F-16 reversal pirouette?
-
I was watching this interview:
At 38:00 min he describes that he used to do a reversal pirouette maneuver in the F-16N. He describes it as going nose up 90 degrees, 150 kts and stick full forward and full rudder that the F-16 does a pirouette reversal. Does this work in Falcon? Does the FLCS allow this? I’ve tried it, but so far haven’t been able to do it. The F-16 simply noses over when I try it. But I may have been doing it wrong. Was wondering if this would be possible.
-
I was watching this interview:
At 38:00 min he describes that he used to do a reversal pirouette maneuver in the F-16N. He describes it as going nose up 90 degrees, 150 kts and stick full forward and full rudder that the F-16 does a pirouette reversal. Does this work in Falcon? Does the FLCS allow this? I’ve tried it, but so far haven’t been able to do it. The F-16 simply noses over when I try it. But I may have been doing it wrong. Was wondering if this would be possible.
F16N probably has some different FLCS with relaxed stability
try with MPO engaged
you have to try it high enough as well since 150kts means nothing without altitude but i think he was doing it pretty high
-
what he is talking about is the immelman cobra the aggressor squadrons use to simulate the sukhoi super maneuverability. It’s not really an immelman, its not really a cobra. It’s more like a barrel roll with a nose high attitude.
there are a bunch of “moves” used to “reverse” both an opponent, and direction of flight, however it is more fluidic than that. There isn’t one “maverick” brakes on move that works every time. There are different schools of BFM applied when in the hot seat. From what I know just from first party experience, is that the horizontal turn rate of the f-16 specifically to pull the 9g kick, with a rollover, and a crank back the opposite way is the standard for shaking a bad guy on the six, so basically, a rolling scissor.
aerobatics, and practical applications are different things. There is a video of a Navy f-16 n in the aggressor paint scheme doing a similar move however because of asymmetrical fuel load the rudder kick basically ripped the plane into 4 pieces. Every aircraft has quirks, and the best pilots learn to use them. flat plating, dipping, spin outs- all relatively useful in their respective aircraft in their heyday. Whether they have any future besides eye candy in a BVR stealth environment is questionable.
There are some who think the prevalence of stealth aircraft will lead to a resurgence of the need for visual and gun fights. There are dissenting voices who say the prevalence of stealth aircraft will escalate dot map IR and UV techniques to create a future environment where NO system besides a laser counter measure could assist escape from a tracking warhead.
if you look at programs like Cheshire acquirement between BAE and LM which tapped something like 12,000 collegiate universities before going into real development or what Rafale are doing in israel with dotmap IR and image recognition, you can see a real push for radar and optic invisibility for the 2100 century outlook.
The f-15s that are slated for 2050 to go until 2110 are giveaways. powerful irst, powerful auditory and spatial sensors (in the pipe), touch screen cockpits, probably no traditional radar emissions. The skunks will be hard at work.
-
That’s not a real pirouette…the pirouette and a cobra are two different maneuvers - one results in a heading change during maneuver, and the other results in or allows a heading change post maneuver. Most of this description is exactly what I am familiar with -
I have been trying to get BMS to pirouette since I’ve started flying it - hence my persistent interest in low speed handling qualities - and have concluded that the BMS FLCS will not allow what I know as a pirouette because one cannot break the 25 AOA limiter; you can’t get to the 40+ AOA in BMS to do this. You can get slow, but the FLCS tries to hang you at 25 (which is something I’ve heard RL Viper drivers comment about and also happens nicely in BMS, IMO) and you loose the stab authority needed to drive the jet where you’d like it to go…even with MPO engaged the best (worst?) I’ve been able to generate is a non-recoverable inverted flat spin…at least I haven’t found a way to recover. Same thing holds for trying to make the BMS jet tall slide (if you’d like to see an inverted flat spin the best entry is to try and force a tail slide)…so I’ve given up on the idea entirely and am now trying to figure out what it will do to give you a rabid overhead reversal at will.
So far I haven’t made much progress other than learning to anticipate and use cross control to use Dutch roll to my advantage…but that’s not for use overhead, like a pirouette. I’m still looking for that one.
-
for what it’s worth, you can pirouette in the f-22 in BMS, and the hornetc as seen in the video. I’ll also play with low speed high AOA steve. I find your post insightful.
i’ve had good feedback flat plating with adverse rudder in the f-16 in bms. the viper is good in the horizontal but I wouldn’t want to go over the top if I could avoid. Might even consider split S yo yos as opposed to over the top yo yos. You always want to have altitude advantage if you can in the viper. I have not had good results fighting uphill in the f-16, conversely at high angels and mach at the 20 mile mark you’re going to have a marked advantage against 4th and 5th gen because of your horizontal turn rate and weight to thrust. There is no single engine with the profile and the turn radius anywhere in the world that can win in a 2d plain against the viper and the aim120 that we know about at least.
-
Thanks for the answers guys. The way I interpreted what Okie was talking about in the interview video was more a hammerhead like maneuver and reverse like this:
Not really a pirouette maneuver like the F-18 does. I’ve been playing around with slow speed handling quite a bit as well. I’ve been interested since reading in books that guys like Mugs McKeown and Hawk Monroe did reversals like this in the Phantom. And F-14 guys did it as well, but they used rudder and the asymmetrical thrust of the wide set engines pulling one throttle to idle. In this video of the F-15 at 4:50 you can see a pilot do a similar thing:
I always wondered if the F-16 had some tricks up its sleeve as well, but figured the FLCS and 25 AOA limit wouldn’t allow you to do such things. But then I saw this interview with Okie and thought maybe you can do some of that stuff.
F16N probably has some different FLCS with relaxed stability
try with MPO engaged
you have to try it high enough as well since 150kts means nothing without altitude but i think he was doing it pretty high
Thanks, that’s possible indeed that the F-16N has a different FLCS since it was a special F-16 variant.
I tried it again yesterday with the MPO engaged and at different altitudes between 15.000 ft and 30.000 ft. But still no luck. It did nose over more quickly, but couldn’t get it to pirouette. But I still could’ve been doing it wrong of course. I’m by no means an expert.
-
try maybe a vertical roll into the hammerhead by kicking lateral. You might be able to build up enough angular velocity and get some horizontal delta that will allow you to hammerhead.
-
for what it’s worth, you can pirouette in the f-22 in BMS, and the hornetc as seen in the video. I’ll also play with low speed high AOA steve. I find your post insightful.
i’ve had good feedback flat plating with adverse rudder in the f-16 in bms. the viper is good in the horizontal but I wouldn’t want to go over the top if I could avoid. Might even consider split S yo yos as opposed to over the top yo yos. You always want to have altitude advantage if you can in the viper. I have not had good results fighting uphill in the f-16, conversely at high angels and mach at the 20 mile mark you’re going to have a marked advantage against 4th and 5th gen because of your horizontal turn rate and weight to thrust. There is no single engine with the profile and the turn radius anywhere in the world that can win in a 2d plain against the viper and the aim120 that we know about at least.
I have to concur with this…I’ve found the same. Which is why I prefer to low yo yo if I have the room.
-
try maybe a vertical roll into the hammerhead by kicking lateral. You might be able to build up enough angular velocity and get some horizontal delta that will allow you to hammerhead.
Let us know if you can do it. Im fairly sure its covered under ‘stuff the designers dont want you to do’ and under ‘stuff the designers tried really hard to prevent you from doing’ in the name of keeping the aircraft in a controllable condition.
Would be interesting to see if you can find a flaw in their FLCS protections
-
I have some history breaking things the skunks built, alamogordo says hello, here’s trying.
f-14 has same basic design protection by engineering the airflow to buffett around the edges of the flight window. With a little focus I think it’s possible. When I was flying a lot of Su-27 i was doing tail slides for practice, I vaguely remember pulling a hammerhead. The f-16 has a very strict roll behavior, it’s built well, it doesn’t want to be a flaming pile, but where there is a will there is a way.
-
Let us know if you can do it. Im fairly sure its covered under ‘stuff the designers dont want you to do’ and under ‘stuff the designers tried really hard to prevent you from doing’ in the name of keeping the aircraft in a controllable condition.
Would be interesting to see if you can find a flaw in their FLCS protections
…which is another point my my continual “the book ain’t the end-all” comments…bang on the nose.
I’ve tried hammerheads and found that you can’t really do those very crisply either. The issue being that you don’t have enough rudder to get a crisp hammer head, and again the limiter hampers you in reaching/sustaining the vertical when you really need it. You also begin to lose some roll authority on the stick, if I recall…it’s been a while since I’ve played around with this. I also seem to recall that if you lead maneuvers that sometimes you can use the jet’s body inertias to “finish”, but it takes some real practice to be able to use that consistently.
You can generate a departure trying a hammerhead, though…if you really push trying. But what I have found is that controlling yaw induced roll at low speed isn’t really as difficult as some would have you believe, IF you ignore “conventional wisdom” about what people have to say about the ARI and FLCS washout(s). Rudder does work where I’d like it to work…it just doesn’t work to the extent I’d like it to work.
I’m sure there is some way to get the jet to reverse in a hurry…I’m thinking I just haven’t found it yet.
-
keep cranking. we come up with new math using the same 9 digits all the time.
-
It looks like the F35 can do its version of a pirouette also (though I don’t agree with the comments at the end of the video … seems like the F18 does a nice pirouette without thrust vectoring).
-
I don’t know anything about F-35 flight controls, but I suspect that the F-35 is not AOA limited like the F-16 is…and that the twin rudders help. Much.
-
without getting into the weeds. The f-35 has a reaction control system which uses compressed air to add super maneuverability in some aspects of flight, as well as to balance the aircraft. The f35 is covered with over 1000 points of thrust, it also carries a small amount of reaction thruster propellant. You didn’t hear it from me though
-
I don’t know anything about F-35 flight controls, but I suspect that the F-35 is not AOA limited like the F-16 is…and that the twin rudders help. Much.
Will allow Max 50 degrees AoA in A-A config (Lockheed M)
-
I DO know that only the V/STOL F-35B model (got to look over one of those once) has reaction controls - not the USAF or USN jets…so it’s not a factor in/for this discussion. Not to mention that if it operates like the Harrier RCS it only operates in the V/STOL flight regime not up and away.
Which now makes me wonder if an F-35B can drop nozzles at any point in forward flight like a Harrier - known as “VIFF”-ing; Vector In Forward Flight. Which also has far less tactical application than one might think…
-
I DO know that only the V/STOL F-35B model (got to look over one of those once) has reaction controls - not the USAF or USN jets…so it’s not a factor in/for this discussion. Not to mention that if it operates like the Harrier RCS it only operates in the V/STOL flight regime not up and away.
Which now makes me wonder if an F-35B can drop nozzles at any point in forward flight like a Harrier - known as “VIFF”-ing; Vector In Forward Flight. Which also has far less tactical application than one might think…
thats not correct. Look up luke airforce base unrestricted maneuvers f35a panther demo team. that’s just the beginning.
-
I don’t trust anyone’s ability to gather data from the public sector so I’ll just leave this here.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsdJQSCHbqf/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_medium=loading
-
meanwhile at the skunkwerks
“jimmy pour some more 115 on this magnetic coil and back up a bit”