Spinning a B-25.
Well, not me. But that guy.
One of the difficult things about instructing is to know when to take over if the student is getting into a difficult or hazardous situation. If you take over too soon, he is likely to believe that he could have handled the situation and, of course, If you let it go too long it could be a disaster. In this case, I let it go a little too long, as I believed he would eventually see that he couldn’t control the plane and take some action. However, he apparently felt that he could still Control it. When it got to the point when I became very uncomfortable, I reached up and pulled power back on the left engine and was going to push the nose down to pick up air speed.
About the time I pulled the throttle back on the left engine, the plane rolled over on its back, and I thought I could pull back on the stick and “split S” out of it. However, the plane did not react as I anticipated. The right rudder pedal came all the way back and I already had the elevator control in the rear position, hoping to split S. However, the plane went into a spin to the right and we were inverted for a time. I put both feet on the right rudder pedal and could not move it a bit. I pushed on the control wheel and could barely move it. I called to my student to do the same so we were both on the controls but could not move the rudder and could barely move the stick.
Sounds like fun.
I wonder what the weight and balance was?
Holy crap, Batman!
I’d say the student owed the instructor a case of beer for that one.
Great story. I love the ‘tails from long ago. Seems to me they had a bit more stick n’ rudder skill back then. Perhaps it isn’t true, but my heart will always be with the Spitfire and Mustang in a close quarters dogfight with an FW-190.
WOW !
check out this 707 doing a roll — you might have seen it before . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_khhzuFlE
Yikes.
Wonderful story, but methinks his starting altitude was well above 9k. You simply cannot go through the maneuvers described and lose only 2 or 3 k altitude.
Like you Bill, I found that part of the story a bit hard to swallow. But then, I flew jets for most of my career and we had pretty stupendous rates of descent in spins. But we spun in primary we used to get three turns and a recovery out of a couple thousand feet in T-34’s, so I just wasn’t quite ready to throw a flag on this one.
The insignia on that B-25…Dutch?
Merry Christmas to you and yours, Lex. Thank you VERY much for all the entertainment and enlightenment this past year. You run one of the truly great establishments on these here inter-tubes.
In the category of been there done that—in a Baron, not a B-25—I know the feeling. But I didn’t think the instructor deserved the beers; he was demonstrating Vmc and stalled it in the process, just like this lad.
For the last few years I’ve flying fam and training hops in a C-45 for the FAA. Vmc is well above stall speed, as it is in the B-25, and there’s no excuse for departing the aircraft with one engine pulled back.
But out of curiosity, I just tried this in the sim I fly, IL2. (It has the best flight model of any sim I’ve flown, BTW, and if you are inclined to such pastimes, I highly recommend it.)
Same setup, dirty stall, cleaned her up, then chopped the power on the right side. It did spin, and it did go over on it’s back, which if you think about is exactly what you’d expect.
But unlike Hennessy’s account I didn’t have any trouble recovering (no bombs, half tanks) . . .UNLESS it had a notch of flaps in. Then I couldn’t stop the rotation or break the stall. The spin went real flat, BUT power on the opposite engine did help after a fashion, AND it did go back into a spin the opposite direction, just as in his account. I’m guessing the flaps blanket the rudders and elevator. They sure do in the C-45H.
I started at 9,000 feet, and eventually crashed in the ocean. Tried it again retracting the flaps after 3 rotations, and recovered at 5,000.
I’m guessing that in Hennessey’s case someone got smart, looked to see if the bird was clean, realized it wasn’t, and sucked up the remaining flaps.
As wonderful as IL2 is, and as many hours of fun as I’ve had with it, I won’t claim it’s a 100% faithful model of the dozens of WW2 aircraft. But I got to fly a ‘51 yesterday and recreating the rare experience this morning it was spot on.
Then my wingman, flying online from Baltimore, shot me down. I suppose you know this means WAR!
I wonder if this was part of the plane’s flight envelope. Nice shot, though.
B-25s were aerobatic only in the same sense that a 707 is, you can roll it if you’re careful. But nobody ever routinely puts them on their back.
I’m reminded of a “no shit” story about a couple of Navy boys burning the midnight oil (and gas) in a Bugsmasher to keep their flight skins. Growing bored and sleepy the decided a roll would be fun. Didn’t have a problem staying awake after the dished out and damn pulled the wings off.
Vid of test described in previous post here.
I dunno about the airplanes one actually rides in, but with the RC models, the rule is not to do any weird unfamiliar maneuver unless at least two mistakes high. One would think that risking life and limb would be taken more seriously than risking a few hundred bucks and a hundred hours of labor.
But then, on looking at the pic of the guy who told the story, I betcha he and all others involved were young enough at the time to get the car-insurance surcharge for being young, and dumb, and full of ah, maleness.
As they say, if one is younger than 18, he’s too rash to be a fighter pilot, and if older than 25, too cautious.
Lex must have a first-class mind, being mature enough to be a responsible officer, husband and father, while at the same time maintaining, in a different compartment of his head, a rowdy young fighter pilot co-processor
If you were in an inverted flat spin why is the top of the plane bright and the bottom dark? And why is there reflection on the front top of the engine nacales?
Me? I’m accepting the possibility that this isn’t a picture of the actual, unintentional spin. Because that would have been really fortuitous. Don’t you think?
“An inverted, flat spin.” Sounds a lot like the state of our Defense Budget.
North American made some pretty good airplanes in it’s heyday, the B-25 among them. My flight instructor when I was a kid had instructed in them in the USAF in the early 50s. They were still in use as multiengine trainers then. He related a story to me that when he went thru multiengine training he buzzed his parents’ house in Newport, Maine while on a cross country to Dow AFB, ME and blew/knocked over the chimney on the house. Guess that got him instructor duty. Or so he said. R.I.P. Dick.
I read that story before. Makes you wonder how many other great flying stories never got recorded from that era.
Dear ‘Ole Dad told a tale of being on a training flight with a bunch of solo students in the AT-6 during WWII somewhere in the vicinity of Victoria, TX when up among their flight came a bunch of helium balloons, having been released by some celebration by the small town below (maybe it was July 4th as I recall).
Whatever rat racing or 1 v 1 dogfight practice they were supposed to be doing quickly evolved into everyone trying to bust the balloons. Seemed it was harder than it looked especially as 3 or 4 birds all convereged on the same balloon at the same time. Aerial “chicken” where that guy who closed his eyes and hung on the longest as the others peeled off in various directions to avoid midairs.
Oh to be 19 and to enjoy the escape of contemplating heading overseas in 1944….
Dad said it was a wonder nobody died, or got in any sort of trouble. He always wondered if the folks on the ground looked up and enjoyed the show.
Then there was the time he tried to do an outside loop in the T6. Started from the top and just pushed over. Somebody claimed they had done one but I think he was set up from the gitgo….
BTW – that picture I’ve added was shot at just about the exact spot the Stearman Video posted a few days back was shot…