Reading the other day about the time an A12 pilot used his undercarriage as air brakes to slow down from full speed.
The full speed of an A12 (codename Oxcart) was Mach 3.2. The plane was later developed into the more famous SR71 Blackbird.
Apparently the Lockheed engineer in the debrief room, on being told, snapped his pencil in surprise.
The pilot said it was “very loud”. I bet it was!
like this
Petra
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Petra • •@Petra they normally did it by flying a 200 mile radius circle over the southwestern US desert. It took a long time.
I guess he needed a piss or something.
Dr David Mills
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Katie Fenn
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Katie Fenn • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Katie Fenn • •Katie Fenn
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Thanks for the link!
Love Duxford - here’s my own photo of their Blackbird. Hope it gets a F-117 Nighthawk and a B-2 Spirit one day…
Sarah Brown
in reply to Katie Fenn • •Katie Fenn
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Katie Fenn • •Christine Burns MBE 🏳️⚧️📚⧖
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Christine Burns MBE 🏳️⚧️📚⧖ • •@Christine Burns MBE 🏳️⚧️📚⧖ it would induce a pitch-down tendency for sure, but nowhere near as much as water. It’s still moving through the same fluid as the rest of the plane at this point: the air. All it does is lower the centre of drag (and increase it massively), but the aircraft would easily be able to counter it.
Not a massive amount of stress on the wheels too. Mach 3.2 is fast as hell, but it’s at 80,000 feet and the air pressure up there is tiny. Someone calculated that it’s like doing 330 knots at sea level. That would be deeply unpleasant and probably cause significant injuries to a human, but the plane would be just fine. It’s just utterly wrecking the aerodynamics.