Over banking and crashing, what was the intended maneuver?

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Admiral Beez said:
I guess this is how a low speed high angle bank is supposed to be done, but if I'd been watching it live I would have expected a nose dive crash.


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ae6y-KuvSlY&pp=ygUdQWlycGxhbmUgQmFua2luZyBhbmQgY3Jhc2hpbmc%3D
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So, the whole use of terminology can be wrong. "Low speed" is a relative term, like "High speed" but is not in itself dangerous because all these relative speeds may or may not be appropriate to the flight condition. The Airbus has a very comprehensive flight control system and as the caption says, it has a max angle of bank of 67 degrees. That is quite a high limit for a large airliner, and equates to +2.6G in a level turn. Of course, if that Airbus had been flying level at an airspeed for 1.3G above stall speed, racking-on 67degrees AoB and pulling to stay level would stall the aircraft. However, the Airbus flight control system would actually not allow that and it would limit the AoB. Overall, flying is a complicated thing and the modern world of Dumbed-down and sensationalised media comment for the great unwashed should never be simply swallowed!

Eng
 
GrauGeist said:
That C-17 crash was in Alaska back in 2010.
They were practicing the demonstration routine for an Airshow and during a turn, the aircraft warned the pilot of an impending stall and instead of taking measures to correct the ship out of the condition, he continued in the turn which induced a full (and fatal) stall.
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I was there when this happened. My wife was working her Masters work at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and I flew over from Germany to visit her for a month.

All day long the different aircraft were practicing their airshow routines. We didn't actually see the crash, but we could see the smoke cloud from the window.

Basically when this guy stalled he had no way to recover, too lil altitude.
 
pbehn said:
I read an article on air crashes where pilots became disorientated flying in cloud. They started to distrust instruments and trust their senses, resulting in progressing downwards in a 1G spiral. I cant imagine there is a manual or instructions for such manoeuvers so its a fly by the seat of your pants with no regard to airspeed and bank angle which feels OK until suddenly it doesnt. Inviting people to put on an "impressive display" doesnt help at all.
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Trust your instruments, trust your instruments…

Christmas Day 2004 we went inadvertent IMC (Instrument meteorological conditions). I remember feeling like we were upside down in a dive, but in reality we were "wings level" at 5000 ft. Trust your instruments, trust your instruments…
 
Interesting first hand experience here, and that almost made me shit myself. lol

So, when I was learning to fly, and I was doing my 1st cross country solo flight. I was flying a triangle circuit to three different airports. While approaching my 2nd airport where I was supposed to do 5 touch and goes, the tower asked me to fly a right traffic pattern because of inbound traffic instead of a left pattern which is what I had been practicing more. I confirmed and entered a right downwind per the towers instructions. I reduced my speed as I always did and turned to base. At that point I reduced power like always and began my descent. I misjudged my turn my turn to final and overshot my turn point. Inexperienced as I was I banked hard right to final and bled off so much airspeed that the stall warnings went off. When I looked down at my instruments I was at stall speed. I was able to correct and barely got it on the runway.

Had I not increased my airspeed when I did, I would have stalled and likely entered a spin at that bank. At that altitude there was no recovery possible.
 
DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Interesting first hand experience here, and that almost made me shit myself. lol

So, when I was learning to fly, and I was doing my 1st cross country solo flight. I was flying a triangle circuit to three different airports. While approaching my 2nd airport where I was supposed to do 5 touch and goes, the tower asked me to fly a right traffic pattern because of inbound traffic instead of a left pattern which is what I had been practicing more. I confirmed and entered a right downwind per the towers instructions. I reduced my speed as I always did and turned to base. At that point I reduced power like always and began my descent. I misjudged my turn my turn to final and overshot my turn point. Inexperienced as I was I banked hard right to final and bled off so much airspeed that the stall warnings went off. When I looked down at my instruments I was at stall speed. I was able to correct and barely got it on the runway.

Had I not increased my airspeed when I did, I would have stalled and likely entered a spin at that bank. At that altitude there was no recovery possible.
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An unfortunately too common an occurrence, not always with the successful outcome you had.

I had one when learning to fly the Tiger.
Orbiting overhead to get a look at the wind socks, which were showing conflicting wind directions, and I inadvertently increased my bank angle to keep the field in sight as I was blown down-wind. My instructor in the back told me to look up, and I was at about 60º AOB and a big slip - pretty much what those crashes were in. Luckily I was high enough, and in a small enough aircraft to recover.
When you're looking out the side window to look at something on the ground (wind sock, display line, etc) maintaining an angle becomes a whole lot harder as it messes up your usual scan pattern.

Definitely a learning experience.
 
gumbyk said:
An unfortunately too common an occurrence, not always with the successful outcome you had.

I had one when learning to fly the Tiger.
Orbiting overhead to get a look at the wind socks, which were showing conflicting wind directions, and I inadvertently increased my bank angle to keep the field in sight as I was blown down-wind. My instructor in the back told me to look up, and I was at about 60º AOB and a big slip - pretty much what those crashes were in. Luckily I was high enough, and in a small enough aircraft to recover.
When you're looking out the side window to look at something on the ground (wind sock, display line, etc) maintaining an angle becomes a whole lot harder as it messes up your usual scan pattern.

Definitely a learning experience.
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Absolutely. I can tell you it was a very humbling learning experience for me.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I guess this is how a low speed high angle bank is supposed to be done, but if I'd been watching it live I would have expected a nose dive crash.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be so keen to hold a youtube video commentary as always being accurate regarding what's being witnessed at an airshow. I've watched many big airliner displays at airshows/expositions around the world and some of the manoeuvres these aircraft perform look like they are reaching limits, and they might be but given they are a feature of such displays so often, what we perceive as being unsafe is likely within the safety envelope of these aircraft. Airliners are enormously overpowered, especially when empty and of course to the untrained eye, seeing a big airliner being thrown about like a slow fighter jet is startling, but these manoeuvres are carried out with monotonous regularity. Given that it happens so often and the lack of incidents where these demonstration aircraft do crash at airshow, and, yes, there have been some, an observer on the ground is not going to accurately gauge what is considered within the aircraft's safety parameters or not.

49220434157_a832a6d5b5_b.jpg
A380 climb

49220209701_776ab0b4fe_b.jpg
A380
 
EwenS said:
Let's not forget that 'Tex' Johnson deliberately rolled the prototype Boeing 707 as part of a demonstration flight.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_khhzuFlE

And some pretty spectacular display flying by the A400M

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL_ZU6LZnAc

All carried out well with the aircrafts' limits
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Apart from the "simple" loading limits (that are not actually that simple), aircraft that are not designed for unusual attitudes and manoeuvre often have problems with expanding the flight envelope simply because their systems may not function beyond their normal attitude limits. This can be especially true of airliners. Combat and aerobatic aircraft usually have systems that function properly within the attitude and G limits in the aircraft documentation. This often includes a time limit in less than Zero G. Often, this depends on the ability of Fuel, Oil and Hydraulic systems to recover without failures. However, non combat and non aerobatic aircraft will likely have systems with limited guaranteed function in pitch above about 30 degrees and in zero or negative G. This is simply because it is more expensive to build an aircraft that has aerobatic systems.
Another part of the problem with airliners flying extreme manoeuvres is that they are not designed for this as flying machines. The flying control laws may not respond correctly and some aircraft control systems will physically prevent extreme flight attitudes.
Beyond that, the whole experience level of pilots and crews flying true aerobatic manoeuvres in large aircraft is limited and the possibility of making a critical mistake is considerable.

Eng
 
Tex Johnson's Barrel Roll was a normal positive 1G roll. There was no strain on the airplane at all, it was exactly the same as if he'd been flying straight and normal.
In fact, talking to him many years later he told me they did two of them out over the Olympic Mountains out of sight just to prove it (A), could be done and (B), done safely. The data recorders never showed a thing. IIRC he said the one over Lake Washington and the crowd was the third one. I can testify to that. When I was about 4 or 5 I was flying with my dad in a Grumman Widgeon which is a non-aerobatic airplane. He had won an Aerobatic Championship in Texas in the late 1930s and knew how to do all kinds of aerobatics. He told me to stand up (I was up front in the right seat) and hang onto the inst. panel, so I did and he did a Barrel Roll then asked if I liked it. My feet never left the floor and I said I did, so we did another one, then he told me to sit back down. Tex was a raceplane and aerobatic pilot as well as a highly experienced test pilot, he knew what he was doing and it wasn't putting Boeing's baby and future in danger.
 
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J4F-2 said:
Tex Johnson's Barrel Roll was a normal positive 1G roll. There was no strain on the airplane at all, it was exactly the same as if he'd been flying straight and normal.
In fact, talking to him many years later he told me they did two of them out over the Olympic Mountains out of sight just to prove it (A), could be done and (B), done safely. The data recorders never showed a thing. IIRC he said the one over Lake Washington and the crowd was the third one. I can testify to that. When I was about 4 or 5 I was flying with my dad in a Grumman Widgeon which is a non-aerobatic airplane. He had won an Aerobatic Championship in Texas in the late 1930s and knew how to do all kinds of aerobatics. He told me to stand up (I was up front in the right seat) and hang onto the inst. panel, so I did and he did a Barrel Roll then asked if I liked it. My feet never left the floor and I said I did, so we did another one, then he told me to sit back down. Tex was a raceplane and aerobatic pilot as well as a highly experienced test pilot, he knew what he was doing and it wasn't putting Boeing's baby and future in danger.
Click to expand...
From what I understand all at Boeing and elsewhere understood that there was no risk at all, except that isnt what nervous potential passengers want to see, because they visualise the pilot doing that when they are inside on a routine flight.
 
J4F-2 said:
Tex Johnson's Barrel Roll was a normal positive 1G roll. There was no strain on the airplane at all, it was exactly the same as if he'd been flying straight and normal.
In fact, talking to him many years later he told me they did two of them out over the Olympic Mountains out of sight just to prove it (A), could be done and (B), done safely. The data recorders never showed a thing. IIRC he said the one over Lake Washington and the crowd was the third one. I can testify to that. When I was about 4 or 5 I was flying with my dad in a Grumman Widgeon which is a non-aerobatic airplane. He had won an Aerobatic Championship in Texas in the late 1930s and knew how to do all kinds of aerobatics. He told me to stand up (I was up front in the right seat) and hang onto the inst. panel, so I did and he did a Barrel Roll then asked if I liked it. My feet never left the floor and I said I did, so we did another one, then he told me to sit back down. Tex was a raceplane and aerobatic pilot as well as a highly experienced test pilot, he knew what he was doing and it wasn't putting Boeing's baby and future in danger.
Click to expand...
Way cool!
 
Yes, a genuine 1G barrel roll is a very difficult manoeuvre to fly accurately and repeatedly in a large non-aerobatic aircraft. In fact, it is a notorious manoeuvre for being flown badly and is often fatally screwed-up. Of course, this manoeuvre is often attractive to pilots of G and attitude limited aircraft as, if flown perfectly, it might not exceed nominal limitations. However, very small errors in execution can easily result in rolling-G exceedances and irrecoverable nose down pitch attitudes are often seen in fatal accidents involving this manoeuvre.
Myself, I have performed a large amount of aerobatics in everything from gliders to biplanes and jets, but you can count me out of aerobatics in any non-aerobatic aircraft, thanks very much!
 
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