posted 03-03- 12:50 PM               

I'm trying to educate myself on aerodynamics just for kicks and I have a question.

In Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, you can choose to display the performance envelope of the aircraft you are flying. For a certain G, it displays a "map" with altitude on the y-axis and speed on the x-axis which is separated into regions where the air-craft can "fly normally", "stall", undergo a "thrust limit" or begin to suffer structural damage.

I can understand the first three (normal flight, stall and thrust limit) but really can't fathom why depending on the altitude, an air-craft can suddenly begin to undergo structural damage where at an another altitude, at the same speed, it just reaches its maximum possible speed.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

posted 03-03- 08:11 PM               

Da Jug Head - thanks for the address of the website. I currently don't have a connection from home (checking boards right now from work) so I'll have to wait until I can peruse that site at my leisure.