Me-262, NOT Bell X-1 Broke SB First

On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 22:27:59 GMT,
(Corey C. Jordan) wrote:

I don't think we should judge Mike too harshly. I for one have written things
here in a fit of pique which I came to regret immediately.

Sometimes we go too far, we're human (in my case at least, that's the rumor).

Appreciate the kind words, CC. With regards to this "arrogance" vis a
vis "humility" thing and showing "respect" for others, I took your
advice and have been reading up about Herb Fisher and other fighter
pilots on your great website.

After digesting what I read on your site and perusing through the
notes posted earlier in this thread, one of the outstanding
characteristics that strikes me about pilots is how contradictory
we often are as a group.

For example, one minute we're embracing the "...no old bold pilots"
adage and then some jock turns around and exclaims, "show
me a humble fighter pilot and I'll show you a dead fighter pilot." The
dichotomy is amazing, but I suppose it has to be that way given how
absolutes in aviation are rare as hen's teeth.

Another classic contradiction that smacks of hypocricy is the guy
who trots out his qualifications in his .sig in each one of his posts
then turns around in the same breath and writes, "I don't know what
the hell your pilot quals are and I frankly don't give a flying f**k."
That, after he just told me to "grow up!" Mind boggling stuff.

Of course, for the most part I'm only kidding when I write "fly pretty
anyone can fly safe" or use the term "grease monkey" (hell, I'm a
grease monkey myself!) but the fact is that I know what my right
size is as both pilot and a mechanic (I'm much better at breaking
'em than I am fixing 'em). If I didn't know my limitations, chances
are I would've died back a few thousand hours earlier in my flying
career especially considering the relatively hazardous nature of
the type of flying.

OTOH, I've lost count of the number of my pilot buds who, for whatever
reason (such as lack of humility or equally as bad -- FALSE humility)
failed to come to recognize their own personal limitations and paid
the ultimate price. Ironically, they often spend their entire lives
submerging their pride, feigning humility and saying all the right
things at the right time so as to obtain their goals in this life.

I knew one such guy who killed himself flying a flexwing trike (yep,
an ULTRALIGHT) last spring in Ohio. This guy had some mighty
impressive credentials indeed; thousands of hours in the F-15, a
graduate of the USAF test pilot school and currently gainfully
employed as a B777 co-pilot. Despite all his experience and
credentials, everyone considered him a likable, humble and
basically just an all-around great fellow. But deep down
I personally always thought the guy was cocky as hell and
watched him from a safe distance with a discerning eye.

Don't get me wrong, given his impressive qualifications and
experience I never doubted that he was indeed an excellent military,
airline and test pilot. But, flexwing trikes are whole different ball
game due to their low mass, kinetic energy etc. and their
susceptibility to wind/gusts causing a sudden loss of control both in
the air and on the ground.

A local pilot reported that two evenings earlier, he saw him flying
a number of steeply banked unpowered approaches in his trike
and each pattern was characterized by very precise and clean flying.

Now, practicing engine-off landings is all well and good, but
according to one weather report I've seen, on the day the guy died the
wind was gusting to 21 kts. If we use the "1/2 wind velocity plus best
L/D speed" guideline we can assume a safe approach should be made
at 50 kts. in CALM air in that particular machine.

Stall on the wing he was flying is about 30 kts. so if he was in a
steep bank at say 40 kts. on approach (e.g: 10 kts. above stall or
best engine-off L/D speed) while attempting to stretch the glide to
the runway, a drop of 21 kts. wind speed due to a gust would easily
put him in a stall by 10 kts. That wouldn't be a shallow stall either,
but a deep stall. Imagine you are swooshing down at best L/D speed
in a 45-deg angle of bank then suddenly at 30 ft AGL the airspeed
drops 21 kts. You are now in a deep stall at only 30 ft AGL.

Furthur exacerbating the problem, as you attempt to recover and enter
the wind gradient near the ground the airspeed doesn't increase as
expected. Must have felt like the fuggen wing was broken! The ground
rush really must have been alarming and the rise in airspeed would
have been slower than the rate of decent toward the ground because
of the gradient.

The bottom line is that this particular "humble" yet highly trained
and experienced ex-military fighter and test pilot was flying too slow
and too steeply banked for the conditions. Whether he was practicing
his emergency procedures (e.g: dead-stick landings) or simply shining
his ass by landing in gusty winds with the engine intentionally shut
down is debatable. But whatever the reason, he paid for his mistake
with his life and I don't plan on repeating his mistake. Flying
"pretty" and flying "safe" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

"Mike Marron" wrote in message
...

Another classic contradiction that smacks of hypocricy is the guy
who trots out his qualifications in his .sig in each one of his posts
then turns around in the same breath and writes, "I don't know what
the hell your pilot quals are and I frankly don't give a flying f**k."
That, after he just told me to "grow up!" Mind boggling stuff.

Please allow me to educate you on something if I may. The signature file I
use
"Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
(replacezwithe)"
is in no way even beginning to touch on my "qualifications". It's used for a
specific reason and in no way is meant to "impress". The IFPF tag is simply
there for those who happen on the group and might remember our association
and wish to write to me for updates and/or current information on something
I can provide. The "pilot" tags are a simple expression of general
background only.
I seldom engage in "can you top this" dialog with posters on Usenet, as you
can see from this post, where I'm not even close to stating for you a resume
of my "accomplishments" :-))
As I said to you before, no one really cares about these things. Your
experience will show to one and all in the quality and accuracy of your
information. Although being normal, I have succumbed on occasion to taking
on people like yourself, in this case I don't care to do that. It just isn't
that important to me that you be "impressed" :-))
I answered your post to Stephen because you were out of line on several
counts. You're out of line with me as well, but that's your choice. I'm a
big boy and will survive the encounter I'm sure. :-)
If I might make a respectful suggestion to you Mike; there's no need for you
to take the attitude you have with some of us on this forum. In the end you
will gain little if nothing from taking us on. We've all seen it many times
before. Most of us know each other, and have known each other for years.
Many of us have thousands of hours flying all sorts of airplanes. Some are
historians; some are just people interested in military aviation. From time
to time we'll get into our "qualifications" but for the majority of us it's
just friendly competition. We all know from years of reading what each of us
has written who is "qualified" at what. Believe me it's no secret out here
who the people are who are "qualified" and who are not.
You seem to like the Ultralights. That's fine. They require a great deal of
expertise to handle safely and properly. We all know that. We don't need you
to tell us this, or compare what we do against what you do. Instead of
taking us on, why don't you just join in with us; accept the fact that most
of us here know what the hell we're talking about, and instead of taking us
on with all this vitriolic rhetoric, just engage us in a more friendly
manner.
Take Steven for example. He flies a 65 horse Aeronca Champ. His knowledge
however far exceeds the "difficulty" factor for the tiny airplane he flies.
He knows a lot about a lot of things and has been posting here for many
years. He's blunt sometimes, but not in any way worthy of the blistering
crap you were throwing his way. The bottom line is this. You have on this
group a real assorted bunch of extremely talented and knowledgeable people.
If you intend to hang around here for any length of time, you might want to
rethink your approach a bit.
I'll let it go at this and instead of listing for you the four pages of my
"qualifications", I'll hope instead that you reconsider where you want to go
with this group and perhaps give it another try in a different direction.
All the best,
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
(replacezwithe)

in article , Mike Marron at
wrote on 2003/10/01 22:49:

...I've lost count of the number of my pilot buds who, for whatever
reason (such as lack of humility or equally as bad -- FALSE humility)
failed to come to recognize their own personal limitations and paid
the ultimate price. Ironically, they often spend their entire lives
submerging their pride, feigning humility and saying all the right
things at the right time so as to obtain their goals in this life.

O.K., I think I've got it now: because you act like a prick on r.a.m., you
figure that you are, as a result, less vulnerable to dangerous flying
mistakes.

Who knew flight safety could be so simple?



Jack

"Dudley Henriques" wrote:
"Mike Marron" wrote:

Another classic contradiction that smacks of hypocricy is the guy
who trots out his qualifications in his .sig in each one of his posts
then turns around in the same breath and writes, "I don't know what
the hell your pilot quals are and I frankly don't give a flying f**k."
That, after he just told me to "grow up!" Mind boggling stuff.

Please allow me to educate you on something if I may. The signature file I
use
"Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
(replacezwithe)"
is in no way even beginning to touch on my "qualifications". It's used for a
specific reason and in no way is meant to "impress". The IFPF tag is simply
there for those who happen on the group and might remember our association
and wish to write to me for updates and/or current information on something
I can provide. The "pilot" tags are a simple expression of general
background only.
I seldom engage in "can you top this" dialog with posters on Usenet, as you
can see from this post, where I'm not even close to stating for you a resume
of my "accomplishments" :-))

OK. Thanks for the clarification.

As I said to you before, no one really cares about these things. Your
experience will show to one and all in the quality and accuracy of your
information.

Agreed. Hence the reason I rarely mention my credentials.

Although being normal, I have succumbed on occasion to taking
on people like yourself, in this case I don't care to do that. It just isn't
that important to me that you be "impressed" :-))

Nor is it important to me if it's not's important to you!

I answered your post to Stephen because you were out of line on several
counts. You're out of line with me as well, but that's your choice. I'm a
big boy and will survive the encounter I'm sure. :-)

I'll concede to being out of line with you but with all due respect,
ya' gotta admit that you did throw the first punch and it was kinda'
of a sucker punch at that. I'll also concede to being out of line
with Stephen with regards to the "attitude" thing (I thought he
misspelled altitude). Having said that, I remain convinced that he's
the one whose totally out of line with regards to some other stuff
that he's posted but I'd rather not waste your time or mine by
rehashing it at this time.

If I might make a respectful suggestion to you Mike; there's no need for you
to take the attitude you have with some of us on this forum. In the end you
will gain little if nothing from taking us on. We've all seen it many times
before. Most of us know each other, and have known each other for years.
Many of us have thousands of hours flying all sorts of airplanes. Some are
historians; some are just people interested in military aviation. From time
to time we'll get into our "qualifications" but for the majority of us it's
just friendly competition. We all know from years of reading what each of us
has written who is "qualified" at what. Believe me it's no secret out here
who the people are who are "qualified" and who are not.
You seem to like the Ultralights. That's fine. They require a great deal of
expertise to handle safely and properly. We all know that. We don't need you
to tell us this, or compare what we do against what you do. Instead of
taking us on, why don't you just join in with us; accept the fact that most
of us here know what the hell we're talking about, and instead of taking us
on with all this vitriolic rhetoric, just engage us in a more friendly
manner.

Nicely said and done deal.

Take Steven for example. He flies a 65 horse Aeronca Champ.

Aeronca Champ huh? One of my fave books was "Flight of Passage" by
Rinker Buck. And one of my fave quotes in that book (no offense to
Stephen or any other Champ owners out there!) is, "The Champ can't
climb fer ****!"

His knowledge however far exceeds the "difficulty" factor for the tiny airplane
he flies. He knows a lot about a lot of things and has been posting here for many
years. He's blunt sometimes, but not in any way worthy of the blistering
crap you were throwing his way.

Again, I'll concede my mistake assuming he meant "altitude" instead
of "attitude," however, like I said I'm still convinced that he was
totally out of line with regards to some other stuff that he's posted
which I won't waste your time or mine by rehashing it at this time.

The bottom line is this. You have on this group a real assorted bunch of extremely
talented and knowledgeable people. If you intend to hang around here for any length
of time, you might want to rethink your approach a bit.

FWIW, I've been around here (mostly lurking) for many years myself but
only recently started actively posting. I'll take your suggestion and
try a different approach (in fact, I went "missed" last night after
being gently ****hammered by CC).

I'll let it go at this and instead of listing for you the four pages of my
"qualifications", I'll hope instead that you reconsider where you want to go
with this group and perhaps give it another try in a different direction.

Speaking of which, I'd be interested in your qualifications. After
reading about Herb Fisher on CC's site (I've also read about other
famed civilian test pilots such as LeVier? and Cochran, Lindbergh,
etc. etc.) I've always wondered how a civilian is fortunate enough to
find him/herself in the cockpit of a powerful fighter aircraft. Pardon
my ignorance, but one would think that the military would mandate
you to get your commission and be an active service member
before allowing you to fly high performance military A/C, no? If
you had your druthers, wouldn't you prefer to be an active
servicemember anyway so as to have the opportunity to actually
USE your skills in combat? Just wondering.

Thanks!

What seems so be missing from this dicussion is no one said "manned
supersonic
flight."

The first unmanned supersonic flights were some types of bullets fired in
the
late 1800s. As far as flying machines being super sonic the Nazi A-4 did
it
before the Me262 even flew.


I assumed by "flight" the discussion was limited to airborne vehicles.

Of course

Just injecting a little levity. I do this with people who tell me "before
Yeager no one believed supersonic flight was possible" or that "it was thought
the sound barrier was impenetrable." In this case there seems to be some
arguing so I decided to lighten things up a tad.


Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

"Mike Marron" wrote in message
...
"Dudley Henriques" wrote:
"Mike Marron" wrote:

Speaking of which, I'd be interested in your qualifications. After
reading about Herb Fisher on CC's site (I've also read about other
famed civilian test pilots such as LeVier? and Cochran, Lindbergh,
etc. etc.) I've always wondered how a civilian is fortunate enough to
find him/herself in the cockpit of a powerful fighter aircraft. Pardon
my ignorance, but one would think that the military would mandate
you to get your commission and be an active service member
before allowing you to fly high performance military A/C, no? If
you had your druthers, wouldn't you prefer to be an active
servicemember anyway so as to have the opportunity to actually
USE your skills in combat? Just wondering.

Thanks!

I have forwarded to you via back channel email, a representative biography
as you have requested.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
(replacezwithe)

"Dudley Henriques" wrote:
"Mike Marron" wrote:

Speaking of which, I'd be interested in your qualifications. After
reading about Herb Fisher on CC's site (I've also read about other
famed civilian test pilots such as LeVier? and Cochran, Lindbergh,
etc. etc.) I've always wondered how a civilian is fortunate enough to
find him/herself in the cockpit of a powerful fighter aircraft. Pardon
my ignorance, but one would think that the military would mandate
you to get your commission and be an active service member
before allowing you to fly high performance military A/C, no? If
you had your druthers, wouldn't you prefer to be an active
servicemember anyway so as to have the opportunity to actually
USE your skills in combat? Just wondering.

Thanks!

I have forwarded to you via back channel email, a representative biography
as you have requested.

I appreciate you sending the info but I should have mentioned that the
"hotpop" email address shown above is nothing more than a sinkhole for
SPAM. Please re-send the message if you will to:




Thanks!

-Mike Marron


Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
(replacezwithe)

"Orval Fairbairn" wrote in message
news
In article ,
(B2431) wrote:

What seems so be missing from this dicussion is no one said "manned
supersonic
flight."

The first unmanned supersonic flights were some types of bullets fired
in the
late 1800s. As far as flying machines being super sonic the Nazi A-4 did
it
before the Me262 even flew.


Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

No, the first manmade supersonic flight was the tip of a whip, at some
time buried in the sands of history.

Actually, if you go into some "extensive research" you might discover that
the first supersonic flight was made in my classroom at a parochial military
academy when I was in the sixth grade by Sister Paskalina,(AKA Pasky :-)
when she caught me smoking in the bathroom and used that long hardwood
pointer she had with the little rubber tip on it on my open palm!! Little
did I know at that time that the "whoosh" I heard just before the pain of
contact, was the boundary layer separation at the leading edge of transonic
shock formation as that damn thing came down virtually on the very edge of
mach one!!! :-))))
I'm not absolutely certain, but to this day, when I look at my right palm, I
could SWEAR I see a welt line vaguely showing from upper right to lower
left.
:-)))))
Anyway, Pasky convinced me to give up smoking. To this day I don't touch the
damn things.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
(replacezwithe)

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 00:53:23 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:

Furthermore, the 262 didn't make it through either. It's aerodynamic shape
coupled with it's ability to create the thrust required didn't equate. There
was no way the 262 would have been able to get high enough and accelerate
fast enough in real time within the altitude restraints it could create. In
other words, for the specific design of the 262, there simply wasn't enough
sky up there to get it done. This is common knowledge in the flight test
community. Even if it had the air available, the 262's drag index curve
would never have allowed a total mach one airflow.

Well, ignoring the altitude limitation, I'm not sure if aerodynamics
has to matter. If a man without an airplane can fall from a balloon
fast enough to get supersonic, it seems that an airplane should do the
same. You know, going downhill with the wind at its back?

Other than this being highly unrealistic and totally impossible, of
course, it's a good argument. However, there is a reason that Yeager
is said to be the first to exceed Mach 1 in nearly level flight. It's
like the caveats on the Wrights.

George Welch was probably the first through mach one. I realize this damn
argument will go on forever, but Welch again is the general consensus of the
flight test community......and Yeager is very much a member of this
community :-)))

I have Chuck, Bob, Bob, Jack, and James's (Yeager, Cardenas, Hoover,
Russell, and Young) book, "The Quest for Mach One" right here
(autographed by Chuck because I bought it at the EDW museum). Not a
word about George Welch that I can find. Johnny Armstrong says the
X-1 was first, too, as did Jackie Ridley.

If that isn't "the flight test community", I don't know what is.

Even George Welch doesn't think he was first, according to both Dick
Hallion and Chuck Yeager. I heard Chuck say so when asked directly at
the 50th anniversary ceremony.

Mary
--
Mary Shafer
"There are only two types of aircraft--fighters and targets"
Major Doyle "Wahoo" Nicholson, USMC

"Mary Shafer" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 00:53:23 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:

Furthermore, the 262 didn't make it through either. It's aerodynamic
shape
coupled with it's ability to create the thrust required didn't equate.
There
was no way the 262 would have been able to get high enough and accelerate
fast enough in real time within the altitude restraints it could create.
In
other words, for the specific design of the 262, there simply wasn't
enough
sky up there to get it done. This is common knowledge in the flight test
community. Even if it had the air available, the 262's drag index curve
would never have allowed a total mach one airflow.

Well, ignoring the altitude limitation, I'm not sure if aerodynamics
has to matter. If a man without an airplane can fall from a balloon
fast enough to get supersonic, it seems that an airplane should do the
same. You know, going downhill with the wind at its back?

The entire context of aerodynamic shape as it relates to the 262 doesn't
address the single factor that defines the shape. The context should address
the COMBINATION of the shape; thrust; AND the room available to put that
shape through mach 1. In my opinion the 262 just didn't have the right
combination of thrust to fight it's HUGE drag rise curve and get the job
done within any altitude vs time envelope available to it.

Other than this being highly unrealistic and totally impossible, of
course, it's a good argument. However, there is a reason that Yeager
is said to be the first to exceed Mach 1 in nearly level flight. It's
like the caveats on the Wrights.

I don't think anyone would disagree that Yeager was the first in "nearly
level flight". That simple caveat "level flight" seems to be the "issue"
that causes all the debate on who was actually first. The general statement
you hear most often from various sources both inside and outside the
military, regardless of the "official printed" release given at the time of
Yeager's flight, is that Yeager was the first to break mach one....or that
Yeager was the first to go supersonic....or that Yeager was the first to
break the sound barrier. Notice that all of these statements seem to omit
the level flight condition. This, coulped with a HUGE assortment of eye
witnessess ranging from North American employees, people on the range at
Edwards, on down to those who were sitting at the bar at Pancho's :-)) the
week before Yeager's flight when Welch was toying around with the 86, all
seem to confirm that Welch indeed did manage to go mach 1 in the prototype
Sabre.



George Welch was probably the first through mach one. I realize this damn
argument will go on forever, but Welch again is the general consensus of
the
flight test community......and Yeager is very much a member of this
community :-)))

I have Chuck, Bob, Bob, Jack, and James's (Yeager, Cardenas, Hoover,
Russell, and Young) book, "The Quest for Mach One" right here
(autographed by Chuck because I bought it at the EDW museum). Not a
word about George Welch that I can find. Johnny Armstrong says the
X-1 was first, too, as did Jackie Ridley.

If that isn't "the flight test community", I don't know what is.

Even George Welch doesn't think he was first, according to both Dick
Hallion and Chuck Yeager. I heard Chuck say so when asked directly at
the 50th anniversary ceremony.

Mary

Even Chilton couldn't say for sure. It's ironic, but of the few who were in
on it, a civilian named Millie Palmer would have been the best shot at a
certainty. Welch had told her to listen for the booms and she heard them.
Also, Welch not claiming he was first is absolutely within the context of
his personality as well as the extremely "unusual" circumstances that were
directly involved with his prototype flights in the 86 during the week prior
to Yeager's flight.
The official version gives mach one to Yeager. Welch was ok with that; a
real gentlemen. I would compare him in an instant to Red Barber, who existed
in very much the same conditions as Welch. Gentlemen both.
And this takes noting away from Yeager either; a fine gentlemen and an
absolutely great pilot. These things are what they are,,,,period! History
isn't always kind, and history sometimes doesn't tell the "entire" story.
It's not a lie.....not even a fabrication......it's just the way things go
down. You learn to live with it....just like George Welch did.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
(replacezwithe)