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Old 2nd Dec 2003, 04:54
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rottenlungs
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Somewhere between Cape Reinga and Invercargill
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Hi Cumulus

With the DC-10, there was an incident back in the early 70`s where the floor collapsed due to the loss of a cargo door, causing severely degraded control authority. The AAL crew (Bryce McCormack, R Paige-Whitney and Burke) managed to successfully land the aircraft at Detroit, using a combination of assymetric thrust and the remaining controls. Look up the "Windsor Incident" for more information, or get hold of the book "Destination Disaster", which details the events leading up to and after the THY DC-10 crash near Paris in 1974.

What McCormack found, in the sim, was that the trijet configuration of the DC-10 (with the centre engine thrustline above the C of G and the wing engines thrustline below the C of G) allowed the pitch to be controlled (to some degree) by controlling the centre engine. Apparently McCormack had practised this in the sim before the Windsor Incident as he felt there was inherent risks with all-hydraulic controlled aircraft, especially one where all the control line converged underneath an engine.

As TOPBUNK said, both these guys, and the crew of the Sioux City aircraft were real heroes.

Cheers
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