Started reading the book Crusader! Last of the Gunfighters, by Paul Gillcrist. It’s an interesting book. Lots of fun facts and “sea stories” about the F-8…
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Early on he talks about going up for a test flight with another F-8. They wanted to know how the supersonic shock wave of another F-8, in formation, would affect yaw stability in the RF-8 variant of the Crusader. You see, the early Crusaders lacked those two downward pointing fins at the rear of the fuselage. Those were added later, because of yaw instability... It was known that the RF-8 variant had even less yaw stability than the fighter version, due to the squared off lower forward fuselage shape. So the test was to take up two RF-8s and fly in formation at Mach 1.7, and see what happened!
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The shock wave is in the shape of a cone extending from the nose of the plane. The faster you go, the narrower the cone. Gillcrist says that when he came up behind the other plane, passing through the shockwave was “interesting”, yawing the plane so violently that he hit his head on the canopy. It would yaw towards the other plane while coming “into” the shock wave, and outwards from the other plane when passing through it going away. Further, when tucked up along side the other F-8, his plane would get “sucked” into the other plane, and he had to reduce power a lot to stay with his lead in the formation. Drafting! Just like NASCAR!
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Then he says he attempted what amounted to an immelman turn, starting at 30,000 feet, and 625 knots KIAS. The book said never to try such a maneuver in the F-8 above 10,000 feet because you would end up too high, resulting in compressor stalls, over heated engine, and the possibility of death from “the bends” if you lost cabin pressurization, which would probably happen if your engine over heated and had compressor stalls, since the engine provides cabin pressure… But he did it anyway, ended up at 67,200 feet, with the engine going BANG, BANG, BANG!!, which is what a compressor stall was like in the F-8, only much louder and more violent.
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Amazing plane!
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
fficeffice" /><o></o>Early on he talks about going up for a test flight with another F-8. They wanted to know how the supersonic shock wave of another F-8, in formation, would affect yaw stability in the RF-8 variant of the Crusader. You see, the early Crusaders lacked those two downward pointing fins at the rear of the fuselage. Those were added later, because of yaw instability... It was known that the RF-8 variant had even less yaw stability than the fighter version, due to the squared off lower forward fuselage shape. So the test was to take up two RF-8s and fly in formation at Mach 1.7, and see what happened!
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></o>The shock wave is in the shape of a cone extending from the nose of the plane. The faster you go, the narrower the cone. Gillcrist says that when he came up behind the other plane, passing through the shockwave was “interesting”, yawing the plane so violently that he hit his head on the canopy. It would yaw towards the other plane while coming “into” the shock wave, and outwards from the other plane when passing through it going away. Further, when tucked up along side the other F-8, his plane would get “sucked” into the other plane, and he had to reduce power a lot to stay with his lead in the formation. Drafting! Just like NASCAR!
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></o>Then he says he attempted what amounted to an immelman turn, starting at 30,000 feet, and 625 knots KIAS. The book said never to try such a maneuver in the F-8 above 10,000 feet because you would end up too high, resulting in compressor stalls, over heated engine, and the possibility of death from “the bends” if you lost cabin pressurization, which would probably happen if your engine over heated and had compressor stalls, since the engine provides cabin pressure… But he did it anyway, ended up at 67,200 feet, with the engine going BANG, BANG, BANG!!, which is what a compressor stall was like in the F-8, only much louder and more violent.
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></o>Amazing plane!
