Quote:
Originally Posted by Bounder!
I'm a little out of my depth here but... I read somewhere that if speed and 'g' are equal then the turning circle is proportional to the wing loading and that is one of the reasons the spit out turns the 109.
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If speed and 'g' are equal, then the circle must be the same size.
If a spit and a 109 are at the same speed, then the spit can pull more 'g' because the wing of the spit is bigger, and thus the loading (aircraft weight/wing area) is lower, and pulling more 'g' makes the circle smaller. This may fail as a rule when you get up to speeds where enough 'g' can be pulled to break the airframe, or to black out the pilot, but as I understand it these aircraft would have to be diving to get fast enough to break their airframes. It also doesn't apply below stalling speed.
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Wing loading isn't all the story, the Hurricane's wing was more heavily loaded than the Spitfire's, and the Hurricane turned better/pulled more 'g' at a given speed. The greater thickness of the Hurricane's wing I think had something to do with that.
09-27-2012, 02:05 AM
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