Bill, Again, great points.
Perhaps it was that pre-programming that saved me when I had aileron flutter. I knew I was approaching Vne and I knew that flutter was a killer when Vne was exceeded. I probably had those thoughts as I was slowly speeding up toward Vne. I blew away the Army's driver's testing reflex device with a similar method. I call it response pre-queuing. It's been demonstrated that, if you are thinking about what your response will be under a specific stimulus, your response time is lots faster than if you have to make the response decision after you see the stimulus. In driving, as you approach an intersection, you can pre-decide what you'll do if the car approaching from the side road doesn't stop. Will you drive into the left ditch, the right ditch, slam on the brakes, slam on the gas or ram the idiot? Just having those thoughts and making some pre-decisions can change an accident into an incident. By pre-loading my response to the Army driving test's queues, I had about half the response time of anyone they'd tested. I learned about this 35 years ago from a professor who was researching this topic. I've practiced it since while driving and, gosh, it sure improves your defensive driving. The only bad drivers who've managed to tag me in the last 750,000 miles have caught me when I was stopped or moving too slow to DO anything. ___________________________ My only difference with you, Bill, on your post is in this comment you made: > It is likely that the great majority of flutter encounters > begin slowly (with the pilot wondering "what is going on") . . . > and will cease as soon as power is reduced and speed drops. That rule may apply to a lot of other things, but I suggest it doesn't always apply to flutter. Flutter is, as I understand it, a resonance phenomenon. When the conditions are right and the disturbing stimulus hits, the resonant vibration often goes to full intensity almost instantly. It was so when I had aileron flutter. If you get slow onset, great. I hope it happens. Wheel bounce from an unbalanced wheel on your car can start with low amplitude and slowly rise to a peak at the optimum speed. But, if while flying, you feel that driving-on-a-washboard-road vibration or wheel badly out of balance vibration, LOAD the control surfaces instantly. It doesn't take a huge load. (i.e. I wouldn't have yanked full back pressure on the elevator at high speed.) But loading the control surfaces causes them to press between the air forces and the control rods/cables. It stops resonance vibrations very quickly. In the SECOND half of the first instant, chop power and reduce speed. That driving on a washboard road is a distinct and dramatic thing that should never happen in the air. If you are not familiar with it, go find busy gravel roads and drive around for a while. Ed
