Originally Posted by
DozyWannabe
I repeat Mad (Flt) Scientists reply from earlier, which you've apparently missed - or maybe you're wilfully ignoring:
I'd be tempted to be more specific and say that you'd be grounding every
airliner out there, but his point still stands. Have a look at the first few pages of this article:
http://www.flyingmag.com/article.asp...article_id=527
Va (AKA Manouevering Speed) has been a fact of life for pilots for decades - although it was primarily concerned with structural integrity involving wings and horizontal stabilisers, the vertical stab was apparently not originally considered in these calculations.
The simple fact is that your criteria, i.e. being able to rip the vertical stabiliser off through pilot action alone - are applicable to pretty much every large transport-category aircraft currently flying, be they Boeing, Airbus, Tupolev... whatever.
Yes I ignored it, I was hoping to keep the discussions logical.
IF (which I hope is NOT true) there are ANY Commercial Airliners out there now, where failure of primary structure and loss of the hull with all the souls on board, can be caused by ONLY (mechanically or electronically) allowable movements of Pilot controls, without any defects on the Aircraft, then they should be grounded IMMEDIATELY.
The scenario is just too ridiculous to to be true, hopefully.
Can you imagine the outcry if this was true say with a car, that on a particular make and model of car, in perfect working order, simply moving one of the pedals "too far or hard" would cause loss of the car and all the lives on board?
That car would quite rightly be removed from the roads immediately, just as these Airliners (IF what you say is true) should be removed from the skies IMMEDIATELY.