Came across this video of a Navy Blue Angels airshow with the #1 pilot rolling the plane over and flying inverted- i.e., upside down- at a very low altitude.
How can a plane do that? Lift is created across the top surface of a wing and I don't see his elevators tilted to force his upside down nose up towards the sky to counter the downward "lift".
That pilot must have a whole lot of the "Right Stuff"!
Depends on the airfoil design. Most planes like that are semi symmetrical or fully symmetrical airfoil. Airliners and small planes have a flat bottom airfoil for better lift but they don't do inverted.
I've built and flown RC models that could fly inverted. You had do kick in some elevator to keep the angle of incidence right.
Very impressive. I'm sure my buddy Jack could do that, if he had ever learned to fly.
Seriously, when the plane first turns over, the words on the side seem to be going up to the right. So I think the plane is too, but you can't tell when the lettering doesn't show. Either that or it's a miracle.
There was one infamous Boeing test pilot, Alvin "Tex" Johnston, that did a barrel roll in one of their 707s at a demo.
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