Terminal Nose‐Dives: The Strength of an Aeroplane in Horizontal Gusts when Diving at Terminal Velocity Available to Purchase

IT has been suggested from time to time that this case might conceivably arise for acrobatic aeroplanes and therefore a tentative investigation was undertaken. Although the results show that in certain cases extra loads are thrown on the structure over and above the designed loads, this must not be interpreted as meaning that an aeroplane is likely to fail under these circumstances, because certain basic assumptions have had to be made, the validity of which is doubtful. Further investigation is needed to supplement the somewhat scanty data that we have as to the existence of these gusts in the upper atmosphere and their magnitudes. Also the problem of the dynamics of an aeroplane in a terminal velocity dive with horizontal gusts has been entirely neglected although it is by no means improbable that the question of the stability of the machine has some bearing on the loads that are likely to build up as a result of gusts.