Crazy vibrations across the tail surfaces from the force of this vertical pitch! (Blue Angel F/A-18 Super Hornet)
Posted by father_of_twitch@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 111 comments
Yantrik_Tantrik@reddit
Fluid-structure interaction (FSI), or one of the cool things I simulate numerically for a living.
whd4k@reddit
Is this job as awesome as it sounds?
Yantrik_Tantrik@reddit
I enjoy it though some people find it can get repetitive and boring. I work as a consultant so projects change every so often and it remains interesting.
Maf1c@reddit
And one of the reasons I got to perform ground vibration testing (GVT) and structural mode interaction (SMI) testing for my first job, was to validate your numerical models!
Yantrik_Tantrik@reddit
How cool is that!
navierstokd@reddit
Take my upvote from a fellow CFD engineer
ASDFzxcvTaken@reddit
6 7?
Repulsive-Ice8395@reddit
I love hearing about cool stuff people do for a living on here. That sounds fascinating.
So_HauserAspen@reddit
That coiling of the vortex is awesome to see
jeb_hoge@reddit
The tails take huge advantage of the vortices coming off the LERXes, which is why they're angled the way they are and why the Hornets have such good high-alpha stability.
EmergencyO2@reddit
Can you explain like I’m 10?
Poo_Canoe@reddit
Nose wings disturb air directing it to tail so the tail can better steer the plane at a really high nose up angle.
_Neoshade_@reddit
Nose wings? You mean those beefy lats?
AutoRot@reddit
Sounds a bit like canards. As an American, I disapprove.
gromm93@reddit
That wording though.
wings314fire@reddit
Yes, the extension from just after the cockpit till the leading edge. They are called leading edge extensions. Something similar can be found on the NEO engines cowling too. They are called vortex generators.
Gregoryv022@reddit
*leading edge ROOT extensions.
Important distiction.
Leefa@reddit
i've been a fighter plane geek since I was a kid and never thought about them this way lol they do look like traps. cannot unsee
SEND_ME_YOUR_ROBOTS@reddit
Haha yeah I can see it, I've personally also likened them to a cobra hood or like the shield on the back of a praying mantis
classyhornythrowaway@reddit
LERX: leading edge wing root extension. Those extra triangular bits at the front of the wing, beneath the cockpit and above the engine inlets. They increase the lift of the wing. High alpha: high angle of attack. Angle of attack (AoA, roughly defined): angle between the direction the wing is moving and the airflow incident on it (imagine a wing flying through the air with its bottom facing the flow, that's an AoA of 90 degrees). All wings stall (lose lift) above a critical AoA, as flow separates from the top part of the wing. Vorticity: check below¹. Vortices (very generally) are "shed" along any sharp edges, including LERXes. Through magic, vortices can contribute to lift and entrap/constrain flow, so deliberate creation of vortices and managing where they go is part of designing high performance aircraft and racecars.
^(¹Vortices are spinning/circulating bits of flow, where the spinning dominates over movement in a straight line. It can be visualized by looking at the isosurfaces [surfaces where the values of a parameter are equal] of a parameter called the q-criterion, which is the second derivative of the velocity gradient tensor if I remember correctly. Further explanation needs knowledge of fluid mechanics and differential calculus, usually not appropriate for 7 year olds)
DOOM_INTENSIFIES@reddit
Isn't that...a canard with ~~extra~~ fewer steps?
classyhornythrowaway@reddit
it depends, but generally no, not really. It also has different implications when it comes to an aircraft's radar cross section.
cat_prophecy@reddit
Thanks for explaining what an LERX is. I got the "leading edge" bit. But I was at a loss for the rest of it.
Pinksters@reddit
A great deal of posters in this sub operate under the assumption everyone is a flyboy.
They seem to go out of their way to use the most obscure abbreviations/acronyms, and as many as possible.
Lots of the time I'll have google up and "Aviation" copied to clip board so I can google stuff like LERX quickly.
Im a plane nerd and I dont understand half the posts here.
classyhornythrowaway@reddit
you're welcome!
MightyPenguinRoars@reddit
Show off. I was hoping to understand but you’ve overshot my runway here…. 🤣
jeb_hoge@reddit
Think of air like water...rivers of it come spilling off the sides of the horizontal surfaces and hut the tails. The tails are designed to make use of all that channeled air for improved control.
lockerno177@reddit
Do such maneuvers require some extra inspections?
dloc2@reddit
They figured it out on the original f-18’s as they suffered from fatigue cracking on the rudders and had to be beefed up to handle the buffeting.
jeb_hoge@reddit
No, it's what it's been designed for.
Cute-Region-3449@reddit
/rexplainlikeimfive
Pattern_Is_Movement@reddit
Never knew this, but makes so much sense. Thanks
adrock63@reddit
Just a little twerking
Logical-Let-2386@reddit
That is an F18 E/F. The A/B had a big problem in the early days with cracking due to exactly this. That's why the A/B had the massive fence on the strake and a large butterfly doubler in the vstab.
Vairman@reddit
I don't know about butterflies, they're honking big angle brackets
Logical-Let-2386@reddit
Some A/B's have a sort of jagged strip doubler between the slime light (vertical strip light on the vstab) and the rudder. That was added at the same time as the fence and the very not-aerodynamic angles. It's hard to find a good picture of it.
Strega007@reddit
An F-15 with the speedbrake out generates similar huge vibrations in the vertical stabs. They are designed to be able to withstand such forces with regularity.
windowpuncher@reddit
Still crazy.
You have no idea how gigantic these things are until you're right next to them. The F15 is like flying a goddamn bus.
DOOM_INTENSIFIES@reddit
Weights as much as a small one too... So next time you see a bus, imagine it doing mach 2 and pulling 7g's.
Xivios@reddit
Legacy Hornet did this too, and they were more extreme than anticipated, fatigued the tail too quickly. NASA got involved, did a bunch of studies. McDonnel Douglas did a quick bracket reinforcement to strengthen the tail - they were externally visible but actually finding a picture of a Hornet with these early fixes is very difficult today. Another solution was a fence on the LERX to reduce the vortexes, but this harmed the planes high alpha performance and wasn't liked. NASA came up with an automatic dynamic rudder damping system, I don't know if it was ever implemented though. The tail was strengthened enough to handle the loads in later production models though so it isn't considered a problem, and obviously the aerodynamic gains were considered worth the flutter because nothing was done to stop it with the Super Hornet seen here.
eishethel@reddit
IIRC, there's vents/slats in the LERX as well to deal with the vortex being too strong? Not sure if that was classic or super variant.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
That’s the legacy hornet, and that vent is to add air flow directly to the vertical stabs at high aoa.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
They beefed up the root of the vertical stabilizers. Much more sturdy than the hornet.
Xivios@reddit
Yes, I mentioned that later models were stronger than the early A's, but what I meant was that the buffeting still happens, they designed the Super Hornet to handle the buffeting rather than redesign it to prevent it from happening.
emperor_dragoon@reddit
It's fake, the plane looks like a miniature. Is there an AI bot around, is it fake?
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
You can watch this in real life…
HailStorm_Zero_Two@reddit
Australian pilots referred to it as 'riding the cobblestones' (since you could feel it in the rudder pedals), and it was one of those non-visual signals you were pushing the Hornet to its' maximum. Never seen it so vividly like that before, though.
Pontius_the_Pilate@reddit
Aussie mechs used to cringe seeing it done at airshows.
SoaringElf@reddit
It might be more pronounced in a Blue Angels display, since they have different limits in the computer. They can push their planes harder than the regular (Super) Hornet. This might create situations where this is more likely to happen and also more severe.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
That is not true. There are only two limits a blue angle jet exceeds compared to a fleet jet.
Inverted flight time (because the jets have inverted fuel pumps).
Gear speed. Their max gear down speed is 300 knots.
That’s it. No changes to the flight controls. Any super hornet can do this.
Strega007@reddit
The USAF calls it "elephants dancing on the wings."
UniqueIndividual3579@reddit
I remember that from T-38s. You didn't want elephants dancing on the wings in final turn.
ArclightFrame977@reddit
Who doesn't love a heavy buffet? Especially when there are carving stations and a seafood tower.
Strega007@reddit
Hah, didn't even notice the autocorrect. Well played.
ArclightFrame977@reddit
No autocorrect. Your use of the word buffet was correct. It's just one of those weird words that can mean two wildly different things.
BagBalmBoo@reddit
Yeah, the difference between Jimmy and Warren is huge.
TankerVictorious@reddit
Yes, Key West, FLA is a long way from Omaha, Nebraska…
ArclightFrame977@reddit
😂
snailmale7@reddit
That use to happen to me in a C152 when practicing steep turns …. At least that is what it felt like … :)
Excellent video .
CounterSimple3771@reddit
Welcome to structural fatigue 101. I'll be your instructor, callsign "Flexcat".
MyDespatcherDyKabel@reddit
This video needs to be stabilised
flyengineer@reddit
Stabilize it on the vertical stabilizer so the whole plane shakes.
Significant-Way5844@reddit
😍
Tacticoner@reddit
Turbulent air is turbulent… in high angle of attack situations, the vortices that get generated by the leading edge of the wing don’t go straight back over the wing, but rather have an angle in line with the AOA, causing less rigid surfaces to get exposed and experience the effects. You can see it in the vapor clouds that get generated
DonSol0@reddit
My dad flew these. Not for the Blue Angels but in a regular squadron. He did get to go through Top Gun though.
He’s not much of a dad so we don’t really keep in touch but I’ve always wanted to ask him if he misses driving jets. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to get to do this regularly and then it just suddenly stops being a part of your life.
Sogah87@reddit
Well I know why he doesn't talk to you... You call it driving jets...
OK but in all seriousness that sucks he couldn't find a balance. To be that committed to something like being a fighter pilot/career in the military and having a family is a challenge many in that situation can never master.
Turkina_Keshik@reddit
Imagine if it was su57/27 or j11? This sub would drown in toxic waste of their own creation
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
Well look what this jet can do with no thrust vectoring.
Crimson343@reddit
That is a beautiful machine
mdang104@reddit
They had to add reinforcement brackets on the OG Hornet because of that exact reason.
Hodgetwins32@reddit
Blue angels use super hornets now?
Farfignugen42@reddit
Since 2020. You can see the history of which planes they flew when here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Angels
Moondoobious@reddit
Is that negligible or does the pilot feel that like a bent rim?
Treereme@reddit
>Australian pilots referred to it as 'riding the cobblestones' (since you could feel it in the rudder pedals), and it was one of those non-visual signals you were pushing the Hornet to its' maximum. Never seen it so vividly like that before, though.
Strega007@reddit
Yes, you can feel the vibrations through the airframe. In that high AOA scenario, though, there's so much airframe buffeting that the specific vibrations of the verticals aren't discernible.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
Disagree. I watched it all the time.
Strega007@reddit
Yes, of course you can *see* it. I meant the tactile feel of the vibration of the verticals isn't separable from the tactile feel of the rest of the airframe vibrations.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
I took “not discernible” to also mean visually.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
You absolutely feel it. And can see it in the canopy mirrors.
CarminSanDiego@reddit
I’ve never flown the f18 but the t38 feels like you’re going over rutted out dirt road in a corvette
elkab0ng@reddit
Ah! The dental work checker!
PsychologicalGlass47@reddit
Massage chair.
punkslaot@reddit
I love the blue angels. By far the best and most prestigious demonstration team.
malcifer11@reddit
don’t count out the tricolori
punkslaot@reddit
Admittedly I was near minded on US mil.
GrandpaShark1@reddit
Amazing
BR0_CD@reddit
I do this sometimes after I pee
Yeah_right_sezu@reddit
The earliest YF-17's had a slot on each side of the fuselage, but it was filled in. Would it have anything to do with this issue?
(I saw the first 2 airplanes when they were on the MAC assembly line when I was a kid. They both had slots in them)
Island_Smudger@reddit
Chapter 7 of Orr Kelly's "Hornet" book covers the tail stresses, and subsequent fixes (strengthening cleats etc.), in quite a bit of detail, starting with the discovery of cracks on a routine inspection in 1984 (with the original "legacy" Hornet). The tails had a visible vibration, from the LEX vortices, of around 10 times a second, but an invisible high frequency vibration of 40-60 times per second. The strengthening cleats helped but just shifted the stresses elsewhere. The final fix was the "LEX fence" on the LEX itself, which shifted the vortex passing the tail.
Vairman@reddit
they had issues with the vertical tails on the OG Hornet because of vortexes off the leading edge extensions. They ended up putting fences on top to break up the vortices. On the Super Hornet they redesigned the vertical tail mounts to be much, much stronger. cool video.
BradGriswold@reddit
stlthy1@reddit
Thousands of tax dollars per second.
quietflyr@reddit
You're a couple orders of magnitude high, if you're talking about this one aircraft.
Healthy-Confusion119@reddit
You don't need the extra money to spend on paint chips
ApprehensiveStick251@reddit
I tell myself my taxes only go to jet fuel. It helps me through out the day.
SquiddyGO@reddit
Trust me, your tax dollars are being wasted in much worse ways
streetlegalb17@reddit
For this they can take my fuckin money lol
thejesterofdarkness@reddit
🥵
Durmomo@reddit
I dont think a prettier plane exists
very few if so
Quick-Eagle9570@reddit
oh wow
pinchhitter4number1@reddit
I watched a cockpit video of an F-18 during a mock dogfight. In the background you could see the flutter on those vertical fins. I had no idea they flexed so much and with such a high frequency. Awesome engineering.
Advanced_Gear404@reddit
Early Hornets needed additional reinforcement and aero changes to prevent cracking in the tails caused by these vibrations.
Excellent-Main-1768@reddit
What blows my mind is these guys don't wear G Suits.
soloswing_10@reddit
Cool vibrations?
amy-schumer-tampon@reddit
flutter
unicynicist@reddit
buffet
So_HauserAspen@reddit
popcorn
EndOfProspect@reddit
Interesting. Guessing it’s well within design tolerances.
Substantial_Diver_34@reddit
Shimmy and shake baby.
doomiestdoomeddoomer@reddit
♫ I'm feelin some good vibrations... ♫
streetlegalb17@reddit
🫦