Nice find Pel! Your not busy then
- got packed for your holls yet?
Due to the design of the wings and flight controls as you hit the speed of sound they stopped working as expected - and worked in reverse IF AT ALL. the working in reverse was only reported by pilots I cant find any PROOF
The only real information I can find is that the supersonic air flow does not leave the wings in the same fashion as subsonic airflow - making the aerolons stop working. ( I think it leaves them in a vacuum so there is NO WAY they can work!)
The supersonic planes (x-1 and similar) started to have the whole steering assembly pivot in the middle rather than tabs on the back of the wing as previously to overcome the issue of losing control at supersonic speeds.
Rudders pivot on this one
Tabs on the back of this one
Yep - well and truly stolen material
Know a little about it through my sailing rather than aircraft - nothing supersonic in water but there is a stage when we can get similar effects on hull and foils through speed. We can get an air bubble around the foils that is similar to the issues with air flowing round wings.
The fastest boats try to have a 'balanced' rudder where the pivot point is just in front of the balance point of the blade whereas the slower boats have a trailing rudder - pivot is in front of the blade. The balanced type is VERY touchy to steer compared to the trailing but the trailing 'load up' at speed making steering much harder whereas the balanced don't change in feel. I have lost control of boats at 'high' speed due to I am told a similar effect but the controls never reversed, they just stopped working turning me into a passenger! Fortunately when I crashed and 'burned' there was WAY too much water around for it to hurt!
