Spinning the SZD 50-3

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 01:43:36 UTC, "Bill Daniels"
wrote:

: Remember the old spin-the-hammer trick from freshman physics? It seems
: solid objects don't like to spin around their long axis - they prefer to
: spin about their shortest.

Actually, the physics says that objects are stable when rotating
around the axes corresponding to the greatest and least moments of
inertia. For a glider I'd expect yaw to be the highest moment of
inertia and pitch to be the lowest. Howver, that ignores aerodynamic
effects, which I'd expect to be much more significant.

Ian
--