Basic flight instruction

[billvon 2,400]

The NTSB just released a reconstruction of the Colgan (Continental) crash. Can anyone identify the basic mistake the pilot made?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxywEE1kK6I

[downwardspiral 0]

Not a real good idea to pull back on the yoke and hold it there during a stall.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[Misternatural 0]

Ok I'll play hoping this isn't a trick question.

Stall speed problem related to flap speed, gear drag and angle of attack at low approach power setting. The recovery was supposed to be pitch down instead of up- but at that altitude I guess it was counter intuitive to pulling up on the yolk.

A friend of mine went to a flight training class to learn stall recovery...it's tough to make yourself push down when you need to.

Beware of the collateralizing and monetization of your desires.
D S #3.1415

[bluesilver30 0]

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A friend of mine went to a flight training class to learn stall recovery...it's tough to make yourself push down when you need to.

Not when you're supposed to be a professional. This guy shouldn't have been flying for an airline. Completely incompetent.

[downwardspiral 0]

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A friend of mine went to a flight training class to learn stall recovery...it's tough to make yourself push down when you need to.

Not when you're supposed to be a professional. This guy shouldn't have been flying for an airline. Completely incompetent.

It's mind boggling isn't it?

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[Misternatural 0]

Definitely. Do the pros undergo actual stall recovery training in the type aircraft i mean in the actual plane or just a sim? with the physical sensations of shit moving around out of control- especially at a low altitude it's not so easy to push that nose down i would think. They just got too slow too fast which in my view is the real problem with that whole scenario. What was the weight distribution like in the plane at the time? it seems like the whole day went horribly wrong the moment the flaps went to 15 degrees.

Edit; on second look the capt. requested 15 flaps but they only got as far as ten.

Beware of the collateralizing and monetization of your desires.
D S #3.1415

[billvon 2,400]

>especially at a low altitude it's not so easy to push that nose down i >would think.

Well, keep in mind that she was ignoring the stick shaker (indicating an impending stall) and fighting the stick pusher (an actuator that tries to push the stick forward during a stall.) And 2000+ feet isn't all that low.

[downwardspiral 0]

What's the lever between the throttles and flaps? Prop angle?

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[diablopilot 2]

Good thing they were a commercial rated pilot, or things might have gone really wrong.


How hard is it to keep up the airspeed?

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[ryoder 1,384]

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>especially at a low altitude it's not so easy to push that nose down i >would think.

Well, keep in mind that she was ignoring the stick shaker (indicating an impending stall) and fighting the stick pusher (an actuator that tries to push the stick forward during a stall.) And 2000+ feet isn't all that low.

"she"???
I though he was flying.
Is there info to indicate the controls were being operated from the righthand seat?

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[Beerlight 0]

Although for tailplane icing with an aircraft with a T-tail config, there is documentation (NASA mind you) that shows a different recovery. ie, pull back on the stick.

http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/Contrail_25/3927/

[Misternatural 0]

.And 2000+ feet isn't all that low.

true... matter of perception I guess but on approach time flies when you're at 2 grand and looking at the runway and processing a landing in your mind from my experience, and I'm no pilot-I know when I made some approaches in a Taylorcraft when i was considering flying school before I decided to build an ultralight, things got suddenly really squirrely and complicated once I was in the landing pattern while trying to slow down and line things up with the right glide slope all at the same time.....you know what I mean.
she obviously had a major A-D-D brain clog at the worst time in her life.

I honestly don't think she had enough training to deal with a stall on approach....maybe at 10,000 without fooling with the gear and the flaps and the radio and the throttle and the etc......throw a surprise stall into the mix and -you get the picture I'm sure.

-Also did the angle of attack look a little high to you? I mean the damn thing looks like it was about to flare at any moment before the flap adjustment.


Edit; Ahhh I just listened to the flight recording telling of all the icing they experienced.

Beware of the collateralizing and monetization of your desires.
D S #3.1415

[billvon 2,400]

>Although for tailplane icing with an aircraft with a T-tail config, there is
>documentation (NASA mind you) that shows a different recovery. ie, pull back on
>the stick.

Tailplane icing is a bit of a different story, but there is not much evidence that that was the issue here. Indeed, it's sort of a different beast:

-It doesn't just affect T-tails. The NASA tests were done with a Twin Otter.

-Often the first sign of a tailplane stall is a violent uncommanded forward motion of the yoke, as the separation point reaches the elevator. That was not indicated here; the opposite seemed to happen.

-The result of a tailplane stall is a violent pitch DOWNWARDS, not upwards. All pitch excursions in the re-enactment seem to be upwards.

-The three things that lead to a tailplane stall are increasing flaps, increasing speed and increasing power when the tailplane is iced over. In this case we had increasing flaps but decreasing speed and low power levels.

-When the wing stalls, the ailerons lose effectiveness and the plane rolls without much control. When the tailplane stalls, the wing continues to fly and the ailerons are still effective. Based on the full left-right excursions of the yoke, it looked like she didn't have much control of roll, indicating a wing stall.

It looks an awful lot like a plain old approach stall, the kind that every student pilot trains for. (Although this may have been aggravated by icing.) The first step in recovery for this is relax back pressure (or apply forward pressure) and that's the step that seems missing in her recovery.

[billvon 2,400]

>I honestly don't think she had enough training to deal with a stall on approach...

That's the part that's really surprising me. I'm not a very experienced pilot (PP-ASELS, 255 hours) but it seems like the very first 'emergency procedures' you learn are stall recovery (approach and departure) and engine-out procedures. And then you practice them a LOT. They seem akin to skydiving emergency procedures in that way - pretty simple but you have to do them rapidly and accurately when the time comes.

There are more complex emergency procedures, like spin recovery (which I've done) and tailplane icing recovery (which I haven't.) But they're considerably rarer, and neither seemed to be an issue here.

[millertimeunc 0]

Looks to me like he kept his throttles in idle, probably had his mode select panel set up with approach and altitude hold, got preoccupied with radios/inter cockpit communications/calling for checklist, failed to recognize that his airspeed was bleeding off as the nose pitched up and the autopilot held his altitude, and then executed improper unusual attitude recovery procedures.

Not sure how it's taught when you're getting your commercial rating, but we do a fair number of stalls in all configurations here in the T-1, and the FIRST thing you do is push the throttles up, followed by relaxing backstick pressure, and then finally you roll out of whatever bank you were in to use all of the available lift from the wings. The situation here looks like it was compounded by the fact that by the time they figured out what was happening, they were in an unusual attitude as well as in a stall, so the correct solution may have been Max, disengage the autopilot, relax, hold 45 degrees of bank, let the nose slice to the horizon until you get your flying airspeed back, then roll wings level.

Another thought is that maybe maxing the throttles on an aircraft of this design created a gyroscopic yawing motion that put them in an uncontrollable situation. Thoughts?

The best things in life are dangerous.

[nanook 1]

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What's the lever between the throttles and flaps? Prop angle?

Kind of. that is the Condition. both condition and throttles have an effect on prop angle. To make the explaination simple as possible: The condition controls the RPM of the props. The rpm control is governed by the pitch of the props. for example: Flight high setting, the props are allowed to spin at "X" rpm. When power (throttle) is applied, the props pitch to prevent it from going faster. when power is backed off, the props flatten out to keep the rpms up. And of course, the more pitch the more bite and therefore more thrust with the advantage of keeping the rpm's.

This is the simplest explaination I can think of. When you are on the ground, things are a bit different.

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[piisfish 135]

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Not a real good idea to pull back on the yoke and hold it there during a stall.

except if you fly an An-2... If you are lost in clouds, cut back engine and pull the yoke....

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[Rookie120 0]

Gettin the plane dirty and not increasing power? Fighting the stick shaker and pusher? There is a laundry list of things that was not done properly.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[billvon 2,400]

>Another thought is that maybe maxing the throttles on an aircraft of this design
>created a gyroscopic yawing motion that put them in an uncontrollable situation.

Well:

1) Dealing with prop forces (torque, slipstream, precession, P-factor) is one of the more basic tasks that people who fly prop planes deal with. During takeoff, many of these forces are at maximum, and thus anyone who flies such aircraft regularly would have experience handling them.

2) If you watch the animation, you can see a possible cause for the yaw and roll:

-The plane stalls due to low power, a nose high attitude and increasing flaps (=increasing drag.)

-One wing drops, which is common during a stall (one wing stalls a little sooner.) The way to deal with this is to use rudder to stabilize the airplane since the ailerons no longer work well (they're on the wings and the wings are stalled.)

-The pilot uses aileron to try to correct the roll. This requires dropping the aileron on the stalled wing, which stalls it even harder. The roll becomes worse.

-As the aircraft's wing dips lower and lower, the changing relative wind causes a decrease in the angle of attack, and the wing comes out of the stall. The aileron gains effectiveness and the plane starts to roll the other way.

-The pilot uses opposite aileron to stop _that_ roll, and the descending wing stalls. Etc etc.

I've tried to fly in this regime in a trainer (C152) and it's very tempting to try to use aileron to control roll, but it is very hard to control the airplane that way and often makes the problem worse. And that's in a plane that's hard to stall.

[downwardspiral 0]

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What's the lever between the throttles and flaps? Prop angle?

Kind of. that is the Condition. both condition and throttles have an effect on prop angle. To make the explaination simple as possible: The condition controls the RPM of the props. The rpm control is governed by the pitch of the props. for example: Flight high setting, the props are allowed to spin at "X" rpm. When power (throttle) is applied, the props pitch to prevent it from going faster. when power is backed off, the props flatten out to keep the rpms up. And of course, the more pitch the more bite and therefore more thrust with the advantage of keeping the rpm's.

This is the simplest explaination I can think of. When you are on the ground, things are a bit different.

I understand. Thanks for explaining.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[wayneflorida 0]

Letting the airspeed to get low.

[millertimeunc 0]

Ah, yes, I had forgotten about that lesson. We learned that in basic aerodynamics. How would it work with a jet that uses spoilers instead of ailerons?

The best things in life are dangerous.