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Old October 8th 06, 10:00 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting
Stefan
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Posts: 578
Default Coordinated turns and the little ball

Jose schrieb:

Rudder applied while rolling a T38 at certain lateral deflections
above 1 g can actually couple the airplane and then be followed
immediately by a departure from controlled flight.


What does "couple" mean in this context?


I guess he means precession. If you roll fast enogh, your aircraft acts
as a gyroscope. Now apply a force perpendicular to the roll axis, and
the result will be a precession motion which can be pretty impressive.

You've probably seen (live on an airshow or canned in a video)
gyroscopic maneuvres flown with propeller driven planes. There, the
propellor is the gyroscope. When your aircraft lacks a propellor, you
can still fly gyroscopic maneuvres. The trick is to roll fast enough and
transform the entire aircraft into a gyroscope. You don't need a high
performance jet for this, it works pretty well with an aerobatic glider
with a sufficient roll rate, too (Fox, Swift).

Very funny stuff, yet completely irrelevant to the average spam can
driver. And I doubt MSFS's aerodynamic model canhandle it.

Stefan