I have heard the expression “stop on a dime and give you 3 cents change” but I’ve never seen an airplane do it. PZ’s recent post “Competence Porn” [pha] about the P-51 augering into a field reminded me of this little bit of wonderfulness.
Apparently bush pilots do this sort of thing all the time, and some of the planes are capable of landing and taking off in less than 10 feet. Spoiler: no bush pilots are injured in this video.
You need lots of wind for that trick.
chigau@#1:
No doubt. The fog doesn’t seem to be blowing particularly hard, but I’m sure that’s because it’s moving away from the camera.
I’ve seen birds do that trick. One time I saw a crow on a guard-rail by the side of the highway – it must have been bored because whenever a truck went by it would set its wings and rise up 4 or 5 feet into the air then settle back down.
chigau @#1:
Yes, indeed – there is definitely a lot of wind in the clip shown.
I’m reminded of a story in a comment I read on Daily Kos on a diary by Major Kong (generally very interesting, largely military aviation topics) – I looked, but couldn’t easily find it. The commenter, ShortFinals is someone in/retired-from the UK Royal Air Force with an interest in historic aircraft.
ShortFinals wrote about an early (the first(?)) pilot in charge of qualifying display pilots (specifying minimum height & speeds and other parameters). This character had obtained a Russian agricultural aircraft with such a low stall speed that in the right circumstances, he could actually be flying into the wind, but with a negative ground speed. This pilot cleared himself for display in this aircraft to a minimum hight of 0 feet and 0 knots!
marcus @#2:
I always enjoy watching ducks and other water foul take off and land from water.
I swear I once saw a duck show off – I’m sure I saw it do a completely un-powered approach. That is, instead of the flutter of wings as a bird flares and slows for landing, this one just adjusted the shape of its wings all the way into the water landing without the flutter. Cool as f*^k!
Sunday Afternoon
This character had obtained a Russian agricultural aircraft with such a low stall speed that in the right circumstances, he could actually be flying into the wind,
Not that unusual, I have heard the some about some planes in the Canadian Rockies.
The “Russian agricultural aircraft ” was probably the “chaff cutter” biplane (totally forget the proper name.) that the Russian Air force used for low level night attacks. There were 2 or 3 of these that were totally female piloted and earned the German epithet of “Night witches”.
It is amazing what one can do with outdated technology and a bit of ingenuity.
Did someone say NIGHT WITCHES?
“Russian Ag plane”: Antonov AN2. No stall speed is listed in the operating manual, and procedure in the event of engine failure is the keep it level, shed speed down to 25 mph, and settle at ‘parachute speed’. It’s supposed to be controllable at 30 mph airspeed, which makes negative groundspeed achievable.