Victory roll?
 

We have all heard of the "Victory roll" but just what sort of roll was it?:confused:

Barrelish wasn't it? As demonstrated in "The Battle of Britain".

"You'll end up spread all over the airfield like strawberry jam..."

A deuced sort of pulling up thingy with a bit of a...well roll thingy too. And a labrabor looking up wistfully helps.

Dashed useful too if you want to get a young girl's heart all a flutter.

For God's ake treadigraph, give your brain a chance.

It will buck up the civilians...

Both 'victory' rolls in BoB movie were aileron rolls....although the sound effects fella seemed to put in a slow roll recording for the one in France 'cause his engine faultered from negative G fuel starvation half way round...which shouldn't happen for an aileron roll.

Aileron rolls being a tad harder to **** up at low level twould seem the logical choice for a young fighter tyro in a moment of relieved exuberance too....relieved 'cause there isn't, on this occasion, a equally young and relieved tyro doing an aileron roll over a French airfield in a ME109...at his expence.

But Williamp, suppose its controls had been damged, hmmm..?

Actually I've been giving my brain a chance for forty bleedin' years and it's still a civillian buck up! :p

The Hurricane in France leaves a distinct smoke trail as the engine splutters - I've noticed that happen to a Spitfire (a MK V which I think had the floatless carb?) being rolled and looped at a an airshow - why does that happen?

It was in the days before Mrs Shilling and her famous orifice!

It's a rich cut, caused the carb failing to funtion correctly under conditions of less that 1 'G'.

As BEagle says, Miss Shilling's orifice sort of cured it. But not fully. It was such a cut, in one engine only during a wing-over, that did for the Mossie at Barton some years back.

SSD

No, the loss of power in the Barton accident was probably caused by incorrect set up of the LH carburettor causing fuel starvation in the wingover manoeuvre, not a 'rich cut'. The pilot appears to have mishandled the subsequent recovery....

Gate heights?

'Gate heights' indeed. I was at Barton that day, but had taken the opportunity to sneak out to the north in the Chippy just before the Mossie display (which I'd seen many times before). I was about 7 or 8 miles north, aerobatting at about 3000 feet and still on the Barton frequency which had gone quiet as radio frequencies do while an aircraft is actually displaying.

As I pulled out of a loop the radio came live with "the crash is just to the west of the field" made to a Navy helicopter which had got airbourne to assist if possible. Turning south I could clearly see the column of smoke, and couldn't at first work out what had happened. There were several aeroplane in the area, and my first thought was that it was one of them that had come to grief - it couldn't be the Mossie because its display is just a benign series of fly-bys with wing-overs at each end. But subsequent transmissions soon confirmed what had happened.

I flew back to Barton somewhat in shock, and made a wobbly landing just before the field was closed.

Several experienced aeros pilots were commenting on the wing-over technique employed in the display, and when I saw the many videos of the display and the accident I was surprised that no mention of that technique was made in the subsequent AAIB report.

The only saving grace was that when it went so tragically wrong, it did so at the western end of te display over Barton Moss. If it had happened at the Eastern end, over Eccles, it could have been a whole lot worse.

SSD

OK so nobody actually knows what a Victory roll really was then:8 :bored:

A very gash manoeuvre - it consists of flying low and fast, pulling up slightly to avoid descending when inverted, then applying full aileron until upright again.

Rather like a fast 'slow roll' but without the associated co-ordinated use of rudder and elevator controls.

Pilots were killed by trying it too low, failing to pitch up sufficiently to avoid descending, then hitting the ground at around the 90 deg to go point...... As the speed decreased during the roll, the a/c would obviously be out of trim and would need increased back pressure to maintain level flight when the roll was completed.

Except in a/c such as the Gnat, 'aileron rolls' are not a particularly impressive aerobatic manoeuvre. In fact we never even taught them in the RAF!

I was going to say mine were always immaculate and smooth, but were really as Beags says, pretty unimpressive. Then I remembered it was Dave Curry who did the Hurricane one in the BofB film. I was the stiff upper lip Squadron Commander of the Polish squadron who kept on straight and level while his troops disobeyed orders and peeled off into the fray. So I had better shut up then!

"Stop that Polish chatter and steer 2 3 0!"
"Repeat please!"
"I say again 2 3 0!
"Repeat please!"
"For crying out load, 2 3 0!"
"Repeat please!"
"Repeat please"
"Repeat please!"
"Now shut up the lot of you and follow me. Unless you're blind as well as......Oh, gawd strewth!"

Thanks chaps - I was at a loss to understand the reference to Mrs Shilling, then I received some stuff from John Farley which will appear on the Farnborough thread in a day or two... lo an behold, there she was...

The Spitfire victory roll in BoB really appeared to pull up quite steeply (was that shot at Lympne?). I must watch it again...

Silence in Polish!

Tyro?
 

Off on a tangent again folks, sorry...

chimbu chuckles wrote: "Aileron rolls being a tad harder to **** up at low level twould seem the logical choice for a young fighter tyro in a moment of relieved exuberance too"

I've heard the word 'tyro' a few times before, but have no idea about the origins of the word. Any ideas...?

My dictionary say it is from the latin Tiro, later changed to Tyro, ( with squiggly bits over the I, Y, and O that are not available on my keyboard) meaning a Young Soldier or Recruit.

BEagle:

"Pilots were killed by trying it too low, failing to pitch up sufficiently to avoid descending, then hitting the ground at around the 90 deg to go point...... "

I can relate to that directly. I was once asked to do an Ad Hoc ten minute performance to fill in some time at an airshow where I was just supposed to land and be a static display.
I had not practiced any routine but I thought that a roll at about 300 feet in front of the crowd would do for a start. I did not realise just how much altitude you could lose doing that and very large amounts of rudder and forward stick was enough to get me out of it but my Nav and I were pretty ashen faced for a while afterwards. It was in a CF-100 which did not have that much of a rate of roll.

A low level roll in a Clunk must have surprised the crowd somewhat!

Watching my old RAFC Flt Cdr Dave Curry in the BoB Hurricane, even though he pitched up quite noticeably at the start of the manoeuvre, you can see a significant rate of descent building up as he concluded it....

Easy to achieve, hold a sausage in one hand & therefore carry out a sausage roll.



Yea, I know....