Originally Posted by
DAHenriques
In combat you do what you have to do. Generally speaking when defensive a "flick roll" could be a last ditch maneuver to force a shooter into an overshoot.
The airspeed at which a "flick roll is initiated" is critical. Too fast and you can easily over g the airplane. So slowing it down to where you can safety "snap it" is the key.
Because ANY snap roll in ANY airlane is an energy loss maneuver, doing one in combat should be considered a "desperation" maneuver, not something you would wnat in your normal "bag of tricks" as a combat pilot.
Dudley Henriques
Here is an actual acct, told by my father:
Incident at Le Mans - June 1940
Jumped by a one-o-nine at fifty yards
thought he was one of our flight
looked back at his spinner through green fire
how he could miss - his shower of shells
just clearing my perspex
panicky, yanked the stick to my guts, kicked
full right rudder, a hundred feet over the trees.
The Hurricane flicked upwards - he was still there
closer - another dizzying flick roll
with the speed dropping right away
fell into a spin at seven hundred
they said - curtains, less than a thousand
the ground rushed up incredibly, a clearing -
knew I was dead in five seconds, thought coldly,
you bloody fool, you’ve done it now
the air gripped the wings again, levelled
out of the dive, below the trees, frozen
saw the German beside me, going faster
now I had him, fumbled the sight switch on
gun button off safe
he turned his head, did nothing
flew into my three second burst -
a shiver of wings, then slowly, slowly
half-rolled, falling inverted
down to a cornfield, dissolved in flames
He wrote a bit of prose and poetry much later.
Flew in France with 242, back for the BoB with 32, then Spitfires and channel crossings, some with Finucane. Later N. Aftrica.
DW