On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 10:01:07 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:


Dunno. Never got a -17 flight, but it would be hard to pack more
performance into a little airplane than a T-38. Spins in a T-38 are
unrecoverable as well, but also virtually unattainable. The airplane
will spin, but it is a decidedly unnatural act and AFAIK only been
accomplished in very abusive flight testing at Edwards.

The F-5 model with the long pointy nose (the F, maybe) spun more
easily and was extremely hard to recover. It took jettisoning the
canopy to break the spin, in fact. The T-38 and the other F-5s
weren't nearly so difficult to recover, but they weren't really easy,
either. The gouge about "easy to spin, easy to recover; hard to spin,
hard to recover" has a certain amount of truth to it.

We, Dryden, were spinning (intentionally) a 3/8ths model of the F-15
when that F-5 got into trouble. Ken had given a briefing on spins,
including the vulnerability of long pointy noses, to a group that
included the AFFTC commander about two days before the F-5 spin. The
commander called our director and asked if anyone else had any
predictions he should know about.

Did you ever run into the inverted pitch hang up on the T-38? It's
well-known in the Flying Qualities community but I haven't heard that
many pilots talk about it. I think the F-5s had it, too.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer