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Show Robert E. Irion eptember 20th, 2002 ROB: Well I first got up to about 10,000 feet and I thought 'I'm going to put thi thing down in a dive until I hit the red line, and see how it feels. I'm going to go to the max with this!" Boy, that airplane was just moving off to the right, and I couldn't get enough left rudder into it to keep the nose from going off to the right, and I had to keep winding trim-tab in to bring it back, you know. Really realized how much, as you picked up speed, how the lack of torque - torque takes you to the left in the engine rotation, you know. When you're at slow speeds and taking off, you want to go to the left, but when you're diving, you've got the opposite effect, you're going to the right. So I learned that right quick. And I also learned how ... BEN: So you're going to the right because of the speed you're going? ROB: The speed is increasing, and your trim for your airplane is not changing- you had to really change, learn the value of the trim-tab on the rudder. With the trim-tab, I could bring that thing back, but I could not do it with just a rudder pedal, at high speed you know. And as I got higher speed, course the stick got heavier trying to pull out, and I had enough altitude that I could get out of it, but I realized, "Boy, it takes a long way to pull this thing out." So I learned a lesson there. And then I decided, "Okay. Probably never going to fly a P-40 again in my life- probably the last chance to ever do it, so I'm going to take this thing up and do everything I ever did in an AT-6 with aerobatics." So I started doing everything - finally the last thing I was going to do, was going to do an immelman - you pull up and when you get on top, you roll out of it. And when I 38 |
