Originally Posted by
andrew172
Sorry for being pushing, I don't want to be exaggerated, I'm a PPL student and I just want to be prepared for the unexpected.. In my opinion, it's ok thinking about all kind of possible failures while on ground and be ready to face them in the air, and doing that, I realised that this 2 problems regarding ailerons jammed deflected or elevator jammed seem to be unrecoverable in some circumstances, that's why I'm asking about them. I didn't find others come that close to a certain out of control situation, maybe you know more dark scenarios
Thank you!
Flying is all about managing risk. The most important part about risk managing is understanding the concept of probability and consequence. That is how likely is any particular scenario and if it where to happen how severe would the consequences be ? Obviously as an instructor I will place a very high level of effort preparing you for the high probability, high consequence scenarios.
So for example getting too low and too slow on final approach will probably happen to you and the consequence of letting the aircraft stall and maybe spin will be very severe. Similarly not checking your fuel quantity before takeoff will, if done on a regular basis, lead to a high probability you will run out of gas which again obviously has going to be lead to a high level of severity in the outcome. So I will put a lot of emphasis on you managing your pitch attitude and power so that you fly a safe final approach profile and my preflight inspection training will emphasize the importance of checking the fuel. These actions are an example of you being trained to mitigate and manage dangers.
The hard part of risk management is how one deals with low probability but high consequence scenarios. A jammed control is a good example of one of those. It is a very low probability event especially for simple flying club powered aircraft (it is more of a concern for gliders however) and virtually all pilots will fly their whole career without ever having to deal with this emergency. There are many many emergencies which are much more likely for you to experience.
There are is a practical limit to how much you can specifically prepare for and the danger is to so worry about the extremely rare events you neglect to place a sufficient effort in learning to manage the more common emergencies.
However the chance of a jammed control is not zero and obviously it is a very serious emergency should it happen so If you were my student and asked this question here is what I would say.
A jammed control is an extremely rare occurrence and therefore it is important that before you worry about this kind of event you learn and understand how to deal with the much more common emergencies which I will be covering during the PPL course.
Your question is not a silly one however and we are already indirectly mitigating this risk in other ways.
The first is understanding what we are looking for in the preflight inspection so we are more likely to identify a problem which could lead to a control jam before we even takeoff. Remember last month when I pointed out the aircraft we were about to fly had just come out of a 100 hour inspection? You recall we spent extra time looking for tools left behind, loose carpet that could foul the controls, missing panels etc etc. This is an example of managing the increased risk that will inevitably exist when substantial work is done and heps mitigates not only the risk of jammed controls, but other things that could present an inflight problem
The second way we mitigate this risk is by having a complete understanding of the effects of the aircraft controls and so in the event of a jammed control we would use this knowledge to maximize the chance of retaining enough control to still fly the aircraft, so for instance, using roll yaw coupling to roll an aircraft with jammed ailerons. So while we are not going to specifically cover the jammed control scenario you will nevertheless have the kinds of skills which can be used to deal with this emergencies and other low probability events by the end of the PPL.
Oh and while we are talking emergencies tell me what you are going to do if we are cruising out to the practice area on our next flight and the engine suddenly starts to run rough........