That is insanely low for training! Do you get a free pair of underwear with that course?! What type of aircraft was that done in?

 

The altitudes you are talking about aren't even considered legal here without waivers.

Well it was in a glider, not a powered aircraft for one thing, specifically, I was in an SZD Bielsko 50-3 Puchacz when I did that, and looking in my log book, it was way back in November 1999 when I was on an aerobatics course. You can of course pull a lot of G in one of those, so you can yank it out of the dive with 3 or 4 G if you are running out of room.

 

Actually, I played a sneaky trick on people on the flight line when I did that too - Knowing that I was off to do that test, I said to them, check out my spin when I get over Offerton Moor: What a lot of people would not have been aware of, was that the terrain drops away in that direction, so from the airfield, it looks like you are a lot lower than you actually are, and of course I knew that if I pulled out from a spin at about 500 feet or so, it would in fact briefly look like I was going to pile it in when viewed from the flight line, a bit like that crappy effect they always used to do in movies to make it look like a plane has crashed by diving it behind a hill. Muhahahaha!

 

:diablo: :lol:

 

Al

I was in an SZD Bielsko 50-3 Puchacz

 

Ho-ho-ho-ho, Al, it's one of the two (SZD-9 Bocian being the other) gliders I was learning to fly on!

And, by the way, I live 20 kilometres from Bielsko (it is a town where the gliders were built).

 

Sorry for going OT, I just can't resist when memories attack.

They flew a perfectly good airplane into a level 5 thunderstorm,everything that happened afterwards is incidental.

http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/trajectoires/trajectoires010609.html

Yup, that's about the size of it; all the other aeroplanes which went around that storm managed to not go out of control, and unsurprisingly, also managed to not crash because of making that detour.

 

Al

Yes,its pretty simple really,you can argue the incidentals till your blue in the face,The lesson is don't trust your life to weather radar, (attenuation??),and don't let dispatch talk you into doing something dumb.(again your life in tin can,not dispatchers)

You are quite correct Iain, in highlighting that whilst the Colgan incident is a different incident, the overriding problem is the same; that of inadequate knowledge or training on what to be aware of, and that lack of knowledge leading to a crash.

 

But just to be clear, the aircraft isn't necssarily stalled in those circumstances, deploying the flaps changes the airflow to the elevator, and the build up of ice on the tailplane's leading edge can increase the angle of attack of the airflow over the tailplane to a point where the downwash from the deployed flaps pushes the angle of attack even higher, and moves the centre of lift past the elevator hinge, the tailplane may stall, but it doesn't have to, the elevator is forced downwards into a vacuum, and that is what pushes the aircraft into a dive. The control forces are so great it is unlikely that even both crew members would be able to pull back on the controls and pitch the elevator into a climb position. The only feasible way to resolve it is to have enough altitude to be able to retract the flaps, restore a stable airflow to the tailplane, and then bring the stick back, but since the flap deployment usually occurs at low altitude, the chances are that it is game over.

 

The real solution to that issue would be to periodically disengage the autopilot when cruising in potential icing conditions, in order to check that the autopilot has not been applying excessive trim to overcome icing on the tailplane, since you would not notice that if not flying manually. If it has, you would either descend into warmer air to de-ice the tailplane, or consider landing with less flaps, or even no flaps if you were not sure the icing had cleared.

 

Al

 

I might be misremembering but wasn't the problem with the Colgan crash that the flight crew executed a tailplane stall recovery procedure even though the plane was in wasn't in an ordinary stall? I remember some people pointing to Colgan's training, where the pilots were shown a video on tailplane stall recovery even though the Dash-8 isn't prone to them.

 

Yup, that's about the size of it; all the other aeroplanes which went around that storm managed to not go out of control, and unsurprisingly, also managed to not crash because of making that detour.

 

Al

 

And other A330/A340s that suffered the same loss of airspeed readings also managed not to go out of control. I think the count is at two dozen or so now?

In my flight training in Canada in 2006, there was just a theoritical training about spin recovery. Then a demonstration by the trainer of recovering the plane. All the rest of the training was basically to recognize sign of stall and avoid them. There was of course significant number of exercice of straight direction stall.

 

I guess it is different now. I started my PPL at Buttonville Airport back in 1996.....so that is almost 17 years ago now....sheesh, seems like yesterday.

 

I actually enjoyed the spin training but my guess is incidence like this one is probably why it is not done anymore:

http://www.tsb.gc.ca...39/a98o0139.asp

 

I remember the instructor in that accident when I went to school there. She was working in the pilot shop at the time and working her way up to instructor. The report says they were doing stall training but I think they were doing spins based on what the eye-witness had said. I did spins with my instructor at this school where I was PIC and in my first 10 hours of training.

 

Accidents like this is when changes do happen. The instructor was just starting out and this was her second student. After this incident I switched to Toronto Island Airport hence my ytzpilot for CYTZ airport, so I didn't stick around long enough to see what changes they had made.

Accidents like this is when changes do happen. The instructor was just starting out and this was her second student. After this incident I switched to Toronto Island Airport hence my ytzpilot for CYTZ airport, so I didn't stick around long enough to see what changes they had made.

 

Yes, I think it's why this change happened. I discussed this during the week-end wih my current IFR flight instructor (I'm taking a break of Flight this summer to get this rating). He confirmed that the current practice is just to demonstrate the spin and spin recovery but conducted by the instructor and with the student only observing, or keeping a light hand on the control just to feel what movement the instructor do. There were too much fatality during training performing spin and there was also issue with student thinking that one or two spin under supervision was enough to master it. Then they run into problem (understand that they killed themselves) when they were praticing it in solo.

 

I definitively think the spin and unusual attitude worth a separate training of 5-10 hours so you have actually more time to fly the aircraft out of the normal enveloppe.

The talk of stall recovery training in relation to AF447 is a moot point; they didn't identify the stall in the first instance.

The talk of stall recovery training in relation to AF447 is a moot point; they didn't identify the stall in the first instance.

 

Why is it necessary to "identify" a stall?

The talk of stall recovery training in relation to AF447 is a moot point; they didn't identify the stall in the first instance.

 

To put it very simply...

 

Don't give a calculator to someone trying to learn Maths.

 

It is called BASIC PRINSIBLES

Why is it necessary to "identify" a stall?

 

Why else would you start to perform a stall recovery manoeuvre? You need to be sure you are stalling (or approaching stall) first?

 

To put it very simply...

 

Don't give a calculator to someone trying to learn Maths.

 

It is called BASIC PRINSIBLES

 

I agree entirely - they did the wrong thing. I don't think I've ever said otherwise. You still need to identify that the aircraft is stalling to be able to perform stall recovery and utilise any extra stall recovery training you have had.

Why else would you start to perform a stall recovery manoeuvre? You need to be sure you are stalling (or approaching stall) first?

 

 

 

I agree entirely - they did the wrong thing. I don't think I've ever said otherwise. You still need to identify that the aircraft is stalling to be able to perform stall recovery and utilise any extra stall recovery training you have had.

 

Really? What is a "stall recovery"? Is a "stall recovery" a separate and discrete manouver that applies only in a single and certain circumstance? Does an aircraft behave differently in a stall than in any other phase of flight, requiring a separate and discrete combination of control movements only after the pilot correctly determines that he is in that particular situation? Does the laws of physics change for a plane that is flying slowly and one that is flying fast?

The talk of stall recovery training in relation to AF447 is a moot point; they didn't identify the stall in the first instance.

Perhaps if they had practiced it though, they would have better recognised when they were in one...

 

Rónán O Cadhain.