NASA's two WB-57's have been very busy mapping Afghanistan, Iraq and other AOR's "of interest". Busy enough that NASA has resurrected a WB-57 (Sabrina) from the boneyard & various museums:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/ ... the-1970s/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2MWN5GFQic

oshkosh 2014...
[youtube]https://youtu.be/HGmHf0UYyps[/youtube]

Hes all over that rudder.

Hes all over that rudder.

I had the pleasure of seeing one in person and got to see it land when it was returning from checking out the big hurricane off the coast of Mexico awhile back. There's a pretty big support crew that comes with.

I suspect the rudder has a proportioning valve in the hydraulic control system, so it moves in proportion to airspeed. At low ground speed, when the pilot steers the short coupled nose wheel, the rudder moves a lot. As the plane speeds up, the rudder moves less.

Mike C.

I remember seeing those land at Kirtland AFB when I was a kid.

I suspect the rudder has a proportioning valve in the hydraulic control system, so it moves in proportion to airspeed. At low ground speed, when the pilot steers the short coupled nose wheel, the rudder moves a lot. As the plane speeds up, the rudder moves less.

Mike C.

I've got a good friend who flew them until recently down at Ellington.
I sent him the video links and the question about rudder authority on the takeoff roll. We'll see what he comes back with to share.

I am based at Ellington and have seen this strange bird coming and going for years now. It has a very distinctive sound and looks only a mother or aviation geek could love.

They did some touch and goes or low approaches the last time I saw it flying.

Last week all three flew in formation over Houston and surrounding area at about 1500ft, I thought they were U-2's from where I sat.