henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (05/25/91)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >From: ames!pur-ee!wb9omc (Duane P Mantick) >a case in point being the F100 Super Sabre, which took the life of >test pilot George Welch and was in production anyway. The Welch >accident was directly due to the undersized vertical stabilizer onthe >F100A early models - and the worst part was, the company knew it, the >USAF knew it and according towhat I read, *Welch* knew it... More precisely, the company and the USAF had been *warned* about it by Pete Everest, one of the early test pilots, but the USAF had been so keen on getting the F-100 into service that Everest's warnings were basically brushed off as unimportant problems in extreme areas of the flight envelope. It *is* curious that the test Welch was flying, a worst-case high-speed pull-up, was not flown until after production started. There were several other unexplained crashes by that time, which may have had the same cause. The only reason why the problem was solved after Welch's crash was that his aircraft was heavily instrumented for test work, which made it possible to establish beyond doubt that the aircraft had gone violently out of control and yawed to destruction. Everest's warnings were re-examined, inertia coupling (previously largely unknown, because long, heavy aircraft with short wings were rare in propellor days) was investigated in detail, and the need for the tall fin was firmly established. -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry