subject
 

Take him up on that Mary!

The gliding is pretty good too.

:ok:

Porter, if you are representative of the pilots at your aerodrome, then at a $1, it was over-priced.
You have NFI, both about me, and the subject matter. Pick up your dummy from where you've spat it, and toddle off to bed like a good little lad. The grown ups are busy talking here. :ugh:

In USA there are airports which have an over-run area made of specially designed crushable material that aids to decelerate an aircraft quickly in event of a high speed abort going into the over-run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine...rrestor_system

Many years ago I wrote to the then Essendon airport authority suggesting it might be worth considering these retardation systems for installation at the western end of Runway 26 and southern end of 17. The Tullamarine Freeway runs at 90 degrees close to both areas. A severe over-run off the end of either of these runways during peak hour traffic has the potential to cause chaos.

If ever an airport needed safe over-run surfaces it was Essendon with its close proximity to houses and freeways. Needless to say I received no acknowledgement. Gave it a few weeks and paid a visit to the then management offices in the hope of finding someone to show interest from the flight safety point of view. Was offered a nice cup of tea and politely shown the door.:ugh:

People talk about an airborne abort if a light twin loses an engine seconds after lift off. Of course that depends on several factors including runway and over-run remaining. Crushable material in the over-run zone could be a life saver especially if the runway is wet and aircraft braking capability degraded

Auto feather
 

Harry Cooper
That's a 17 knot reduction in Vmca.

If the aircraft is 100 AGL, OEI at Vmca and then the auto feather system is turned off it will be 17 knots below the mandated Vmca & will roll over/ be over.

The weak link in King Air auto FX is the pilot. The auto FX must be armed by the pilot to function - and it must remain armed/ on to continue to function. If the pilot neglects to select the correct switch & misses the appropriate annunciators prior to takeoff he could find himself low level OEI and 17 knots below his planned Vmca. Similarly, should the pilot launch into a typical engine failure drill appropriate to a piston twin (say PA31 or C404)...the proceedure, power lever idle to confirm the failed (piston) engine, will disable the King Air auto FX with predictable results.

Not saying this is the case in the Essendon tragedy but there is a cohort of experienced B200 pilots endorsed on type, trained and checked long before simulators became available in Australia. These pilots may never have actually experienced OEI ops and procedures other than touch drills at a safe height. It is quite likely that any engine failure for these pilots will be the first they've experienced and taken to a logical conclusion. Add to this a strong background in flying piston twins and the understandable tendency to revert to the drills first learned...piston proceedure that will disable the King Air auto FX, then the weak link in the King Air auto FX becomes evident.

Different pilots lift off at different distances though. I can remember watching on separate occasions two pilots flying the same aircraft off the same runway with the same load on board. One would be airborne halfway down the strip while the other would hold it on the ground for a lot longer. The latter used to scare the crap out of me sometimes, especially on the shorter of the two strips!

DF.

Thruth(ers) is stranger than fiction
 

Essendon crash is a hoax, according the Melbournian who recently said the Bourke St Mall rampage was staged by the government.

https://youtu.be/SHn52ByBhWs

Mickjoebill

Perhaps he should be forced to meet the loved ones of the deceased - I am sure they could set him straight on that! :ugh:

DF.

Arrestor Systems
 

Centaurus says a number of years ago he tried to convince the Essendon authority that it would be sensible to install Arrestor systems on the West end of runway 26 and the South end of 17. His suggestion was not taken up.

It is still very much a good idea. The current technology involves "lightweight crushable concrete blocks, similar to a runaway truck ramp, and if properly designed can substitute for a runway safety area, or RSA"

In the US the following aircraft found the arrestor system handy:

May 1999, Saab 340, with 30 souls on board
May 2003, MD 11, cargo, 3 souls
Jan. 2005, 747, cargo, 3 souls
July 2006, Falcon 900, 5 souls
July 2008, Airbus 320, 145 souls on board at Chicago
Jan. 2010, Bombardier CRJ 200, 34 souls
Oct. 2010, G-4 Gulfstream, 10 souls
Nov 2011, Citation 11, 5 souls
Oct. 2013, Citation 680, 8 souls on board

I bet that you could build a runaway truck ramp for a fairly reasonable cost...

EMAS is a good idea if you don't have the real estate for a true RSA. I agree small airports with little open space around like YMEN could probably benefit from EMAS, but I am not sure it would have helped in this case.

Given the choice between certain death and pancake in at 100 knots, I took the latter, very bent aircraft but I'm still here.

There are two plausible options:

1. Even he doesn't believe his own bull**** and should be forced, as others have said, to meet the loved ones of the crash victims.
2. He does believe his own bull**** and should therefore be committed urgently for treatment for a delusional condition.

This bloke is **** on your shoes, scrape it off, move on.

Agreed.
The salient point is these days especially in the USA and now in Australia, the downside of being the subject of any media attention is one becomes a target for these delusional ratbags whose right to free speech (the abusive, vile anti semetic, homophobic rants ) apparently outweighs the human rights of victims, loved ones and anyone else involved in an incident.



Mickjoebill

Traffic, you don't like a comments I've made on previous threads and you want to carry it on here, your own small minded vendetta, that's ok, there's not much you could say to me that would either have an effect on me or I'd take notice of.

My post gathered quite a bit of support, so NFI would apply to that support right? You spent your working life in a sheltered workshop (I know, I spent a good deal of my working life in that same workshop). You wouldn't have a clue of the day to day pressures on an aviation business. I'm more qualified than you will be in 2 lifetimes ;). Come out sometime and I'll run you through it, I'm not one for broadcasting how good I am on a public bulletin board.

In the meantime, keep educating the aviation world on the public servant perspective, a no risk business, backed up by taxpayer money. Easy to make decisions with that backing you up huh?

Crushable material in the over-run zone
 

The runway end safety area (RESA), an area twice the width of the runway and either 60m (code 1 and 2) or 90m long (code 3 and 4) based on runway classification, is meant to accommodate both overruns and undershoots. While your solution might be well suited for overruns it is most assuredly not suitable for undershoots.

Word on the street is that the owner of Spotlight has just bought a Global business jet to operate out of Essendon too.

There should be some clout for EMAS.....

Here's another recent U.S. EMAS save, it's good stuff in my opinion:

Collapsable runway saves Mike Pence's plane from disaster - Business Insider

There have been several other airliner overruns at LGA in the past four decades, some with fatalities.

I have often wondered about the commonly taught practice at some flying schools of "power lever idle to confirm the failed engine."
This practice is not mentioned in any of the aircraft manufacturer's flight manuals I have read over the years with the exception (if I recall correctly) of the Beech Baron series. The primary identification method is normally by rudder use as in 'dead engine dead leg."

The problem with pulling back the throttle of the assumed dead engine, is how fast does the pilot pull it back? Slowly or quickly? All the way back or just enough to see if any change in foot load or direction of yaw?

All this takes several seconds with the dead engine propeller still windmilling with associated high drag and loss of airspeed. Keep in mind some propellers on piston engine aircraft will not feather if the windmilling RPM gets below a specified figure - typically 800 rpm.

Having said that, with the four engined aircraft of yesteryear, there was a case for confirming a dead engine by pulling back its throttle. A strong yaw could indicate either a port outer or a port inner engine problem. Dead side dead leg was primary identification on which side. But which of the two engines on that side? Selective throttle closure combined with engine instruments narrowed down the culprit and then appropriate feathering action made.

With an engine failure at a critical moment after lift off in a light twin, the priority would be to quickly reduce drag. That means feather asap. For every second the prop is allowed to windmill, its drag will cause aircraft speed to will degrade alarmingly. In some aircraft there is more drag from a windmilling prop than from an extended landing gear. Often the pilot cannot afford the luxury of a careful pull back of the throttle to confirm the already identified engine.

Ok. Here : https://youtu.be/M4DUGhokgKE



is a link to a zoomed. stabilized, tracked and slightly sharpened sequence with the usual YouTube compression issues. It is from the original car cam posted here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H0sbCbtPJk

I hope the privacy settings are ok and you can all see it as YouTube is not that familiar to me.

Steve

Whole time airborne can't be much more than 10-15 seconds.
I wonder if that crane in the full video, on the right, was in the pilot's field of view and caused a distraction.

Centaurus, when learning to fly twins around 25 years ago myself and my peers were taught pitch up, power up, gear up, flap up, confirm, fix or feather. All of which could take precious seconds whilst effectively sitting in ground effect. The confirm was taught to me as dead leg, dead engine.

I was taught mostly in the Duchess for an EFATO to Power Up, Clean Up (Gear and feather, flaps and cowl flaps as required) Trim (raise dead engine 5 degrees). A failure at height you had more time to do the Identify (dead foot), Verify (slowly pull dead throttle enough to confim), Rectify (try a restart), Secure (feather dead engine, fuel off etc). And Mayday radio call was only done in a Single if it failed; not in a multi. So big difference for EFATO was not Rectifying or trying a restart and quickly getting to Secure, whilst always still Aviating.

In my flying time I never had a real failure in a twin but did in a Single (glided in no damage). But I also never had simulator training for engine failures which would have been useful as all the simulated EFATO's were done after gear up and usually when reducing to climb power so at 100-200 feet up and predictable when the check pilot would pull the lever. A simulator would have given practice when lower down and gear still down etc.