Question from a top engineering historian:
I have been doing some research into specific airplanes, one of which is the production F-86A and later models. In two different places I came across engineers casually discussing the in flight high-speed ‘snaking’ motion of the F-86. One North American engineer just said ‘. . . the snaking problem was solved.’ He never said how it was solved. The second person was an engineer from England who stated, ‘. . . flight tests on both the [British] Meteor and the F-86 confirmed the suitability of the technique [of providing a yaw damper to solve the snaking problem]. Nothing specific was stated in either case.
My question is: Can the General remember a yaw damper on any of the F-86 airplanes he flew?
This kind of information is very difficult to come by as historians have no idea of what I am talking about and seldom write about things like ‘yaw dampers.’ I am looking into stability augmentation systems (SAS) and the genesis into the implementation of these systems aboard 1949 fighters and the later, 1950s, Century series airplanes like the F-104, etc.
General Yeager:
There were no yaw dampers ever on the F-86. I did not have a “snaking” problem.
What I remember is: F-104 had a yaw damper – checked it by – you had the engine running and a guy went up on the nose and shook the nose and the nose would yaw.
If I remember correctly: only the F-104 and the Century Series had a yaw damper on them.
c. GCYI