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ok I get departure stall. but why departure stall?


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So there's a lot of speculation on this already from other web sites.

 

Some people believe its due to the gust locks being in place. Some say its because baggage shifted and blocked the controls. Some believe the plane to be improperly loaded with a very far aft CG. Untill the NTSB releases their finding, we may never really know for sure.

 

The important thing to remember in this is that the gentleman fly was very very experienced. Hell he was in TOPGUN and flew f14. It goes to show that it CAN happen to anyone, never think you're invincible. Ensure that you're flying within your envelope and that you do all the proper preflight checks. 

 

 

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I'd think a gust lock in place is unlikely, especially in a taildragger where it would likely be noticed right away.   Cargo shift or control failure of some kind, I'd guess.   Very sad regardless.

 

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Looks very similar to this crash, which was from control locks.

Boeing lost the bomber contract for the B-17 I believe from a crash with control locks installed, both the Caribou and the B-17 had experienced test pilots onboard.

Edited by A64Pilot
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I don’t have a tremendous amount of Tailwheel time but enough to find it hard to believe that a gust lock would not be noticed before lift off.  On the other hand, it does not look like the tail came up prior to lift off. Maybe the elevator stuck in the aft position and only became apparent when an attempt was made to raise the tail. At that point, I am sure things are happening fast in a lightweight airframe with a 400hp turbine out front.

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Anyone not box out the controls, or drain the sumps, or GUMPS at least twice… every time… just because…?

Flight went from normal to over in about 20 seconds…

The reason we have these procedures is to honor all of the pilots who fell before us….

control locks inside the plane make it near impossible to miss during the pre-flight and early flight….

Doing things twice, in a different way, is good to catch a missed procedure…

Continue to improve over the old standards…

PP thoughts only, not a CFI.

Best regards,

-a-

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A control check is part of every pre-takeoff checklist. Let's all be diligent out there.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but pulling the mixture will stop power immediately and the plane would probably recover. If I'm ever in that situation I hope I think of that.

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3 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

A control check is part of every pre-takeoff checklist. Let's all be diligent out there.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but pulling the mixture will stop power immediately and the plane would probably recover. If I'm ever in that situation I hope I think of that.

Yep, I watched that video quite a few times, wondering when it became apparent to the pilot that pitch control was lost.  If caught early enough, this might have been a non-fatal event, but we're talking a precious few seconds between rotation and stall.

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2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

A control check is part of every pre-takeoff checklist. Let's all be diligent out there.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but pulling the mixture will stop power immediately and the plane would probably recover. If I'm ever in that situation I hope I think of that.

Turbines don’t have mixtures do they?

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3 hours ago, toto said:

Yep, I watched that video quite a few times, wondering when it became apparent to the pilot that pitch control was lost.  If caught early enough, this might have been a non-fatal event, but we're talking a precious few seconds between rotation and stall.

We’re talking about a 400hp turbine mounted on a tail dragger that weighs about the same as an M20C. Things happened fast. Turbines don’t respond as quickly as recips. 

Edited by Shadrach
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It doesn’t look like he even got his tail lifted off the ground before lift off. It sure seems like he would of aborted the flight as soon as he wasn’t able to do that. Really sad seeing this!

 

edit: I see in the last post he was in a 400 hp turbine. Probably used to not having to lift the tail.

Edited by kmyfm20s
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54 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

Turbines don’t have mixtures do they?

 

15 minutes ago, TCC said:


Nope.

They do have fuel cut of switches that act as the same thing. It still wont stop the rotation instantly, same as a mixture. Not enough time to fix something if you're already taking off in a STOL plane. 

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1 minute ago, kmyfm20s said:

It doesn’t look like he even got his tail lifted off the ground before lift off. It sure seems like he would of aborted the flight as soon as he wasn’t able to do that. Really sad seeing this!

My observation as well, but I am used to flying underpowered (65-85hp) or just adequately powered (160hp) tail draggers. Perhaps with 400hp flying it off in the 3 point position is normal.

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15 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

My observation as well, but I am used to flying underpowered (65-85hp) or just adequately powered (160hp) tail draggers. Perhaps with 400hp flying it off in the 3 point position is normal.

Depends on if your trying to impress or just taking off.

BD Maule was sort of a show off promoting his airplanes, this print is from an actual picture of BD in an M5 leaving supposedly a hangar, it actually was the factory at Spence field in Moultrie, so he had more distance than just a hangar would give you, but even a light Maule will lift its mains off prior to the tailwheel, because the critical angle of attack of the wing is a higher angle than you can get in the three point attitude. A nose dragger Maule can takeoff in slightly less runway as you can get the nose higher than a tailwheel will allow.

 

98CB5FC2-3596-49BE-8FCD-6A693EC21F33.png

Edited by A64Pilot
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20 minutes ago, Mooney Dog said:

 

They do have fuel cut of switches that act as the same thing. It still wont stop the rotation instantly, same as a mixture. Not enough time to fix something if you're already taking off in a STOL plane. 

Just pulling the throttle off stops pretty much all thrust, and any turbine pilot always has their hands on the throttle on take off as you can easily overtemp or over torque one if you push the throttle to the stops like you do on most pistons, they are slow to accelerate unless it’s a Garrett, but they come off of power pretty much instantly.

But you know the Turbine Caribou pilot did the same thing

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5 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Just pulling the throttle off stops pretty much all thrust, and any turbine pilot always has their hands on the throttle on take off as you can easily overtemp or over torque one if you push the throttle to the stops like you do on most pistons, they are slow to accelerate unless it’s a Garrett, but they come off of power pretty much instantly.

But you know the Turbine Caribou pilot did the same thing

On the king air when we pull power, it very quick to react, but there's still a good 2 seconds of thrust from the engine. On a plane such as a Marchetti that weights almost nothing and designed for STOL, i would expect it to have almost no effect if the plane was under full, even half, acceleration. 

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If you figure this one out….

 

We can revisit the Mooney Eagle accident where it climbed at full throttle for about 30 seconds before it peaked and fell to the ground… all caught on video, with flightaware data,no his MAPA CFII as an eyewitness on the ground…

They look very similar in their trajectory… very steep climb as if the landing flaps were down… and center of gravity vs center of lift was shifted…

And no visible correction can be seen… either in the video or in the data…

Best regards,

-a-

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10 hours ago, Mooney Dog said:

On the king air when we pull power, it very quick to react, but there's still a good 2 seconds of thrust from the engine. On a plane such as a Marchetti that weights almost nothing and designed for STOL, i would expect it to have almost no effect if the plane was under full, even half, acceleration. 

Must be a Torque matching thing or something because I’ve flown hundreds of turbines from Pratt -15’s to -67F’s, -6 Garrets and -10’s, GE H-80’s and all of them reacted the same as a piston when you pulled power, all were single engine though. Power increases were delayed of course by the fuel control to prevent over temps, the lower the Ng, the longer the delay.

On edit, if you had four blade props I think your idle was real high to stay out of the props avoid range for the reactionless mode, this very high idle may explain a delay in power reduction. I have no twin engine airplane time.

I think people just aren’t wired to pull power in an Emergency, I flew AH-64’s for a long time, the AH-64 had a stores jettison button on the collective, a simple, push of the button and you lost on average about a ton of weight. During the time I flew one, there had been several aircraft accidents, that most likely wouldn’t have happened if either pilot pushed that button, and it was pushed several times, but every time it was by accident, when needed every pilot rode it in, with the wing stores on, and we had an incredibly expensive, very lifelike full motion simulator, so we practiced pushing that button often, but no one ever did. I can’t explain why, we weren’t stupid or undertrained.

I can’t imagine why not, but odds are I would have rode it in with the wing stores too, even though of course being a gun driver I didn’t think I would.

Edited by A64Pilot
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7 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Must be a Torque matching thing or something because I’ve flown hundreds of turbines from Pratt -15’s to -67F’s, -6 Garrets and -10’s, GE H-80’s and all of them reacted the same as a piston when you pulled power, all were single engine though. Power increases were delayed of course by the fuel control to prevent over temps, the lower the Ng, the longer the delay.

On edit, if you had four blade props I think your idle was real high to stay out of the props avoid range for the reactionless mode, this very high idle may explain a delay in power reduction. I have no twin engine airplane time.

I think people just aren’t wired to pull power in an Emergency, I flew AH-64’s for a long time, the AH-64 had a stores jettison button on the collective, a simple, push of the button and you lost on average about a ton of weight. During the time I flew one, there had been several aircraft accidents, that most likely wouldn’t have happened if either pilot pushed that button, and it was pushed several times, but every time it was by accident, when needed every pilot rode it in, with the wing stores on, and we had an incredibly expensive, very lifelike full motion simulator, so we practiced pushing that button often, but no one ever did. I can’t explain why, we weren’t stupid or undertrained.

I can’t imagine why not, but odds are I would have rode it in with the wing stores too, even though of course being a gun driver I didn’t think I would.

After sleeping on it, you are correct and I need to reword what i said. When we pull power, the engine will respond just as you say, like a piston. I was confusing the total acceleration and stability of the plane and thrust. With the acceleration difference in the king air vs a small 2000lb max airplane I would still imagine pulling power would only work if the situation hadnt reached a critical point. 

 

In this incident, i believe he sits for a second, spooling the engine, and then goes to full power. He gets off the ground in a very short distance. As he gets to the point he notices there's a problem, and Im going to assume he does pulling power, as it looks as if the plane is developing into a spin. And a spin at 300ft isnt going to be a fun time, as shown in that video. I also do not see a clear deflection of controls as well. 

 

I think you're right on people not being wired to pull power in an emergency. We are taught early on that stall recovery is adding, if not full, power. Even if you can recover just by pushing the nose over, the basic instinct for most people always seems to be adding in power. 

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Yeah, I think it takes a couple of seconds to realize there is a problem, then maybe a sec or so before you react, and first instinctive reaction of course is to push the nose down and by the time you realize that’s not going out work, it’s too late.

‘The Caribou and B-17 were of course big heavy airplanes, flown by test pilots and still they didn’t make it.

‘I had a friend now passed away that took off in his loaded crop duster with the Aileron gust lock installed and he made it around and landed using rudder and only ground looped at the end doing almost no damage.

Another Friend had his elevator push pull tube break at the helm joint, and he got it down using elevator trim as that’s all he had, he cleaned the gear out, but walked away.

Seems we can handle one axis maybe?

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The gust lock on this plane involves a gizmo that locks both the control stick and applies the brakes. It is mounted in the front cockpit and is very noticeable.

Also impossible to use the rudders while taxing and conduct a “free and control” control stick check.

If you look closely at the video, GeeBee is correct. There appears to be no control deflection and there is a close-up photo after the crash that shows the trim tab in the neutral position. I think this model has an electric trim system. The flaps also appear to be extended to some level.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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