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A Pilatus lost a wing

Have to add that, wherever I met paradroppers, the pressure to fly was indeed great. Not sure if "commercial pressure" is the correct term, though, these people simply want to jump as much and as often as the weather allows. Understandable, isn't it? But it is of course up to the pilot to counterbalance that pressure.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

As far as I know all older F-15s have mechanical flight controls, and later a analogue version of Fly by Wire was added, but it is nowhere close to what Airbus or Eurofighter or contemporary US jets do.

I

An F15 is completely controlled by electronics and hydraulics, it needs to because it was not designed with inherent stability.#

This is untrue. The F-15 was designed before the advent of fly by wire technology and is only now adapted to make use of it. The first Western combat aircraft with (subsonic) instability was, AFAIK, the F-16.

I agree, however, that this has little to do with controllability of a wingless PC-6 :-) ...

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

Alexisvc, you've beaten me by 2 minutes. I admit defeat :-).

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

The comparison with the F15 is ridiculous and absolutely irrelevant. An F15 is completely controlled by electronics and hydraulics, it needs to because it was not designed with inherent stability. We are talking a totally different bird here.

The F15 story is real but an F15 has loads of power, and it has loads of assymetric power available. Also there is a lot of body lift so flying fast and at a large AoA is going to work a lot better than on the relatively far less powerful PC6. From one of the links below: The F-15 can climb to 30,000 ft (10,000 m) in around 60 seconds.. It also has more thrust than weight so can go straight up.

BTW an F15 is not fly by wire. The F16 is. They seem to have experimented with fly by wire on the F15 much more recently.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I was indeed confusing with the F-16.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

Fake? I don't really see how it could fly. A story developed around an image of a ground damage?

It is true. I was at the IAF when it happened.

Ben, i see. Yes, I can see how the air inlets and the rest of the wing create enough lift if you're fast enough. I just find it strange that they didn't eject at a lower speed ... which would have been much less risky

I heard on the radio that 3 jumpers got out of the aircraft but were too low to open their chutes, which is inconsistent with what other people here say.

It doesn't necessarily have to be inconsistent. I can well imagine a scenario where a wing was lost at 10.000 feet or so, and the pilot eventually managing to stabilize (*) the aircraft sufficiently for jumpers to get out, but needing 9.000 feet in the process.

By then it may be too late for the jumpers to deploy a chute. Not being helped by the possible automatic activation of the reserve chute, while still in the aircraft.

(*) Stable in this scenario may well mean that the aircraft is in a 90-degree bank with the good wing pointing upwards, with an aileron/elevator setting that prevents the wing from providing any form of lift (as that would immediately send the aircraft in a spin/spiral-type flightpath), and the only thing providing any semblance of lift is the fuselage.

I've often wondered how controllable an airplane might be if you lose part of a wing.

I had a birdstrike in a PA28 some eight years ago, which led to a massive dent in the leading edge of the right wing. Basically the whole wing profile between the 6th and 7th rib was gone, leading to 1/7th loss of lift of the wing. Perhaps a bit less 'cause we were on short final with flaps deployed, so most of the lift would be generated by the inboard bits of the wing. We were doing around 65 knots at that time.

I dropped the nose a degree or two, added a tiny bit of power and made a normal landing. I do not remember consciously inputting left rudder or aileron (to counter drag and increase lift), but I certainly did not hit the control limits. So losing a relatively small part of the wing - either fully or just loss of function - should be easy to deal with. That's all I can contribute to this question. Obviously the larger the bit that's missing, the more challenging things will be.

What scares me a lot more is losing (control of) control surfaces. See the Reno crash for instance.

You can lose an aileron - use the rudder.

You can lose elevator control - use the elevator trim.

You can lose the elevator trim - use the elevator.

If the elevator jams, use the trim tab but it will work in the opposite direction.

What will get you is a wing or the elevator or the vertical stabiliser falling off completely, or a badly assymetric flap deployment.

I am sure this accident was either a prank gone wrong on the current flight, or a prank or some landing incident on a previous flight causing severe structural damage.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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