Josh, I agree SPIFR is hard and a risk. I think training is one aspect, not having a P2 is another, but the other challenge can be a true lack of currency compared to “professional” pilots.
I know that a jet with say a Collins Proline requires a lot more clever pilot to understand the systems than somebody flying a plane with 1 x GNS430 (and that will mean many or maybe even most present PPL holders will never get the type rating) the jet pilots that I know all tell me that the cockpit workload is lower than with a piston aircraft – due to
Sure there are some pilots who have managed to find their way into light jets who don’t understand them but for various reasons they will be a tiny minority, whereas there are loads of people flying advanced-systems pistons who can only just barely program the transponder code (yes I have flown with some of these).
Sure there are some pilots who have managed to find their way into light jets who don’t understand them but for various reasons they will be a tiny minority
I’m afraid those lacking an intuitive understanding of flight mechanics are not a tiny minority, and not only in light jets – Air France 447 comes to mind. However, in the case at hand the pilot also allowed himself to be startled enough to pull 4.5g on recovery. A bit like the chap who tried to snap roll a Hawker 800XP.
However, in the case at hand the pilot also allowed himself to be startled enough to pull 4.5g on recovery.
I think it is very difficult to react differently when you discover that your nose is pointing straight down while you move at 80% of the speed of sound (roundabout 20 seconds till impact from the flight level he was at when he recovered… But I doubt that he had any idea about his altitude remaining). Faced with the decision whether to bend the aeroplane during the imminent impact with the ground or the possible overstress on recovery my guess would be that 99 percent of pilots (me included) would pull back the yoke as strongly as possible. Most bizjet pilots I know (me included) have no aerobatic experience and absolutely no training for feeling g loads. I know that my aircraft can absorb 3.8g but how that feels I have no idea. So I would just pull…
It is also noteworthy that he only managed to get the aircraft under control once he was presented with a visible horizon. The roll and pitch numbers in the report were startling and a rather nasty demonstration of swept wing stall behaviour – oscillating up to 115° of roll attitude, pitch up to almost 90° nose down! I am not surprised that he needed to see outside before recovering as I suspect none of us have much experience of seeing the unusual attitude screens on our PFDs.
Two minor points.
The CJ2 is not a swept wing aircraft.
Unusual attitudes are covered every time in simulator training.
As a matter of interest I tried exactly this situation in a simulator, but it was a non-event. Maybe the sim doesn’t simulate accurately at FL430 but the stalls were odd but not difficult. You lose a lot of height.
Neil – thanks for correcting my error there. I have been through multiple sim sessions, and not done any UA training, at CAE Burgess Hill amongst others. I am current in aerobatics partially out of a desire to make sure I know what to do should it all go wrong and we are no longer blue side up, but also partially because they are bloody good fun.
Regarding your simulating it, the sims are not certified for anything beyond approach to stall so are unlikely to give you the dynamic departure you might get in real life (though the Lear 45 does beautiful barrel and slow rolls in the sim). As I understand it, P1 was not paying full attention to the flight instruments when the aircraft stalled without warning and then departed. The startle factor clearly allowed the aircraft to depart beyond the point where the test program checked and certified its behaviour.
Josh, of course I agree that my simulator try out must have been invalid. To be fair I have had “unusual attitudes” in the training but never as violent as what this chap obviously experienced. 5 rolls!!!
The “holes in the cheese” lined up for him this day. Getting slow, and failure of the AOA system.
The worst part is the “passenger” was his wife. One can imagine the marital debrief after landing!
The pilot, passenger and the dogs were uninjured.
That is very touching about the dogs.
Intuitively, I have to imagine this level of damage would have written the aircraft off. Or will they try to repair it? If they did go for a repair, would they just inspect for further damage and mate it to brand new wings (is a wing repair even possible with the kind of construction used and the damage done?)
