For example i was in a 757, i wanted to peform some highspeed passes, alph max etc. How would i file flight plan for a display? All from the basic steps if anyone knows...

 

Thanks,

Tom

Well, the first thing you would do is liaise with the display organisers to determine your slot in the show, since you would have a specified time to be over the airfield and therefore a segment in the line up at a specific time too, although they might shuffle things around to afford you some flexibility. In arranging that, you would make it clear how long your display was, what you intended to perform manuever-wise and how much room it needed, so that your slot could be properly managed, and there is a lot to consider, for example, the airshow commentator would need to know what you were going to do, and they would have to be mindful of the wake turbulence which such a large aircraft would create (especially a 757) when making high speed passes, since they would have to allow a couple of minutes for it to dissipate..

 

You would be briefed by the organisers on the preferred airfield traffic entry direction, the display box dimensions, minimum allowed altitude etc, since such maneuevers cannot be performed over the crowd and generally have to be within a well defined box. This is a rule which came into play in the 1970s after a particularly nasty crash at a West German airfield, where a fighter went into the crowd and killed a lot of people. Thus diplays are performed alongside the crowd line rather than over it, usually aligned with a runway to make it visually easy for pilots, so there are directions you have to follow in order to enter and leave the display areas without contravening the regulations. You'd probably be advised to do a survey of the airfield, with either charts or a visit, and preferably both, in order to be aware of terrain hazards and tall objects in the area.

 

Many displays with airliners are part of a flight with passengers on board, taking a detour to perform the routine, although often a special charter rather than a scheduled flight, so that involves filing a regular flight plan, but with a detour for the display. You need a special dispensation in most countries by the governing aviation authority to do that sort of thing, since you would probably be going from an IFR plan, to a Special VFR flight, and then back to IFR again after the display as you resume your normal flight.

 

The reason you go to all those lengths is because you don't want any surprises, since they could lead to an accident. The most famous incident where that occurred, was the Air France A320, Flight 296, which crashed at Mulhouse-Habshiem LFGB in 1988. The crew of that A320, which was virtually a brand new aircraft, did not properly survey the airfield, nor did they liaise properly with the show organisers to determine exactly what to expect on the day. As a result, they were unaware that the display was to take place aligned with one of the smaller runways at Habsheim, when they had assumed it would be aligned with the main runway. Because of that, they quickly realigned their approach in an ad hoc fashion - which is a recipe for disaster if ever there was one - and came in over the runway which the spectators were aligned with, without really being prepared for it, since they had briefed for a display based on being aligned with the main runway, and should have aborted when they saw this was not going to be possible. Instead they carried on, over the smaller runway, and the visuals presented by being over a smaller runway led to them misjudging the height, going much lower than the 170 foot AGL minimum they were supposed to adhere to at the airshows, although in the case of this incident, they did in fact have a waiver from the authorities to descend to as low as 100 feet AGL at the show.

 

As a result, they were also caught out by the trees at the end of the runway, and prior to that, were also forced into a turn by some pylons and HT wires in the area. All of this meant that they ended up crashing into some tall trees at the end of a runway - the video of which I'm sure you will have seen - which they would in fact have cleared had they been at the 100 feet they should have been. They also throttled back too much (to flight idle), when demonstrating the alpha limit of the A320's FBW system, which meant they could not spool the engines up to the required thrust necessary to power their way out of the situation when they realised they were below the tree line's height, at one point dropping to 30 feet AGL, instead of adhering to the minimum prescribed height of 100 feet AGL. The pilot also did not hear the altitude warnings which should have alerted him to the dangers, because he was wearing headphones, and such warnings are played over the cockpit speakers. This is why you should do all that survey stuff and carefully brief a routine as opposed to making it up as you go.

 

You would in fact be in with a lot better chance with a 757, since it has a very high power to weight ratio and is also very maneueverable. At low weights in can pretty much go vertical and do wing overs, chandelles and other such maneuevers that you don't often see large aircraft doing. I've actually seen a 757 doing those things at an airshow once, and I was frankly stunned by how maneueverable it was and by how fast it could accelerate.

 

It is possible to do an airshow with an airliner in Just Flight's Airshow Pilot add-on, since it is not simply geared to smaller aerobatic aeroplanes. It would probably be worth checking that out if you are really interested in airshow stuff in FS, since it would familiarise you with the Aresti/FAI catalogue of maneuevers for aerobatics and demonstration flights. You can also find out more about that at the FAI website incidentally, they being the governing body for most of that kind of stuff: http://www.fai.org/

 

Of course if you want to do all this in Flight Simulator, then what you could do, is make an Airshow with FS Recorder, and leave a slot in it for your display. then play that as an AI flight and slot your airliner into the show. In this way you would then have to ensure that you were over the airshow display box, and indeed out of it and finished, in the specified time, which would be an interesting navigational challenge I am sure, and would probably require you to use the chronometer to practice timings and such.

 

Al

Hi!

 

Wow that was a cool reply. Many thanks. I think I once saw a documentary on that Mulhouse crash. I can't remember what conclusions they came to. I think they said something like this from Wikipedia that the aircraft systems put the nose down to prevent a stall. From Wikipedia:

 

 

"A320 operation anomalies

 

Third-party investigations into the crash dispute the official findings.^[3] Captain Michel Asseline asserted that the altimeter read 30m (100'). However, while the pilots were trained in metric, this particular plane was in Imperial units. Air France didn't inform the crew of this critical change (yet the crew voices are recorded on black boxes, and they use imperial units).

Captain Asseline also reported that the engines didn't respond to his throttle input as he attempted to increase power and the elevators pushed the nose down.

Indeed during a re-creation of the flight at the Airbus facility at Toulouse, it was established that the configuration the crash aircraft was in, i.e. nose high, low speed, low engine power; the fly-by wire system did push the elevators down to keep the nose down to prevent the onset of a stall."

I never knew that was not the official conclusion but an alternative one. They sure didn't say that in the documentary!

 

Anyway back to the original post I'm just a simmer but my thought was aren't all display flights VFR so don't need a flight plan in the normal sense. Or maybe flight plans is how they organise who flies where when during the display?

 

Many thanks,

 

Pierre

Awesome reply Al. Thank you!

Captain Asseline also reported that the engines didn't respond to his throttle input as he attempted to increase power and the elevators pushed the nose down.

 

He claimed that was the case, but in fact the engines actually did respond within normal parameters, audio analysis of the crash footage has confirmed that is the case and tallies with the throttle movements and the N1 spool times recorded on the FDR - I can give you the exact N1 figures at specific times if you like, because I have that report. He probably thought they did not respond quickly enough because when you are staring at a big line of trees, about to wipe out an airliner and possibly everyone on board, owing to your mistake, the engines are never going to respond quickly enough to suit you, and it almost certainly would feel like a lifetime hoping those engines would pick up power and save the situation.

 

He might also claim that the altimeter was confusing him because of a metric/imperial discrepancy, but even if that is true, there are still a catalogue of things both he and the co-pilot did wrong beyond that. So it still does not excuse commencing a display in an ad hoc fashion, one for which they had not properly briefed, and especially with passengers on board. The fact remains that the crew was reckless, and their lack of good judgement in not erring on the side of safety and choosing the more prudent option of curtailing the planned low fly by, which they instead did in an ill-advised 'press on' fashion, is what led to the crash.

 

Choosing to cancel or greatly revise the display to some safer maneuevers, or perhaps orbiting whilst formulating a proper new brief for the planned routine on the runway they had to perform the display over, might have disappointed the onlookers at the airshow, but such a decision would have avoided the fatalities and injuries inflicted in the crash. I'm sure many of us have been to airshows and on occasion been disappointed when some or other aircraft we were looking forward to seeing has cancelled, but in such cases, I would rather be disappointed than to see a fatal accident occur because of a lack of prudence. I've seen a several such accidents of that nature occur at airshows - crashes which included a Spitfire, a Mosquito, and a P-38 Lightning - and in all occurrences, it was very evidently a case of pilots with the bit between their teeth, showing off against their better judgement.

 

I've seen even more occurrences where the pilots, and indeed the people on the ground watching, were very lucky to get away with no crash occurring, including an RAF Tornado which pulled out of a misjudged dive over Silverstone on the day of an F1 qualifier. It missed a row of parked articulated trucks by what I estimated to be less than 20 feet. The aircraft pulled up so desperately, it almost went into a high speed stall, and it was only the engine thrust which prevented it from colliding with the vehicles as it wobbled skywards right on the edge of a high alpha stall. I bet the crew of that aircraft needed clean pants when they landed. :lol:

 

Al

Hi!

 

Many thanks for the reply. I remember watching that documentary and I was totally convinced of their explanation by the end. It's funny how you always believe what you see on TV!

 

It would make more sense that the engines spooled up normally because to be honest what are the chances of having a problem in both engines at the exact time when you need them during a low speed pass climbout? It would have to be a pretty big coincidence that they would fail at that exact time.

 

I wonder about the alpha floor protection putting the nose down though. I don't know much about real airbus systems (in FS all the alpha floor does is go to max thrust when you're too slow). But I've seen a video on Youtube of Bruce Dickinson trying to stall an A320 (at altitude) and when the alpha floor kicks in (he too is flying extremely slowly) that thing shoots up like a rocket with a very nose high attitude which even Bruce comments on looking out the window as he's climbing 4000ft.min.

 

Anyway many thanks for the info. It is an interesting topic although sad because people lost their lives.

 

Pierre

If you want an interesting book on the subject of several air accidents, including the one at Habsheim, then I can certainly recommend this one:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Air-Disaster-Vol-Macarthur-Job/dp/187567134X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341757397&sr=1-4&keywords=air+disaster#_

 

Al