skydriller wrote:
I think you may like to re-think the “premature Mayday”… The guy did really well.
No problem about what the pilot does, and after such a damage, it’s was obviously the good solution to get the plane on the ground asap.
And yes it’s what we can say after looking at the youtube movie in my chair. I was just pointing on the fact that after the door smashed the stabilizer, 5s after actually, he transmitted his mayday call to an ATC agent that may be of no help, may be asking some more question if the ATC doesn’t understand the problem, ask for fuel, pax, …
And actually, his first action was to start a 30° left turn to join the airfield with a potential limited pitch authority.
In my cursus, I have been hearing a lot “Aviate, Navigate then communicate”, and some other time, a bit of fordec, piosy and all this kind of stuff. The idea behind is “get the best picture, get an action plan relevant with risk assessment, and proceed, then communicate”. In this case, entering a 30° turn with limited pitch authority during a mayday radio call may have found another issue. Of course in such a situation, you are in your red zone, and just to think to one think, get on the ground – the very late gear down is another sign of tunnelling effect when in the red.
Once again, “posé pas cassé” as we said in french, is a proof that it was a good solution.
This sort of thing can be amazingly dangerous. Many years ago, before my flying days I think, a TB10 took off from somewhere around here, with the luggage door left open. It would not have caused any problem at all (except his luggage gradually falling out) but the pilot got distracted, crashed and killed himself.
Most doors opening in flight on a SEP are 100% harmless. The danger almost always (though not in this case, obviously) comes from the pilot over-reacting, trying to close the door and losing control of the airplane. It’s obviously type specific but for example on Cessnas nothing happens if the door pops open – it just trails in the slipstream. Been there, done that numerous times, both the pax and the baggage door. Just leave it alone and nothing bad will happen.
one of the 152’s I did my ppl in had a tendancy to pop a door on the initial climb out just after take off. The first time it was quite a surprise, but other than the noise it wasn’t an issue. From thereon it was just something that happened and a good shut of the door usually sorted it. I can see how one could get distracted trying to figure out what was happening, whilst it’s best to just fly the aircraft.
Vertically hinged doors (e.g. C182) should be fine, but I don’t think any gull-wing (hinged at the top, or nearly so) doors would be safe, especially not at cruise speed.
Vertically hinged cub type doors are fine. I think the husky can have the doors open up to vne I’d think anything of much size that can flex wouldn’t fare too well though.
One of the interesting things about Cessna style open doors is that an open left door yaws the plane right and vice versa, the opposite of what many expect. It’s a function of blanking flow over one side of the fin. However if you know how this works you can crack both doors open and steer the plane pretty effectively. A friend and I did this once for an entire Luscombe cross country leg, also using only the throttle for pitch control. We were able to fly the plane all the way to final approach by this method.
