Largest civilian aircraft to do a barrel roll?

[rotornut]

Can anyone tell me what is the largest civilian aircraft ever to do a barrel roll? My friend has seen a film of a 707 doing one but I wonder if anything bigger has ever done one.

[dada]

a jumbo jet b747? what a rubbish post.

[john_tullamarine]

.. on the contrary .. an interesting question ...

[lomapaseo]

Not sure if this counts but an A300-600 carrying a full load of passengers, rolled over 180 deg + due to an inflight reverser deployment and then finished the roll back to zero for a complete 360 deg before returning to land.

[*Lancer*]

Did that Air China SP pull a 360 mid Pacific?

[Hay Ewe]

I heard a tale once that concord whilst during flight test did a barrel roll, but I only heard it once so .....

Also, provided that 1g is maintained through out the move (can't spell manouvre!) what is the limitation to doing a barrel roll?

I think the china SP went to about 90 degrees.

what about the space shuttle, that rolls onto its back, does it continue to roll as its flight progresses?

oh well, back to work I suppose

hay roll - roll another one

[Touch'n'oops]

dada... if you don't like it... ignor it!!!!

Rotornut: the 707 is the largest I know of!!

The China SP pulled a whopping 7G on recovery. The APU broke out of it fixings.

7G now that's incredible!!!! And the Crew decided to carry on to L.A at first!!!! Ay Ya!!!!!

[SR71]

Here is the link to the China airlines incident:

China Airlines 747SP Upset (http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publications/Incidents/DOCS/ComAndRep/ChinaAir/AAR8603.html)

Not quite 7g...

The maximum vertical acceleration forces recorded during the descent were 4.8Gs and 5.lGs as the airplane descended through 30,552 feet and 19,083 feet, respectively. The 5.1G peak value was recorded on a portion of the tape where data had been lost originally and subsequently recovered, but this value is consistent with the adjacent data which show an arresting of descent rate and a pull-up.


Here is Tex Johnston in action:

707 Barrel Roll (http://www.airviolence.com/download.php?view.71)

:ok:

[allyn]

...the A380 is coming online soon....

[IRRenewal]

Also, provided that 1g is maintained through out the move (can't spell manouvre!) what is the limitation to doing a barrel roll?The limitation would most likely be that it is an aileron roll rather than a barrel roll.

Bit Like Tex Johnson's roll really, that is not a barrel roll either.

Pretty impressive though.

Gerard

[sycamore]

You can probably get away with less than +3g doing a `barrel-roll`, starting at 300kts. The trick is to keep a matched pitch and roll rate at all times and keep it balanced.The nose must be above the horizon with wings level as you go inverted, otherwise it will end in tears(in your eyes) and tears in the airframe, unless it is more highly stressed.Bob Hoover does it in a Commander, whilst pouring water into a cup on top of the instrument panel...on a vid, somewhere........Best practised on a suitable aerobatic aircraft first.......!!

[Willit Run]

DC-3, took 22 seconds to go around, DC-9, 737 ,757

[northwing]

The 707 undeniably did one. the pilot was called in to the MD's office and asked what the hell he thought he was doing. "Sellin' airplanes, Sir." was reputedly his reply.

I thought I had read that the 747 did the same but I am not sure.

The Concorde was certainly rolled more than once. A mate was in a Canberra doing icing trials with it. The Canberra pilot rolled round the Concorde to get a photo after the water tank had been emptied and the Concorde returned the favour.

[jayteeto]

I remember reading about the China Airlines 747 incident with horror. An engine failure followed by incorrect drills caused a departure. I thought it actually did a spin!!!! Does anyone still have a copy of the flight international report? I would love to read it again....

[niknak]

A mate doing an air experience flight in a bulldog with ATC cadets asked the female passenger if she would like to see what if was like to do some aerobatics finishing with a barrel roll.
The somewhat nieve lady agreed, unfortunately just as he was half way through the barrel roll, she was rather ill and unable to reach the appropriate bag in time, consequently, when the roll was complete and the aeroplane the right way up, it all became very apparent - everywhere :uhoh:

[16 blades]

707 roll was quite impressive, although it was an aileron roll not a barrel roll. However Tex's description of it was not entirely accurate. It wasn't (and couldn't be) a 1g manouvre - if you stay level inverted, you are pulling -1g. In order to roll any aircraft through the inverted you would have to fly very close to, if not completely, ballistically whilst inverted to avoid an excessive ROD and airspeed, or pushing -ive g, ie at or close to 0g. To maintain +1g inverted requires a hell of a pull through (the equivalent of a 60deg bank level turn), which would have you near the vertical before you had completed the first 180deg of roll. You would then need considerably more than +1g to pitch up and recover. In a barrel roll, since you pitch up to about 30-45deg first (thereby instantly pulling more than 1g), you can maintain 1g over the top, but in the second half you would have to pull much more to recover to level flight - ergo neither can ever be a '1g manouvre'. The only manouvre you can MAINTAIN 1g throughout is straight flight! (not straight and LEVEL as obviously you can maintain 1g in a climb or descent)

Does this make sense? It did in my head, at least!!

16B

[16 blades]

Yes, that was MEANT to form part of the explanation, but as you can tell I confused myself as well as others. I really ought not to think so hard, my brain wasn't designed for it!

16B

[Yorky Towers]

72' Goes round quite nicely chaps**** all on the back except a bit a concrete we forgot a about:ok:

PS: for you serious types, Barrel :p

[sky9]

There was a rumour floating around in the late 60's, early 70's. It was alleged that when training was done on the aircraft rather than in the sim. that in a certain European airline 707's were regularly barrel rolled at the end of the session.

I wouldn’t know whether that rumour was true or not so I won’t name the airline.

[Whispering Giant]

From memory I beleave that Concorde's barrell role was perfomend by Captain Brian Walpole of British Airways and by Sud Aviations chief test pilot at the time Andre Turcart when Concorde's ability was being demonstrated at the time to show what she was capable off.
I dont if any other pilot's also performend the same manouvere or if this was a one off.

brgds
W.G

[catchup]

Yes, that's what I know as well, but the A/C in question was a B720. A large european carrier lost two of them when performing those maneuvers.

regards

[wonderbusdriver]

DLH lost at least one that way near Nuremberg.

The enginepylons didn´t like the torque being generated by being turned so rapidly in a right angle to the running engines.
It was not a problem of "pulling Gs" but rather of the engines coming off...
(At least that´s what I was told. Always think of it during those "quick line-ups" while engines are spooling up rapidly and you´re making a 60 degree turn.)

[390cruise]

So how about the largest aircraft to intentionaly roll with passengers onboard..... Air Anglia F28!!!

[kenfoggo]

I seem to remember an executive pilot who pulled a roll in a Beech 90 and it got away from him. The resultant high G recovery popped the inspection panels over the wing bolts with consequent embarrassing chat with engineering. I could be wrong.

[the_hawk]

Speaking of Beech and barrel roll:

http://www.tailstrike.com/280493.htm

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19930428-0

[The SSK]

...the A380 is coming online soon.... The A380 is the largest barrel ever to do a take-off roll.

[Speedbird48]

VC-10,

I remember a story of a VC-10 of BOAC/BA doing a roll while crew training when the Dutch Roll demonstration went wrong.

In the early days of the B707-436 BOAC had one get away from them while training and it recovered very close to the ocean with a few panels missing. The Mach meter went a lot higher than airliners are supposed to!! Whether that was a roll or a bunt I am not sure?

Speedbird 48.

[newcastlepilot]

Here is the video and interview with the pilot (Tex Johnson) that proves it did take place.

B707 roll video (http://alexisparkinn.com/photogallery/Videos/707%20Roll.mpg)

ps. It's big, so you'll need a fast connection.

[Clandestino]

Jeeeeeeez, I first misread DLH as DHL. It's almost unbelievable that guys from such a respectable airline would try to do this (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19640715-0) . Ah well, another fallen idol.

Best practised on a suitable aerobatic aircraft first
And continued on suitable aerobatic aircrat later and ever after. Horses for courses.

[Jerricho]

Newcastlepilot, that's a great video!!

Thanks mate :ok:

[bwallis]

Great Video, Tex, comes over as one of those great aviator you would have loved to meet.
In the video he has also got a great way of describing IATA: the International Air 'Trashport' Association !!! brilliant accent.
Barnie

[Noah Zark.]

Tex shounds a bit like Jimmy Shtewart!

[Konkordski]

A certain A310 test pilot was extremely coy and wouldn't answer when I asked him how he knew the type could barrel-roll.