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Old 18th Aug 2018, 13:49
  #12135 (permalink)  
Chugalug2
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
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FED:-
The old Ju87 had gull wings and a heavily spatted undercarriage. This would have brought the centre of drag to about the wing roots so it would have been quite happy pointing in any direction.

It seems that Captain Brown RN is in full agreement with you, given his quote in Wikki:-

Eric "Winkle" Brown RN, a British test pilot and Commanding Officer of No. 1426 Flight RAF (the captured enemy aircraft Flight), tested the Ju 87 at RAE Farnborough. He said of the Stuka, "I had flown a lot of dive-bombers and it’s the only one that you can dive truly vertically. Sometimes with the dive-bombers...maximum dive is usually in the order of 60 degrees.. When flying the Stuka, because it’s all automatic, you are really flying vertically... The Stuka was in a class of its own


Could you explain what you mean by the Centre of Drag? Given a symmetrical airframe wouldn't that act through the centre line of the aircraft, along with the thrust and lift vectors? I know that drag is a many splendored thing, what with profile, form, induced, skin friction, etc etc, but uncertain what if any of these components would be at or near the wing roots, given the inverted gull wings and u/c spats. Incidentally, wasn't the purpose of the wing shape to give adequate ground clearance for the quite large centre line bomb (unlike the Corsair where the prop diameter was the problem)?
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