How To Pull Out of A Dive at 600+ m.p.h. In A Mustang....

MARNE · #1 (**permalink**) August 23rd, 2006, 02:38 AM

Alright fellas,

I know there are those of you among us that ardently believe that a P-51 Mustang cannot dive at over 500-525 m.p.h. due to buffering.

Well, I am here to say today that I talked to one of my veteran friends who "claimed" to have done this feat. Heres how you can pull out of of the 600+ m.p.h. dive in a Mustang...

He said..."We all knew what the dive rate was before the buffering began. This was taught to us in the pre-flight training film on the aircraft. However, we discovered quickly how to overcome the buffering problem. I took my P-51H Mustang up I guess, in October sometime it was during 45' the war had just ended and I was statedside. However, I got the aircraft up to around 30,000 ft. and began my dive; at around 25,000ft. it began its little shimmy due to the buffering however, I pushed it on down wide open and at around 15,000ft. I looked at my altimeter and it read 604 or so I looked out the window and the paint was peeling off the wing...that I can't explain I guess it was friction between the air and the upper wing surface moving at such a high rate speed and it reacted. Anyways, I couldn't pull the stick back it wasn't moving NO WAY!

So, what we learned was to start to turn the wheel on our left in the cockpit for the trim tabs and you simply wind it until you start to feel the nose to free up and begin to rise and then you can move the stick and fly as normal its not an easy task by no means....but... damn it sure was FUN!! We didn't tell our CO about the things we did with these aircraft we'd have been reamed ROYALLY...LOL..."

And that was the account as he rememberd it...I don't know about you guys but, I believe him.

Regards,
MARNE

Kai-Petri · #2 (**permalink**) August 17th, 2007, 06:00 PM

Just thought it might have something to do with the wing type and speed about the "power dive" and not the plane itself? I guess that´s why the delta wing was invented and used??!

tikilal · #3 (**permalink**) August 18th, 2007, 02:04 PM

The delta wing does not reduce the effects of passing through (or approaching) the sound barrier, the sweep of the leading edge does that. Delta wings are used because they generate more lift once you pass 1.2 mach, they are how ever much worse than normal wings below 0.8 mach, this is why the more advanced planes went to swing wings, so that you can be efficient at both speeds.

The "buffering" is caused by the shock waves of compressed air hitting the control surfaces, ie tail, wings and what have you.