Flying Wing
- Thread starter Terry
- Start date
jesse
Touchdown! Greaser!
Generally yaw is controlled on a flying wing by creating drag on one of the wing tips. I'm not that familiar with the original Northrup flying wing -- but I imagine -- it had a way to create drag on a wing to provide yaw control. You could get some minimal yaw control with differential thrust.
On something like the B2 I imagine the computer handles all of this. Because it's more complicated than just adding some drag. Doing so causes other effects.
On something like the B2 I imagine the computer handles all of this. Because it's more complicated than just adding some drag. Doing so causes other effects.
gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
I received a few hours of B2 training (in an Airforce sim) and I don't recall any specific issues with crosswinds. With no vertical surfaces it yaws fairly easily. And you're correct that it's totally "fly by wire" with computers interpreting the flight control inputs (game like joystick plus "rudder" pedals) and moving the control surfaces. Those control surfaces are like elevons (trailing edge devices that can move together or alternately) except that they can "split" (half going up the other half going down) to creat drag. The can split symmetrically for a speed brake effect or differentially for yaw control. Their effectiveness for yaw control diminishes considerably if the yaw angle gets very high and I did manage to get the sim into an unrecoverable spin more than once while trying a 360 degree aileron roll (something my instructor said hadn't/couldn't be done but I made it work eventually). I found that if you stayed anywhere near a 90 degree bank for very long (more than a couple seconds) the thing would fall sideways like a rock.
Pi1otguy
Pattern Altitude
The history channel made it seem like computer on the B2 prevents such things including plain old stalls.
Does it tumble when it stalls?
gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
My recollection is that holding the joystick full aft won't stall. You don't flare it at all when landing either so there's no stalling there. Even though I was told to fly it onto the runway like a carrier landing (if only I had any experience with that!) I still pulled the nose up in an attempt to arrest the sink close to the ground and ended up bouncing hard enough to hurt my butt (the sim can be rather violent at times). After that I did what I was told and it worked as advertised. So no stalls, but I was also told that since they never took the prototypes past about 60 degrees of bank or into any stalls, flight in that part of the envelope was based solely on computer analysis.
steingar
Taxi to Parking
At a couple billion a pop it's little wonder why.
gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
Yes, the B2 Spirit is a very mission oriented design.
Pi1otguy
Pattern Altitude
I think that's based on bad experiences with previous wings (YB-49). Supposedly a test pilot (Robert L. Cardenas??) stalled at 20,000'. He couldn't recover normally so he throttled up the right side engines to enter an inverted spin which test pilots know how to recover.
I'm still trying to reliably cite that but my google fu fails me.
Steve
En-Route
The Atlantica is a blended-wing-body airplane I was waiting for. Sadly, it crashed in 2003 and the designer can no longer afford to dream the dream.
http://www.wingco.com/custom_planes_article.htm
http://www.wingco.com/custom_planes_article.htm