Sabre Dance

The Sabre Dance is a movement of Aram Khachaturian's ballet Gayane, completed in 1942. The piece was popularized by The Ed Sullivan Show, wherein it was played while plate spinners did their act. It was covered by performers such as jazz player Woody Herman and rocker Dave Edmunds.

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Sabre Dance is also the name given to a particularily dangerous behaviour of swept wings, which became apparent in the USAF with the introduction of the F-86 Sabre. When a swept wing starts to stall the outermost portions tend to stall first. Since these portions are behind the center of gravity, the overall lift force moves foward, pitching the nose of the aircraft upwards. This leads to a higher angle of attack and causes more of the wing to stall, making the problem worse. A large number of aircraft were lost to this problem on landing, leaving the plane tumbling down the runway.