B-52 question

F

flyer68211

Members +
Pls. forgive my ignorance as i'm sure this has been asked....but...B-52's take-off and climb out with a nose down attitude....Is there a way to sim. that somehow on the FS BUFF's available to us presently?....THKS in advance-John
 
Not sure which B-52 you have, but that "style" of take off is certainly "simable". The Alphasim B-47 does it quitre well! Every time I fly that plane and "step out" for a look I shake my head and wonder if the real plane flew like that!
 
flyer68211 said:
Pls. forgive my ignorance as i'm sure this has been asked....but...B-52's take-off and climb out with a nose down attitude....Is there a way to sim. that somehow on the FS BUFF's available to us presently?....THKS in advance-John
Click to expand...

Hello,

I don't have the Alphasim version, but I do have the (KBT, I believe) with the D, X-15, X-24 launch versions, and witnessed a tendancy to this kind of attitude, but very minor.

Whilst the the simple answer is yes - I'm not sure how often that was done beyond a mild degree. From the video footage and in-person airshow performances I've seen, the takeoffs had no rotation - the plane gradually rose off all 4 bogies roughly simultaneously. Similarly, on all the touchdowns I've seen, they've been of the "four-point" variety.

Fuel load has a huge amount to do with this, since the wings are huge, and highly swept - so the centre of mass will vary a great deal if they're empty or full. My understanding is that fully-fulled take-offs were not common - I'll defer to those more informed than me on that detail. Trim, of course, plays a part.

Most of my B-52 launches have a fuel load < 30%, and with slight (approx 3-4 deg) up trim, the plane just unsticks - no weird nose-down or nose up rotation. I'm guessing, however, loading the plane full of fuel and ramming the throttles forward will give you the effect you're looking for .... :)

dl
 
B-52's have a tandem landing gear, with the rear gear located far behind the center of gravity. It is impossible or tandem geared aircraft to rotate about the rear landing gear because of their placement at the rear. So, like all aircraft with tandem landing gear; the wing is mounted at the proper angle for takeoff, as stated, it then takes off horizontally, and may assume a nose-up or slightly nose-down attitude once it is in the air.

The Myasishchev M-4 is another example of a tandem gear aircraft; like the B-52; it's wing is mounted at the angle needed for takeoff.
 
The B52 was something to watch take off . The wings would rise upward . When they reached the end of travel (9feet). The rest of the plane would lift up. It would be level when it was in a climb .
 
The Buff had a tendancy to crab as well, nose, if I remember correctly with nose slight to left. Strangest thing to watch is landing with unbalanced fuel load. One wing tip gear would be completely compressed and other would be 5 or 6 feet up in the air.
 
Woops... I thought it was an auto-install, but it's a straight zip... Still a nice package, despite being a bit dated. I found a few repaints for the "H" model out there too.

Enjoy -- BB686:USA-flag:
 
Yes.the B-52 levitated in a nose down attitude. Trim was very important as the elevators were very small. I think I remember that the trim was set to 2 degrees nose up for take off. Us crew chiefs had to verify the trim before taxi and it sure was noisy back there with all eight burnin!

As for the other reason, look at the angle of attack (incidence?) of the wing.

Bob
 
The B-52 wings were put onto the fuselage with a positive 8 degree angle of incidence. That resulted in unsticking rather than rotation and an extreme nose down attitude while in the traffic pattern with flaps extended. The grand old lady was a sight to behold. The crab on landing or take off mentioned in some of the posts could have been due to the unique cross wind crab landing gear in which the gear remained parallel with the runway heading while the aircraft could be rotated up to 20 degrees from center. The correct value for nose down elevator trime was normally 2 to 4 unit in the nose down direction for a target trim.

Dave Stanicar (Pilot, Instructor, Flight Examiner B-52 D, E ,F, G and H models)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top