Airborne_Again wrote:
Anyway, I would look at the ASI and decide from there. Low (or decreasing) speed: get the nose down, apply power, roll wings level, recover level flight. High (or increasing) speed: cut power, unload if necessary, roll wings level, recover level flight. (At least that’s what I hope I would do in that situation. I’ve never experienced it in training.)
Yes I agree AI will be toppled, in Low (or decreasing) speed, at some point you need to reduce power after recovery? in High (or increasing) speed, at some point you need to increase power after recovery? the issue is PIO between the two regimes and extra disorientation that comes with it…the same situation is also 100% recoverable without power (with height loss of course), first, you are going down, second, ASI will flip-flop from increase/decrease as nose cross horizon no matter what your angle of bank is, third, you won’t lose the wings if you over do it or get inputs wrong and fourth you have plenty of time
Ignoring flight path (kinematics) and thinking in energy (lagrangians), you are throwing a lot of engine energy in the system on top of the height potential energy you already have, without proper control of flight path those horse powers needs to get burned somewhere else? as vague guess it will be on maximum rate of parasite drag near VNE, maximum rate of induced drag near VS, max YAW or some bends of the structure
@Ibra if less than Vmca I would agree with you. Nose down and reduce power on the good engine, but only if you were below Vmca OEI. Above Vmca you would add some power to reduce the drag effects of the failed engine and to climb or level off from the descent. But being below Vmca and going OEI is rare. We are taught
not to go there and usually leave a pretty good margin to avoid the situation. But this is something different to spatial disorientation IMO. It might lead to loss of control until above Vmca and reconfigured, difficult to do at low altitudes, so you might be better just to make out you are flying a single with engine failure and no power on either engine . But that would be to say that all forced landings SEP or MEP are loss of control. They are not.Unless of course the place you have chosen to put down, isn’t as suitable as you thought.
@Emir gave interesting examples of a number of PC12 accidents being put down to "loss of control due to spatial disorientation. Is this a particular problem with the PC12? or is the same proportion of accidents to other types of aircraft also down to spatial disorientation leading to a loss of control and, as a group we just have not remarked on it? If so maybe Cirrus and ULMists have got it right in fitting all aircraft even PC12s with parachutes. Or maybe the answer is a button which one presses and some sort of artificial intelligence takes over until the pilot is no longer disoriented. Isn’t Diamond already looking at that? But I would like to know more about what caused these pilots to lose "spatial disorientation in the first place. Can they all be hand flying whilst reaching down for a pen or turning their head quickly? Or are they down to some sort of instrument failure to which the PC12 is particularly prone? IMO in GA we need to know more about the primary causes and not the secondary causes that lead to the accident. It is something that airlines research in depth after an accident. And whilst the solutions they come up with, often filter down to the GA world in the shape of regulations. They are not always suitable in the GA world.
@Emir gave interesting examples of a number of PC12 accidents being put down to "loss of control due to spatial disorientation. Is this a particular problem with the PC12? or is the same proportion of accidents to other types of aircraft also down to spatial disorientation leading to a loss of control and, as a group we just have not remarked on it? If so maybe Cirrus and ULMists have got it right in fitting all aircraft even PC12s with parachutes. Or maybe the answer is a button which one presses and some sort of artificial intelligence takes over until the pilot is no longer disoriented. Isn’t Diamond already looking at that? But I would like to know more about what caused these pilots to lose "spatial disorientation in the first place.
The „LEVEL“ button of digital autopilots has been available for years.
Looking at the Pc12 video clip, I don’t think a chute would be strong enough structurally.
Avoiding disorientation in the first place and correctly recovering from upsets takes training, experience and skill. More automation has been tried, and while the safety increase is gigantic, isn’t perfect either.
This one is interesting about upset recovery:
In a clean aircraft the airspeed build up goes very fast when going vertical down….The interesting part of this video is when he is inverted, were is the lift vector in respect toward the horizon… note what he explains, push & roll toward shortest angle to get the blue back up. I could imagine this in PC12 is just seconds toward overspeed. I think we pilots could learn a lot from a URT in a high performance aircraft like an F33C.
I don’t think this is anything about PC12 (but it has a powerful unforgiving engine and some slick clean airframe), the trigger is likely hand flying with transition to IMC in steep climbing turn while doing a prolonged 270deg turn (departure procedure seems to avoid overflying the city on takeoff), I don’t know how much hand flying the pilot has in total or recently but it take time to get in the mood and things do get busy on departure and one may fail to watch the aircraft every 1s
This is not the case of pilot who was flying in IMC in a dark night over water for 2h and got swamped into the unknown, he had plenty of VMC to catch it bellow…
Unusual attitudes in IR training is rather very light in terms of pitch & bank angles (RHS can’t afford to set a non-aerobatic type at +/-60deg pitch & bank), this goes into upset recovery training or aerobatics courses but one lacks the IFR/LSO elements, the emphasis is you don’t go there and if you do it unconsciously, it’s highly unlikely you will be back
. I think we pilots could learn a lot from a URT in a high performance aircraft like an F33C.
Push and roll is standard recovery, even in somewhat bigger models.
Ibra wrote:
this goes into upset recovery training or aerobatics courses but one lacks the IFR/LSO elements, the emphasis is you don’t go there and if you do it unconsciously, it’s highly unlikely you will be back
Well OK that’s true but what kind of real flying UPRT would get you close…
The last minutes of the vid goes into that aspect…The F33C is relatively heavy aircraft to perform this kind of maneuvers in real, note how fast the airspeed winds up when he goes down.
@T28 I don’t have access to level D 777 simulator (anyway they are sitting comfy in there seat at 1g…while the instructor is saying nicely done.. :-)) I think the atmosphere in the Air France A330 who ditched was less relaxed….
Found on the internet
High performance turbine singles seem to be the new upmarket ‘Doctor Killers’. People with plenty of money but too little training and not enough hours killing themselves and their families.
Any truth in that statement?
The last minutes of the vid goes into that aspect…
Great video, especially last minutes showing instrument perspective.
Upset recovery is very type specific, and even the A-UPRT course where, for example, a standard call out is for the automatics off, is not universal depending on scenario and type.
There is also quite a high proportion of LOC accidents, where the crew recovered from the initial LOC but lost it on a subsequent LOC because they failed to stabilise, or recognise they were recovered, and got themselves totally confused.
LOC appears to have consolidated its position as the leading threat, and I expect over time the UPRT instruction will continue to evolve. Certainly the A-UPRT course as devised, is a big improvement on some of the old UPRT courses where a lot of the content was ‘fun’ flying for the instructor.
