KR fliers, A couple of folks e-mailed me offline and asked me to be a bit more specific in my suggestions. Pardon my regression to military-speak in my last post. Here we go:
Nose high unusual attitude recovery: Throttle - max. Push the stick to less than one "G" toward the horizon. Note that you are not trying to level the plane, you are trying to get load off the wings to prevent stall. My own observation is about half a "G" works very well. It takes load off the wings, but does not cause everything on the floor to end up on the canopy. Roll to horizon (wings level) - Once the plane's nose is level with the horizon it is time to concern yourself with getting the wings level. If you were slow or close to stall you can let the planes nose fall through the horizon a few degrees to gain some speed back quickly. In the KR, going to full throttle and unloading is going probably get you all the speed you need by the time the nose reaches the horizon. I remember this as POWER-PUSH-ROLL Nose low recovery Throttle - idle. Roll to nearest horizon - If you find yourself upside down, say 45 degrees nose down inverted, if you just pull in the plane's vertical you will have to go 135 degrees to get to the horizon. If, however, you roll the plane upright to wings level BEFORE you pull to the horizon, you will only have to pull 45 degrees (plus ten degrees or so for the roll). It will take a great deal less time and altitude to do this than to not roll first. While this may seem counter-intuitive, use your hand as an airplane and work through the maneuver. Pull to horizon - Do not exceed buffet onset to do this. The temptation (fear induced) is to pull for all it is worth to the horizon. Doing this can either overstress the plane or cause an accelerated stall (if done below maneuvering speed. It is accepted this is a remote possibility, but it has been known to happen in aircraft I have flown.). Remember, people have done loops in the KR just fine, so it can be recovered from 90 degrees nose down without trying to pull the wings off. If you are at the backside of a loop and panic or lose situational awareness and need to recover, you could well be nose low with low airspeed inverted. Do not panic, fly the recovery as described. I remember this as POWER-ROLL-PULL If you are going downhill AND speed is a problem, AND you are able, AND your plane can accept speed brakes at any airspeed, putting out the speed brakes will decrease the amount of altitude lost. In jets this was just a matter of pulling a thumb switch on the throttle aft. Honestly, this is probably not a good idea for most of us, unless you have a switch controlled speed brake. Obviously, if you are not sure the brake can sustain the airloads it is also best to keep it in. The place where this could be a live or die is when the ground is in close proximity and the five hundred or 1,000 feet this may save you will save you. I would not put the flaps out in any circumstance. For what it may be worth to someone. IHS, Dave
