Islander Stall

[deadbug 0]

That was just poor piloting. One of the mistakes that some jump pilots seem to make is they think they need to fly jumprun as slow as the aircraft can safely fly leaving very little margin for error. There are several problems with this line of thinking. The slower the aircraft is flying the less airflow over the control surfeces and thus the less control he of the A/C. In reality a little extra speed results in a cleaner launch (at least for RW) as the extra airflow results in in more control. You can hear the spotter call for a cut and it sounds like the pilot cuts the A/C almost to idle followed shortly by the stall. Not necessary. You can't have an A/C at idle flight maintaining airspeed and altitude. You can have two of the above but not all three. Depending on the type of load decide which of the three is going to be sacraficed. I typically plan to arrive over the spot 500ft above my target alt then provide a reasonable cut. At that point forget about altitude and just fly your target airspeed. In most aircraft this will result in a very shallow descent rate and everyone should be off the A/C by the target alt. if you need to you can add a little power. On big way exits you can all alittle power after the front floaters are out and blocking the wind. I have not flown an Islander but I don't see a huge crowd by the door that might have caused a aft CG stall. Remember although you should not be flying the A/C out of CG, it sometimes happens in some A/C due to idiot jumpers not following loading instructions. In this case the stall happens because you run out of elevator authority that is sufficient to keep the angle of attack down. The higher your airspeed the greater your control authority, and thus the better chance you have of maintaining your margin above stall.

Doug

[riggerrob 558]

Anyone stupid enough to sit aft of the door of our King Air gets yelled at!
The longer he sits there, the louder and ruder the yelling gets!
Heck!
Skydivers are not allowed to sit aft of the door even on the ground!
I have tried talk the boss/chief pilot/airplane owner into installing a net, or large, mean dog.
He does not like dogs.

[riggerrob 558]

Agreed!
Cutting power on jump run is sooooo "old school."

If jumpers are too weak to climb out - with moderate power - they need to spend more time in the gym.

[diablopilot 2]

You'll love this one!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJdIU0zKxE4&NR=1


In case anyone missed it, that's 2 idiots (read: 350lbs+) aft of the rear edge of the door when people climb out. Looks like one even tries to geek the camera.

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

[airtwardo 6]

Quote

You'll love this one!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJdIU0zKxE4&NR=1


In case anyone missed it, that's 2 idiots (read: 350lbs+) aft of the read edge of the door when people climb out. Looks like one even tries to geek the camera.

I saw that one before...notice how close the vidiot come to the horizontal stabilizer!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[nathaniel 0]

By "geek the camera" do you mean the hand waving? I took that to be encouraging the floaters to release as it seemed to be at the same time that the plane was stalling and rolling. A little hard to tell since all you can see is a little bit of horizon.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[AMT 0]

seems like he cut, possibly only the left engine, or maybe both but in any case he allowed the aircaft to get slow and stall. I agree with the assessment that he was look back at the jumper on the wheel because looking back and left causes the pilot to make a left rudder input which in this case is a pro-spin input. This is one of the reasons people die turning slow base to final trying to see the runway under the high wing on cessnas. Once the spin was in the incipient phase he applied power which only served to make things worse and shows he was attempting in panic stall recovery, further developing the spin. Why you would panic at that altitude is beyond me but you can see him hold up elevator and left rudder throughout the duration, meaning the aircraft recovered in spite of and not because of, some airplanes just dont like to stay in spins. Try that with a pitts.

Acro pilots from the 80's should remember gene beggs power off, hands off, opposite rudder spin recovery proceedure, it has saved many.

[NickDG 23]

This may be one of those situations where a pre-plan may not always be best.

Older jumpers remember the Loadstar (Learstar?) that stalled on jump run at 12.5 and impacted the ground 23 seconds later at some horrendous speed. There were 26 aboard including two pilots. Fifteen jumpers managed to get out with one of those being killed on exit. In all nine jumpers and the two pilots were killed.

http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR84-06.pdf

Or the Beech that stalled in Hawaii on the demo jump . . .

Then there is cause. Garden variety stall or something else? Jammed control line or outright failure? Pilot incapacitation? I was aboard a C-182 when a pilot passed out during the take-off roll.

In most high altitude stall instances it's probably better to stay put, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it's the answer in all cases.

NickD

[ryoder 1,381]

Now here we were having a nice little discussion based on theory, and you had to go drag facts into it.

A couple things strike me as odd in the Loadstar crash:

1. The plane rolled to the right. Generally a twin on jump run throttles back the left engine to reduce propwash blowing the jumpers toward the tail. So when a stall occurs, the plane drops below Vmc, and the right engine pulls the right wing over the top, and the plane rolls to the left.

2. The witnesses reported the plane as making a couple slow spirals on the way down. Doesn't sound like a spin.

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

[mircan 0]

Quote

I saw that one before...notice how close the vidiot come to the horizontal stabilizer! Shocked

Skydive limbo champion!

dudeist skydiver #42

[JerryBaumchen 1,047]

Hi ryoder,

Tom Classen, a friend back in those days, was in the Loadstar and was ultimately thrown out of it. He told me that when she stalled the tail went down/nose went up. Then she rolled clockwise ( if you were to be looking up from the ground ) around this vertical axis, onto her back. At that point, she was upside-down, then the pilots tried to bring her around but did not have enough altitude and she went in nose first.

Just what I was told, and the difference maybe in just how one person describes things vs someone else.

JerryBaumchen