Originally Posted by
gums
Due to our mission requirements ( Doze will jump on this, heh heh) and our immense speed envelope, we did not require "speed protection".
Not at all - speed protections would be inappropriate on a fighter, not to mention an absolute pig to implement!
IMHO, the 'bus designers learned from us
I'm sure they did, along with everyone else who'd tried it!
Wasn't until the 727 came out that we saw a discussion.
If you'd looked across the pond at around the same time you'd have seen it become a very big deal in the UK (home of the T-tail) just before then - the 727 owing more than a little debt to Boeing's visit to De Havilland during Trident development. To this day I think it's the only large US-made airliner with a T-tail - and thus susceptible to the full-blown deep stall phenomenon. Deep stalls had claimed the lives of several prominent British test pilots before the characteristics were fully understood.
That said, the original design for the 757 had a T-tail, and ironically it was British Airways' demand for a conventional empennage which changed that.
Thanks, Cland, for a great post.
PS. Lyman - he didn't call the pilot a moron, he said that the response to the situation was incompetent. The former is a personal insult whereas the latter is a tragic fact - it's important to be aware of the difference.