ORIGINAL: RCKen
ORIGINAL: CGRetired
And, I might add, flutter may occur when you fly a wing/control surface faster than it was designed to fly. Then, you will quickly find out what that resonant frequency really is. Often, it happens pretty fast. Flutter is pretty destructive. It will tear up a control surface in a heartbeat. Often, if you can hear it, it may be to late.
CGr.
Destruction usually isn't limited to the control surface. Many times flutter will destroy the entire airframe. It doesn't take long, usually just a few seconds from the time you hear the flutter to the time that the airframe is destroyed. About the only thing you can do when you hear flutter is chop the throttle and level out the plane. Hopefully that will change the resounance of the flutter enough to stop it. If it does you should immediately get the plane back on the ground. And if you can bring back a plane from flutter then you should immediately head to Vegas and hit the Blackjack tables, because you are one lucky person!!!! Most planes don't survive flutter!!!
Ken
Destruction can literally happen within half a second of flutter. It happened to my last Sig Astro Hog when it went into elevator flutter and tore the left hand horizontal stab off in less than 1/2 second. 2 seconds later it impacted the ground (30' pass down the runway) and essentially broke in half. The builder (I picked it up at an estate sale) put one of the control horn screws through the dowel connecting the elevator's (something nobody caught until after the fact).
Hogflyer