Originally Posted by
inter09
I'm struggling to support this, using the aircrafts aerodynamics, how it uses spoiler deflection to roll, its swept wings, adverse yaw, sideslip, overbanking, why bank angle continued to increase, roll rate. any help is much appreciated.
I think that's the key. Had he leveled the wings, none of those other factors would have mattered. But at 90 degrees of bank, the absence of any of those factors would not have saved him, either.
It's interesting that in his initial turn away from the runway heading, the aircraft attained a bank angle of about 60 degrees, shallowed to about 45, then rolled back to about 90 degrees of bank at the time of impact. From this it would appear that the airplane at that weight and configuration
is controllable through at least 60 degrees of bank, and that the flight controls were operating normally.
From an "aerodynamic perspective" what happened to Czar 52 is pretty evident...the aircraft overbanked, causing the nose to drop at an altitude too low to permit recovery.
Why it happened cannot be determined without access to aerodynamic data or test pilot reports pertaining to that particular model of B-52, although I suspect that he was trying to avoid the embarrassment of turning what should have been a simple "360" into a "Figure J" maneuver over his home airfield.