier aircraft were deliberately designed to look like birds because that has to be correct, doesn’t it . They were learning but also a lot of those learnings were not shared. But I take your point, it’s an odd, almost hubristic, decision.

Spinning a prop is a fairly scary activity. When we do it there is always someone behind holding your belt and ready to pull you back if it goes wrong. I feel this would only lengthen one’s agony, to be candid, but it looks good on the risk assessment I guess.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to tail wheel versus tricycle. Taxiing a tail dragger, especially a warbird with their long noses and limited visibility is always a challenge. Conversely being nose up for a three point landing makes the landing in a tail dragger easier because of the higher angle of attack and thereby greater lift in the flare, as long as one is below critical angle obviously, without the subsequent concerns of planting the nose gear down too hard.

Anecdotally I think tricycles are harder on pros than tail daggers just because the prob spends more time closer to the grounds but the gyroscopic effects on rotation as the tail lifts up and also the p factor because the prop is square to the airstream in a tricycle are also advantageous for tricycles.

In the end engineering is the science of compromise. And I never imagined writing this post on Lit

 

[summer_reine]

I was going to respond with a picture of the top voted sexiest plane to get back on track but the jury is out between the spitfire, the Lancair I posted earlier, f22, and I think Google was trolling me with this one... The challenger 2

So here's an erotic photo instead

 

[Hipshot1554]

For me it's the Corsair, hands down...

https://www.worldwariiaviation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/F4U-Corsair.jpg

 

[EbersMoll]

It’s hard to look bad when you’re a jet, give me an understated yet utterly gorgeous prop driven wall-flower any day. I’m going to double down on the Griffon engined, bubble top, navalised Spitfire, the Seafire MkXIV.