Cliffs of Dover Video Thread V1.0 [Closed]

[F16_Petter]

Originally Posted by Sven

Not necessarily, example: The Airacobra, an American fighter plane, had it's point of gravity in the middle ( since the engine was placed there ), this was purposely done to create a very manoeuvrable airplane. Engine chopped off will surely cause for a very unpleasant flight, but that's the aerodynamics that mainly cause that, the centre of gravity will probably be where the pilot is, and actually improve flight characteristics, although it doesn't add up to what I previously said.

The engine of a Hurricane has a dry weight of 1,640 lb (744 kg) and is ofcourse located forward of centre of gravity. (almost at the edge of forward momentum.)

A small plane losing that much weight so far out of cg would defenetly become unstable and probably uncontrollable in pitch axis especially when speed drops.
(Empty weight of Hurri is about 5,700 lb (2,600 kg) and the engine is almost a third of that value)

Speed proves that bricks can fly, but I think that Zoom2136 has a valid point here... There are several videos showing that the damage model may note be flawless... (hurricane flying without two wings etc.)

I guess the only way is to let Mytbusters do the test!