I know, I shouldn’t talk bad about peopel who are dead … but is there another word than stupid for this? While I was researchimg gliding flights for my story about US Airways 1549 i came upon this incredible story (again) which must be in the top league of stupid pilot behaviour. Is there anything they did right? Many of you probably knwo this story …
I think there are quite a few lucky guys out there who (narrowly) got away doing similar stunts. If the job is boring enough people come up with funny ideas. Like those two here, who must have been equally stupid, although they killed themselves in a somewhat smaller plane: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20100214-0
That’s almost as stupid … although a roll could be flown easily (is my guess!) …
It’s just something you don’t DO. And if you really have to do it, do it alone, over water or mountains …
I did rolls in a Seneca V, maybe 20. It is almost twenty years ago. And we also did rolls in a Warrior (with a company test pilot) … but you REALLY have to know what you are doing.
The SR22 (see the DFC90 video) also has no problems doing rolls, and it even has the right safety belts, plus the parachute. *But i would not do it again. Maybe becasue I have kids now … ?
…although a roll could be flown easily (is my guess!) …
There are plenty of videos on Youtube with bizjets performing rolls. But as you say, that’s something one simply doesn’t do (unless as a test or demonstrator pilot maybe). But those two not only attempted the roll, but they did it at night and in IMC using instruments that are not designed to “go all they way round”…
I just read the BfU file. That’s incredibly stupid to try that stunt in a moonless night without any outside reference.
Here’s the best reason why one shouldn’t try it (leftovers of the Bravo):
But you don’t do that stuff …
… in a pitchblack night without a visible horizon
… without having been taught aerobatics
An inexperienced pilot will never do it right the first time, most don’t have the nose high enough, don’t neutralize pitch before they roll and most ate also too slow.
The problem: you can die the first time you try it.
I knew someone when I was living in Texas (who is now dead, due to non-aviation causes) who decided one day to roll his Cessna 150. The only thing he did right was to climb up to quite a high altitude, about 6000 feet, before starting.
About halfway through it all went pear shaped so he “put his faith in God and the Cessna engineers and let go of the controls”. The aircraft apparently recovered all by itself at about 1500 feet.
Competent training and practice are vital elements of safe aerobatic flying. As seen occasionally, various aircraft types can be safely rolled, and well within their G and speed limitations, but doing so requires excellent skill. I regularly roll my 150 simply for my proficiency. It even has some room for sloppy, and will let you away with it. But my training was in a 150 Aerobat, in which I perfected my basic aerobatic skills. The aerobatic pilot who trained me in his Aerobat, was flying me somewhere once in his C 185 amphibian. I asked if such a pendulum like aircraft would be able to be rolled. Yes, it rolls very nicely in the hands of a skilled aerobatic pilot.
Be there no doubt however, that attempting a roll, or other aerobatic maneuver, without competent training, is downright dumb.
