Rafale flying slowly

[Dr Jekyll]

mike74 said:

I still don't really get it, rocket engines engines are so powerful in comparison to the weight of the vehicle that they're attached to that the rocket can fly without requiring the lift generated by wings, don't planes require a combination of thrust and lift to remain airborne but this clip seems to contradict that?

It's a combination of the two at that angle.

Lower airspeed, less lift. Higher angle of attack, more lift. At a first approximation lift has to be greater than the weight of the aircraft. But at that angle the engine thrust, while being less than the weight of the aircraft, is effectively making it lighter. So the angle of attack can be lower yet providing enough lift to stay up.

When Eric Brown was asked to land a Mosquito on a carrier he calculated that the landing speed would have to be less than the stalling speed. Or to be more precise, less than the speed at which the necessary angle of attack would be on the edge of a stall. But he was able to land at a lower angle of attack using the engine power to reduce the rate of descent.

[Teddy Lop]

mike74 said:

Tony1963 said:

Think of the engines, at that angle, acting like rocket engines to overcome the weight of the aircraft.

I still don't really get it, rocket engines engines are so powerful in comparison to the weight of the vehicle that they're attached to that the rocket can fly without requiring the lift generated by wings, don't planes require a combination of thrust and lift to remain airborne but this clip seems to contradict that?

These kind of jets have more thrust than mass so can fly without wing generated lift, or shoot straight up to whatever height in the case of interceptors. Was it an Israeli F15 that flew back and landed with half a wing ?

[Oilchange]

What may not have been mentioned is that the aircraft will be flying in to wind so the airspeed is greater than the ground speed, by whatever the wind speed is.
This can cause a deceptively slow flying speed especially with a strong wind headwind.

[Oilchange]

Teddy Lop said:

These kind of jets have more thrust than mass so can fly without wing generated lift, or shoot straight up to whatever height in the case of interceptors. Was it an Israeli F15 that flew back and landed with half a wing ?

That would be the case if he flew back with the nose in the vertical but he flew back horizontally, the whole airframe creates lift in this case which allowed him to fly home.

The thrust to weight ratio (greater than 1.0 allows accelerated vertical climb) wasn't utilised here as far as I'm aware.

Edited by Oilchange on Sunday 13th June 14:23

[Tony1963]

Another point to bear in mind is that a Rafale performs very well in service. Here, as with most display aircraft, it's running clean and with minimum fuel on board.

Easy peasey, lemon squeezee, what are theseee, Japaneesee.

[saaby93]

Dr Jekyll said:

mike74 said:

I still don't really get it, rocket engines engines are so powerful in comparison to the weight of the vehicle that they're attached to that the rocket can fly without requiring the lift generated by wings, don't planes require a combination of thrust and lift to remain airborne but this clip seems to contradict that?

It's a combination of the two at that angle.

Lower airspeed, less lift. Higher angle of attack, more lift. At a first approximation lift has to be greater than the weight of the aircraft. But at that angle the engine thrust, while being less than the weight of the aircraft, is effectively making it lighter. So the angle of attack can be lower yet providing enough lift to stay up.

When Eric Brown was asked to land a Mosquito on a carrier he calculated that the landing speed would have to be less than the stalling speed. Or to be more precise, less than the speed at which the necessary angle of attack would be on the edge of a stall. But he was able to land at a lower angle of attack using the engine power to reduce the rate of descent.

Described a few minutes in here - reducing the speed to a point the wings arent generating enough lift but using the engines to hold the plane up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Hjne0OA4w

Edited by saaby93 on Sunday 13th June 22:14

[Eric Mc]

mike74 said:

I'm guessing they have very advanced thrust vectoring though? Which I don't think the Rafale has?

No.

Standard MiG 29s and Sukhoi 27s/35s do not have thrust vectoring. Prototypes with thrust vectoring have flown but the system has not been adopted operationally.