Wingswinger,
Thank you for responding. Regarding use of flaps in the Hunter, I agree with the point you made at your last post. BEagle has commented on this quite succinctly - he has an uncanny memory of technical and handling information of pretty much everything he's flown; lots of good stuff in his head about Hunter and Gnat. He deals specifically with formation aeros here:
Originally Posted by BEgle
If I recall correctly, use of 23 flap in ACM caused an initial nose-down trim change, which in the environment of dynamic ACM was easily overcome by a firm elevator movement. The effect of 23 flap gave an increased turn rate, which was advantageous in getting to a sight-on solution, but the increased drag meant that it was only a temporary advantage?
Whereas flying certain manoeuvres with 23 flap was entirely normal for formation aerobatic teams.
As in...
FRADU
He also remarked on the use of flap in solo aeros here:
Originally Posted by BEgle
Use of 23° flap in the Hunter whilst manoeuvring was quite common when I was taught ACM at Brawdy - just don't leave any flap down above M0.9 or you won't recover. Not relevant here though...
I think we used 320 KIAS and 23° flap for low speed loops - apart from my chum Ozzie who misheard the brief and tried 230 KIAS....once.
Here's a Sweedish Air Force Hunter (photo by Alan Kenny) taken at the Jersey Air Show in 2013 - posted as a link as the image is too big for PPRuNe:
http://www.airforcesmonthly.com/cent...llery/7474.jpg which just about shows the use of a notch or two in a solo display. My point being that use of flap in aeros has been standard practice in some cases for a long time.
G-loc: you are absolutely right about both delayed onset and physiological factors affecting g tolerance, but I would not wish to comment on the latter here as that could mean too much fuel for the blame-the-pilot brigade (hopefully not PPRuNe posters, but the lurkers that read this - I think we hit around 1,000 people viewing for the past few days!).
From my wonderful few days doing the USAF's g training and riding their centrifuge I recall a couple of relevant points. Most people's resting g tolerance seems to be around 4 g (with considerable variation) and onset of symptoms above or around that are generally limited to peripheral dimming followed by greying. At higher g levels (8 plus for most) without effective straining the effects are likely to be seven seconds of consciousness (due to oxygen stored in the brain) followed by rapid blackout. There is, of course, an in-between. The rapid, insidious onset is not normally a factor in aeros - but as you stated and demonstrated by personal experience, there are exceptions. I would add that variations with age do not appear to be particularly significant, although I don't recall the age band their research covered.