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I happened to catch Top Gun today on a movie channel and a question started going through my head. I'm not very knowledgable in avionics and flight physics, but, why is it that you can't recover from a flat spin? If you want, you can give a detailed answer, I don't mind  I'm just curious because I'm a huge fan of flight simulators and combat flight sim games (many of them with very realistic conditions in the programming of the game) and every time I've made myself go into a flat spin, it's impossible to get out of it; why doesn't the plane just increase the throttle and go forward? Wouldn't the force of the jet engines stop it from spinning? Also, what exactly causes a flat spin? Thanks in advance, I hope someone knows what I'm talking about!
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In a flat spin (like that pictured in the movie), there is a total loss of lift at the wings. Since the aircraft is spinning about a vertical axis through its center of mass, increasing engine thrust doesn't work because the thrust is continously vectored in a shifting direction as the aircraft spins, and thus the aircraft gains no velocity from engine thrust that would be beneficial for generating lift. Again, no lift, no flight...
I'm no avionics expert, nor am I well experienced with flight sims nor do I hold any type of pilots license, but I believe that if you could get the nose of the aircraft pointed toward the ground,a nd given enough altitude, you could recover from a flat spin. Unfortunately, the same conditions in a flat spin that prohibit lift likely also eliminate any chance that the control surfaces- elevators, alerons, flaps, rudder, will have much effect on vectoring the aircraft....
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Sandman, thank you! That was the kind of answer I was looking for Just enough detail to sate my curiousity  Anyone else have more to add to this? I'd really really love to hear it!!!
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Many aircraft are quite capable of recovering from flat spins. The F-14, however, is not one of them. It all comes down to the basic flight control system and areodynamics. I had the chance to watch spin testing in the NASA spin tunnel at NASA Langley back in college (Aero/Mech double major  ). They used scale models with working flight controls in a verticle wind tunnel. Very cool to watch, and the only test model thay couldn't recover during the demo....the F-14A. 
Very few of life's problems can not be solved with the reasonable application of more horsepower! ********* 2001 SVT Mustang Cobra My Ride Former Owner of: '00 Contour SVT #1931/2150
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Originally posted by Silver Snake: Many aircraft are quite capable of recovering from flat spins. The F-14, however, is not one of them. It all comes down to the basic flight control system and areodynamics.
I had the chance to watch spin testing in the NASA spin tunnel at NASA Langley back in college (Aero/Mech double major ). They used scale models with working flight controls in a verticle wind tunnel. Very cool to watch, and the only test model thay couldn't recover during the demo....the F-14A. I wonder if the ability to vary the geometry of individual wings might help in that problem, changing the center of mass just enough to move some air over a control surface. TB
Tony Boner Personal: 98cdw27@charter.net Work: tony.boner@sun.com Saving the computer world from WinBloze as Unix/Solaris/Java Guru http://www.sun.com 1998 Contour SVT Pre-E1 618/6535 Born On Date: 4/30/1997 Now with Aussie Bar induced mild oversteer.
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yeah what he said- my boss was a flight test engineer in the AF for about 11 years- - you CAN recover from a flat spin- but the F-14 is a plane that is virtually impossible to recover.
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Awwww Top Gun.... One of my favorite movies of all time. Damn I'd kill to have another one made!! With the technology today..... TOP GUN II would be the shizzle!!!!!!!!!
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Originally posted by Rynn:
I'm a huge fan of flight simulators and combat flight sim games (many of them with very realistic conditions in the programming of the game) What is your favorite sim? Mine is Falcon 4.0 and European Air War. I've heard that Falcon 4 has been flown by real F-16 pilots and said it was identical. All I know is that it takes a lot of skill to fly it right.
Chad Purser
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Falcon 4.0 and MS Combat Flight Sim are my favorites, and also F-16 Multirole Fighter
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Jane's ATF was always cool.
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