Hi, Eh, I don't think the P-61 Black Widow was the most manouvrable of its era, one way or other. >From a test report: "The harmony of control was poor, the elevator being extremely heavy, and the rudder fairly heavy. The lateral control on the spoiler system .... was very effective and positive throughout the entire speed range." So it rolled easily (being laterally unstable), but didn't want to turn! And then the test pilot (E. Brown) goes on to critizise the lack of feel and selfcentering of the aileron/spoilers, and that the aircraft was pretty lousy when flying on instruments, as it lacked stability, making it very tiring to fly. But it had a 'incredidibly mild stall', according to Brown and he concludes that although it was not a success as a night fighter, the Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter was a completely docile aircraft with no really bad features to damn it, except the shockingly bad forward view through the windscreen in rain! For lateral control it used small feeler ailerons coupled to the spoilers that rose vertically out of the wing (upwards and downwards), similar to the function of air brakes on full-size gliders (if not designed the same way and ganged differently). The P-61 Black Widow had them on both surfaces, so moving the right aileron downwards on one side deployed the spoiler on the right wing's bottom, and the spoilers of the left wing's top, and vice versa! Tord, Sweden <URL:http://www.aricraft.com/tord/tord.html> <URL:http://home.beseen.com/hobbies/jebbushell/tord/tord.htm> -- If reply difficulties - use [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tord S. Eriksson, Ovralidsg.25:5, S-422 47 Hisings Backa, Sweden RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
