B-29 out of control!

PRB

PRB

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Staff member
Experienced an odd flight characteristic the other day, in the WoP B-29A. We were flying online, we meaning “Flight-19”, Willy, Moses03, Taco, MM, and various others from time to time. Moses03 had issues on take off, and I made a tight turn to get back over the field. Ok, I know that “B-29” and “tight turn” are two concepts that are at odds with each other, but still I tried, and that's when I got into trouble.

There was no stall warning, but the ship started dropping out of the sky like those anvils in the Wiley Coyote cartoons, and she was in a severe yawing motion, which no amount of rudder could correct. And the airspeed was very low, 100-110 MPH. I was only at 7000 feet, but I thought the only way to get out of this was to get airspeed, so I dumped the nose and applied full power. Still it took several life times of seconds before she suddenly grabbed hold of the air again, yawed suddenly in the other direction, and “normal” flight returned, at under 3000 feet.

Good stuff! :d
 
Good shots P!

I had similar while doing some familiarization flights in the Superfortress out of Memphis (KMEM) yesterday afternoon. The only thing was I had just taken off fully loaded, went on the downwind and was turning into final to start a series of touch n goes, when at about 2500' altitude, the left wing dropped to the ground pulling the rest of the B-29 with it. I was too low to pull out and the ground rose up and smacked me. All I could do was go along for the all too short ride. I think mine was too heavy, too slow and too tight a turn to final. It definitely earned the name "Earthquake" on that one.
 
That's a nice line shot of the B-29's, too bad we can't see that in real life.

I'm not a four engine guy, but I do know that all aircraft have a maximum take off weight and a maximum landing weight. Be sure you are not trying to land while exceeding the maximum landing weight. Any maneuver at maximum takeoff weight must be very gentle, so I can see a tight turn in such a condition is going to induce an accelerated stall. A heavily laden aircraft in a stall is going to consume a lot of altitude because you will also need to apply gentle forces to regain control.

Just my dos centavos.
 
stansdds said:
That's a nice line shot of the B-29's, too bad we can't see that in real life.

I'm not a four engine guy, but I do know that all aircraft have a maximum take off weight and a maximum landing weight. Be sure you are not trying to land while exceeding the maximum landing weight. Any maneuver at maximum takeoff weight must be very gentle, so I can see a tight turn in such a condition is going to induce an accelerated stall. A heavily laden aircraft in a stall is going to consume a lot of altitude because you will also need to apply gentle forces to regain control.

Just my dos centavos.
Click to expand...

Rgr that, stansdds. There's no question I exceeded one or more safe flight parameters during the almost ill-fated turn. I just thought it was odd for a couple of reasons. I never got a stall warning from FS, but the ship was behaving similarly to a stall, in some ways. She was straight and level, but loosing altitude at between 1000 and 2000 FPM, and at the same time in a bizzare right yaw which could only barely be counteracted by full left rudder. Flat spin? I don't know, but, at some point I decided I needed airspeed more than anything else, and holding down the left rudder wasn't helping. So I let her yaw right while I applied full power and pushed the nose over. At about the same time I made that thought, the left rudder seemed to suddenly take effect, and the ship yawed violently to the left. So I let off the rudder, and all the other controls, and let the beastie gain airspeed. I was at 3000 ft AGL at that point, so I had time. BY about 2000 FT AGL I was back under control.

Fun with FS!
 
This is something I've seen quite frequently over the years, both reviewing and pushing aircraft to their limits, and also just normal flying.

Stalls are almost completely mis-represented in FS. It's not a developer's fault, it's merely a sim-limitation. Stalls and spins are extremely hard to simulate in the flight dynamics, and I don't even do flight dynamics, I just know from seeing weird stalls over the years. Sometimes they just belly flop continuously, nose up, but falling. Other times, they'll stall, start to shudder and then enter the 'weird' realm of flight dynamics I believe your B-29 entered in your turn, Paul. Sometimes the aircraft will spin wildly on all three axes, or sometimes shoot down then up hundreds of feet at a time. Sometimes you can recover, sometimes not.

An example: Take a high powered jet like an F-15 up to 90,000+ feet and then attempt any flight maneuver. You will most likely enter that 'weird' realm of FS9 flight dynamics.

Back to the stall: Very few aircraft stall realistically, with one or both wings breaking and falling. I can't quite recall any at the moment other than the Realair SF.260, which always has been renowned for it's spin characteristics. Even following their manual instructions and settings for FS, I can't really get that plane to go into a runaway spin where I can let the controls go and she'll keep spinning.

In the end, FS does simulate quite well the normal and happy regimes of flight. Get a little nutty with your aircraft, and watch the sim get a little nutty with it, too. :d :ernae:
 
Yeah, I knew I was way over max landing weight. But as it was the first time in years that I'd flown the WoP B-29, I was seeing what I could get away with and what would bite me. ;)
 
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