Tuesday 21 April 2015

Dynam DC-3 Instability

...but no damage

The hot air balloons were out again this morning, their rotund forms dark in the distance as I crested the hill, the occasional bust of light from the burners illuminating what was otherwise a fairly dull and cloudy morning.

At the field things had brightened up a little, and I had the DC-3 lifting off easily and buzzing around the field. Towards the end of the flight I was playing around with it a bit more, with high-speed passes (or rather, full-power passes, as the Dak is fairly pedestrian) and some steep climbs, trying to get it hanging off the props.



During one of the latter attempts, the DC-3 went into an alarmingly severe spin, the first time its even done this. As usual, I let it drop to gather airspeed and it corrected itself almost immediately without requiring any correction from my side.

So, a little alarming but nevertheless good to discover that the instability exists, but equally that it's only evident in extremis and easily corrected, as long as you have a little height to spare...

No comments:

Post a Comment