Nightmare instrument flight

[john_tullamarine]

An interesting link on Private Flying to an I/F emergency on a North East CV240 many years ago.

An absolutely unsettling read and a situation that none of us would ever want to experience ...

Thread is here (http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/518115-terrifying-night-flight.html).

A definite advert for keeping one's cool and not admitting defeat in the face of near certain failure ... I cannot find any corroborating links .. even if the tale is fable, the story still has a useful moral to tell.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/DieselJohn/Misc_Pictures/bth_Frog-chokes-Bird.jpg

[con-pilot]

Hell of a story John. I got goosebumps on my arms reading that story.

[Centaurus]

Gives a whole new meaning to flying on Limited Panel. How much more limited can you get?

Reminds me of the time I was conducting a type rating at the SAS Flight Academy in the 737-800 simulator on two Israeli pilots from El Al Israeli Airline. Both had flown Mirage fighters in wartime and were now 747 pilots going back down to the 737-800.

When told to switch off the flight director and autothrottles for the next take off, the first officer turned around to me in mock dismay and said "You must be kidding ..What the hell are you giving me left to fly with - the circuit breakers?" I had to delay the take off clearance to get my laughter under control:D

[John Farley]

Good grief.

[tubby linton]

It should be required reading for pilots with a flag carrier based in Paris.Fly the aircraft, be perpared to reverse what you have just done. Be prepared to think outside the box.

[Gulfstream757]

Great read perfect level of realism and technical detail in the story.

[ross_M]

This quote intrigued me:

The full size airplane - in this case, the CV-240 - is not able to fly by itself - it must have a pilot to control it. Actually, if the airplane were designed to be so stable it would maintain itself in level flight, it would be very tiring for a pilot to fly it. The stability built into the plane is one which, when left to its own devices, will frequently cause the plane to end up in a screeching spiral dive in one direction or another, depending on which way it happens to be upset in the first place.

I thought only close to envelope fighter types were inherently unstable. Aren't most civilian planes fairy stable naturally? Or not?

I thought it took some bit of work to get a plane into a spin.

PS. I'm not at all belittling their challenges. Just exploring this bit of detail.

[ross_M]

Darn. I was hoping the story would end saying why this all happened....

[dubbleyew eight]

PS. I'm not at all belittling their challenges. Just exploring this bit of detail.

aircraft designed to FAR23 have to meet flight handling requirements which make them all pretty stable and easy to fly.

there are lots of aircraft not designed to have FAR23 handling either because they predate the requirement or were not designed to it at all.

the lancair gets into a spin as easy as hell.
if you dont fly the Tailwind (i.e. fly hands off) within 20 seconds it is in a steep spiral dive.

I thought it took some bit of work to get a plane into a spin.
just be very careful exploring that in aircraft you arent familiar with.
some take many thousands of feet altitude to recover from an accidental spin. never experiment below 10,000ft.

[deefer dog]

It's called airmanship! It is not a shade of magenta!

[Oktas8]

I thought only close to envelope fighter types were inherently unstable. Aren't most civilian planes fairy stable naturally? Or not?

A spiral dive is not a spin.

Aircraft such as the one described are inherently stable. However, the interaction between directional stability (e.g. tail fin & rudder) and lateral stability (e.g. rolling left or right) is such that it will enter a spiral dive if left alone for a period. This is common even today for non-jet aircraft.