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From: doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: Aviation Consumer vs. "Yeager"
Message-ID: <973@terak.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 11:22:50 EST
Article-I.D.: terak.973
Posted: Wed Jan  8 11:22:50 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jan-86 04:08:11 EST
References: <953@terak.UUCP> <16900026@hpfcmt.UUCP>
Organization: Calcomp Display Products Division, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Lines: 52

> For example, the low altitude acro stuff that Yeager would do without
> concern killed enough pilots that such activities are court-martial material 
> in today's armed services.

Huh?  The "low altitude acro" wasn't exactly hammerheads and snap rolls.
It was aileron rolls and buzzing, two techniques that are absolutely
required for fighter operations against ground targets.  The USAF not
only condones low altitude aileron rolls, it teaches them as a
basic maneuver for fighter pilots.

Consider a fighter skimming along at treetop level, Mach 1.5 or so.
When you come to the crest of a hill, you do *not* push the stick
forward (negative G forces).  Instead you roll inverted, pull back on
the stick, and when "level" again you roll right side up.

When approaching a ground target, one attack maneuver is the "pop-up".
Starting at treetop level, you pull back on the stick to go into a
sharp climb, then immediately roll inverted.  Looking down through
the canopy, you locate your target.  At the appropriate point, you
pull back sharply to bring the nose down, aim at the target, and fire
your cannon while still inverted.

If I have to defend the use of buzzing for strafing and low-altitude
ordnance delivery, well...

> I also think that AC has a pretty good point. In our present society
> it will not just be the insufficiently skilled individual who augers in on
> a dumb move but it might be the aircraft manufacturer who must pay $ 10M
> to the pilots heirs because he didn't build an airplane that would prevent
> the pilot from flying inverted at 50' 

I must not have been very clear in my original posting, because my main
point is this:

Nobody in his right mind would ever recommend that civilian pilots use
Yeager as an example.  Taking risks is the heart and soul of flying
fighters and research planes, but it is the mortal enemy of civilian
flying.

But Yeager was a military fighter pilot and a military test pilot, *not*
a civilian pilot.  I can find no indication in the book that he ever
held any civilian license (not even a student pilot license).  The only
reference I can find to him ever piloting a civilian plane was when he
co-piloted Jackie Cochran's Lodestar on a spy mission to the USSR.

It is simply not fair for Aviation Consumer to attack Yeager as "unsafe
at any speed" and "a bad example for civilian pilots" when he never
*was* a civilian pilot.  It's like complaining that the Golden Gate
Bridge is a terrible example of a cantilever bridge because it needs all
of those cables just to keep from falling down!
-- 
Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {hardy,savax,seismo,decvax,ihnp4}!terak!doug