Quote:
Originally Posted by Robotic Pope
Maybe while cruising Yes. But these are WWII warbirds in combat, no fly by wire, no hydolics. The stick would become very heavy in a fast manuevers and the pilot would need the strenght of both arms. Thats why most planes had spade/ring strick grips. P-38 even needed a bomber style steering yoke because the control got so heavy in high speed. It would just look a bit silly to only have one hand on the yoke while the pilot desparatly trys to pull his P-38 out of a almost supersonic dive.
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Hi RP,
I've once had the chance to sit in a Spitfire MK V cockpit at the Malta Aviation museum. The restorator of the airplane explained to me the reason for the ring formed yoke in the Spit as this: if you got wounded on your hand you could still stick your lower arm into the hole and maneuver, which would be nearly impossible if you'd have a stick.
I'm no military pilot but to me it also makes more sense that the pilot would have one hand on the flight stick and the other on the throttle during a dogfight. The exception could be when pulling out of a high speed dive where you could set the throttle to idle and use both hands to fight the high control forces. Otherwise you'd want to leave your hand on the throttle since you could be too slow to reach them with high G-forces applied, and you'd want to be able to react very quickly to set the power you need in any situation. I'd also expect a trained pilot to have sufficient muscle in his right arm to handle the control forces in most maneuvers.
MAC
09-01-2011, 10:23 AM
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