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mach tuck ???

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walkthasky

SWA FO
Joined
Nov 26, 2001
Posts
218
Im sorry if this is bad, but i have no idea what it is???
 
Well, I'm sure that other people will have better explainations for it, but without a book in front of me...here goes. Mach tuck is when the center of pressure on the wing moves aft due to the shock wave progresses. As a plane approaches the speed of sound, before the plane physically penetrates the speed of sound, the airflow over the wing starts to go supersonic. As the plane speeds up the shock wave will move aft and thats what causes the center of pressure to move aft. This will produce a pitch down tendency which only agravates the situation. Hopes this helps.
 
I think it may also have something to do with airflow separation after the shockwave which may cause the h-tail not to be as efficient.

Hey Walkthasky, what have you been up to at Commutair? I've been on reserve the last 3 days and pretty much sitting by the pool all day long dreaming of having a beer.

Peace.
 
Cornelius said:
I think it may also have something to do with airflow separation after the shockwave which may cause the h-tail not to be as efficient.

Hey Walkthasky, what have you been up to at Commutair? I've been on reserve the last 3 days and pretty much sitting by the pool all day long dreaming of having a beer.

Peace.

You and asolo gave two causes of Mach tuck. FWIW, I think asolo's explanation is the most commonly referenced cause. Indeed, the aft CP shift as local V increases above M1 causes a nose-down pitch tendency due to the movement of the pressure wave. And as you mention, the resulting flow-induced separation can cause the elevator to operate in turbulent, aerodynamically dead air, resulting in lost tail-down force. But also remember that the H-stab is an airfoil with locally high velocities. As such, it is possible that it has its own shockwave attached in front of the elevator. If this is the case, the elevator will again be operating in aerodynamically dead air, resulting in loss of tail-down force. Of course, the last case doesn't typically happen with an all-movable tail.
 
Not too long ago, Learjet printed information regarding the Mach Tuck (any maybe the coffin corner too??). I don't have a copy, and if someone does, I would love to obtain one!!



The 20 series could get into a mach tuck. I've only seen it demonstrated in the sim (for obvious reasons) and neither my sim partner nor I ever recovered from a mach tuck.
 
Isn't that what the stick puller is for the early Lears? I think I remember seeing that somewhere.
 
In the 25 sim out at simu-flite we had it up to about .89 and I didnt notice a tuck.

Some of the flight instructors out there said there is almost no tuck at all in the 20 series Lears.
 
There definalty is a mach tuck in a Lear 25, happens around .85-.86. I had a chance to watch this in person once, if they ever demate the wing of an old Lear. The factory (in this case the Tucson Service Center) has to recertify that all the mach warnings and aerodynamic characteristics are the same when the remate the wing with the body. So they take the plane out and test fly it to make sure the overspeed horn comes on at .78 and .82 (you have to listen to it for the whole test flight), then at .82 that the puller acts like it is supposed to. Then you turn off the stall warning (deactivating the puller) and continue up to .84 where you start to get aileron buzz. At around .85 the nose will drop down and you pull the throttles all the way back and recover just like you do in the sim. You've just been in a mack tuck, pretty lame if everything goes how it is supposed to.

The aerodynamic reasons for mach tuck have already been discussed. In real life the reason you learn about mach tuch is that it killed a few people back in the 60's. The old Lears are some of the few planes out there that can actually exceed Mmo in level flight. So what a few people did back in the 60's and not knowing anything about mach tuch is they took the Lear past Mmo until they hit mach tuck, most just lost altitude and recovered (other than an altitude deviation and a bruised ego, no harm done), but a few got the bright idea to pop out the speed brakes. This is what kills people, the mack tuck, will bring your nose down and increase speed, add speed brakes that in old Lears also have serious nose down tendency you're now going straight down.

I don't think there's been a recent case of someone getting killed because of mack tuck, though a Lear did disintgrate on a descent into El Paso a few years ago.
 
Is this possibly?

I had a guy tell me that he was in a Lear and experienced mach
tuck and he extended the boards. When he did he claims that
the plane tumbled end over end and eventually he was able to
regain control. Is this possible or is he full of bull excrement?
 

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