Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: El Gato
Your thinking is just a little bit sideways (pun intended).

If the aircraft yawed violently to the left, the VS would be 'snapped' off to the left. Also, in the event of horzontal shear, with the tail ripped off, I'm not sure what the yaw axis is, and whether 'wind' force from the side would yaw a tail-less A300 right or left. Not sure anyone knows.

89 posted on 11/17/2001 12:21:28 PM PST by Blueflag
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 75 | View Replies ]


To: Blueflag
If the aircraft yawed violently to the left, the VS would be 'snapped' off to the left

If that's not what I said, it's what I meant. :) However if an external force caused the left yaw, through pushing sideways on the VS, that would be a push to the right on the VS, since the nose moves in the opposite direction from the tail, but the direction the nose moves is the direction of the yaw. If something pushed hard on the right side of the VS, you'd expect it to snap off to the right. However it could have snapped on the rebound, or the push could have started that left yaw, which subsequently caused the tail to break off to the left, as you indicate. It is hard to "talk" about such stuff without being able to draw pictures or at least talk with your hands. (Which I've been doing of course, but only "talking" to myself, which something engineers do all the time)

143 posted on 11/17/2001 1:33:56 PM PST by El Gato
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 89 | View Replies ]

To: Blueflag
with the tail ripped off, I'm not sure what the yaw axis is, and whether 'wind' force from the side would yaw a tail-less A300 right or left

The yaw axis is still straight "down", but of course that's not your point. Leaving the wings out of consideration, one might expect a side wind to not cause much yaw force at all, since the area exposed to the wind would be pretty evenly distrubuted to each side of the center of mass, through which that yaw axis passes. That's a "static" sort of analysis, and things were far from static at that point in time, so it's not worth too much weight in one's thinking.

149 posted on 11/17/2001 1:40:44 PM PST by El Gato
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 89 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson