Airbrakes
Hey Guys, I remember the loss of a lot of good pilots doing things with the Meteor airbrakes when they should not have!! But it was not only the Meteor, the Vampire had good airbrakes - but airbrakes and full flap was a no-no - I tried it once when doing a break on a conversion sortie, and I still remember the nose down plunge that resulted!!
But it always seemed to me that having an upper limit on the airbrake deployment was a total contradiction in terms. The time you needed airbrake above all was when you were going, or about to, too fast!! (IAS)
QV The Victor. None of your pretty pansy Vulcan airbrakes .... Great big barn doors at the back end that did not affect wing or tailplane airflow. The good book said the max was XXXX I cannot remember, but that only reflected the authorised max speed for the airframe as a whole. In the high altitude days, we used to do high speed runs on the conversion course with and without the Mach Trimmer - very different!!!! But the technique was the same. With cruise power applied, nose down to a steep angle - not sure what it was - hold the attitude with speed building up, at M.96 throttles closed and airbrakes out - hold the attitude and stabilise at M.98 WOW
In later years, the original clean and speedy B2 had steady reductions in its limiting M number - fixed nose flaps, tanks, pods etc etc - but the airbrakes could be used throughout and beyond the cleared flight envelope.
Interestingly, in the early Victor days, the handling SOPs relied much on Canberra and Meteor and other aircraft SOPs. Part of this was it was taught to be "bad form" to use the airbrakes on the approach. This was ridiculous on such an aerodynamically clean aircraft; all the co-pilot did on the approach was "Up 2%" "Down 2%" etc etc.... In 1961, common sense prevailed on the B2 with its high residual thrust on the approach, and a "Variable progressive" use of the airbrakes on the approach became SOP until the aircraft retired.
Now I sit in a window seat of a 777 and watch what seems to be half the wing open up on landing to lift dump and produce drag, and I still prefer the Victor!! What a forward looking design that was!!
Bob