4 ms·
War planes dropped natural stability a while ago, IIRC the F16 was the first relaxed stability production aircraft (it's naturally stable at supersonic speeds b
by masklinn 1y ago
War planes dropped natural stability a while ago, IIRC the F16 was the first relaxed stability production aircraft (it's naturally stable at supersonic speeds but not subsonic).
In fact there was a flying airliner with relaxed stability (though only neutral not negative) when Airframe was published: the MD-11. Though I don't know that there have been others since.
- hypercube33 1y agoIsn't the high landing speed one of the unstable traits of this plane?
- kqr 1y agoI think you're right about the F-16 being the first. My money would have been on the F-117, but that apparently started development three years later – the F-16 is surprisingly old!