Matt Whiting wrote:
Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired wrote:

Matt Whiting wrote:

wrote:

I read a story about bush flying in a Cub, where the pilot would lower
a bucket out the window on a rope. He would then go into a constant
tight banked turn, with one wing of the Cub pointed at the bucket. He
could spiral down, and place the bucket stationary on the ground, so a
person on the ground could drop off or retrieve small objects.


It's not an urban legend. It's been done for decades. The bucket
never reaches the ground, but a man can drop someing in or take
something out when it gets to shoulder height. There's a picture of it
being done in a mid 1960s National Geographic. There was a discussion
about it in rec.aviation.military a year or two ago.

Maybe I'm not getting the full picture here, but it seems at first blush
that this would require the Cub to be able to fly a zero radius turn.

I have met a guy who claimed to have done it as part of an airshow,
using a Tiger Moth. He said that he used about 1500 feet of rope. Must
have been a bit of pain lowering and raising the bucket.

I think the whole thing depends on the bucket's drag, the rope's drag,
and the flexibility of the rope. The bucket lags behind the plane, and
the flexibility means that the bucket's horizontal position tending
towards the average of the horizontal position of the plane. If the rope
is long enough, then it becomes stationary.