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Jeffrey Starin <je…@panix.com> wrote:
>Regarding the post about a sudden stall without warning, I had a terribly frightening
>experience the other day on final approach that has since made me think about
>continuing my flying course. I’ve got about 19 hours, and my instructor says I’m
>ready for my first solo in a couple of lessons – so this experience really scared
>the pants off me. This is what happened.
>We were in final approach with full flaps and the airspeed was indicated at
>70 knots. The wind was 220 at 10, and, although the ATC and ATIS didn’t mention
>gusts at the airport that day, indeed, there were gusts. So, here we are on final,
>everything seems peachy keen, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the right wing
>flips up (and thusly, the left wing down), putting us into a roll angle of about
>80 degrees! No stall warning (in fact, this wasn’t a stall). My instructor, who is
>never ruffled, sweared for the first time, grabbed the controls, but I don’t think
>he actually did anything, because by the time he grabbed the controls, the plane
>(Warrior) had just as quickly bounced back to level flight. It was as though
>we had hit some wake turbulence, but there were no other planes in sight.
>I’m starting to wonder if there are gremlins floating around out there, waiting for
>us student pilots to come tooling along, and then scare the living daylights out
>of us.
>Has anyone else ever encountered this before?
>Are flaps in gusty conditions dangerous? My CFI says no.
I think your CFI needs to talk ot some other CFI’s and broaden his
knowledge base a bit. Many CFI’s I’ve dealt with recommend minimal usage
of flaps in gusty and high cross-wind situations in order to keep your
speed up on the approach and thusly maintain maximum responsiveness of
the controls.
–
Mike
My opinions, not Argonne’s…
In article <4o2aht$…@news1.panix.com>,
Jeffrey Starin <je…@panix.com> wrote:
> It was as though
>we had hit some wake turbulence, but there were no other planes in sight.
Sure sounds like wake turbulence… which *can* last several minutes after the
plane that caused it (if conditions are exactly right).
>Has anyone else ever encountered this before?
I’ve rolled about 45 degrees — but that *was* an encounter with wake turb.
>Are flaps in gusty conditions dangerous? My CFI says no.
In a gusty wind or high cross-wind a lot of pilots *prefer* to do a partial or
even no-flap landing. It’s not that the flaps are dangerous — just that the
lower lift and higher speed gives more effective rudder/elevator control.
Further, at a higher speed the shear becomes a smaller percentage of the total
speed.
jmk
On 23 May 1996 18:25:01 GMT, Jeffrey Starin <je…@panix.com> wrote:
>Are flaps in gusty conditions dangerous? My CFI says no.
I’d have to disagree. Although not inherently "dangerous" my
suggestion would be a minimum of flaps when you know you have changing
wind conditions. You might also want to increase your airspeed a bit
on final just for a margin of safety.
BTW, unless you were practicing a short-field landing, full flaps
shouldn’t be necessary. You should be able to bring the aircraft in
with a single notch of flaps or use a forward slip with no-flaps.
Just my opinion.
Jeffrey Starin <je…@panix.com> wrote:
>I’m starting to wonder if there are gremlins floating around out there, waiting for
>us student pilots to come tooling along, and then scare the living daylights out
>of us.
>Has anyone else ever encountered this before?
An uncommanded (or even commanded, for that matter) 80-degree bank?
Not me. Significant uncommanded roll while on final…yup. I’ve seen
up to 30 degrees or so, if it’s windy enough. Doesn’t happen often,
but it has happened to me.
Are you sure about the 80-degrees? You’d be practically lying on the
door if you’d actually banked that much. And of course, that’s a lot
of bank for an airplane to recover automatically from too. Is it
possible that being startled made you overestimate the actual roll
involved?
In any case, it’s hard to say what it might have been. Probably *NOT*
. But, it could have
wake turbulence from a jet passing overhead
been related to the gusty conditions (though, at only 10 knots, it’d
be hard to get any sort of well-developed roll-inducing wind), or
perhaps some thermal/dust-devil activity. Just because you can’t see
gremlins doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I don’t think they single out
the student pilots though. :)
If you hit a wake turbulence vortex from an airplane in front of you,
and *especially* an airplane significantly larger than yours, you may
indeed experience a roll that you can’t correct. That’s why it’s
*really* important to watch what the other airplanes are doing, where
they’re going, and to not fly into the "danger areas" (too bad you
can’t actually see wake turbulence…but as long as you remember that
it drifts with the wind and tends to sink, you can do a pretty good
job visualizing where it might be).
Except for really high wind conditions (probably more wind than you’d
feel comfortable flying in) and/or very steep terrain near the
airport, it’s unlikely that the wind conditions would create a roll
you couldn’t recover from or correct easily.
>Are flaps in gusty conditions dangerous? My CFI says no.
Flaps are not in and of themselves dangerous in gusty conditions.
Your instructor is right. It is true that we often fly approaches
with less than full flaps when it’s gusty, but this has as much to do
with keeping the landing speed a little higher, and making it easier
to maintain a relatively straight glide path than any sort of inherent
danger in using full flaps.
So, take this as a lesson that you always have to be flying the
airplane. Be prepared for unexpected upsets, and be able to deal with
them without panicking. It may well happen again, but it’s nothing to
worry about as long as you’re paying attention.
——————-
Peter Duniho N1404Y, Lake Renegade
pe…@microsoft.com "Blessed are the cracked, PP-ASEL&S-IR
Redmond, WA for they shall let in the light." — J.C.
tris…@bga.com (James M. Knox) wrote:
>In article <4o2aht$…@news1.panix.com>,
> Jeffrey Starin <je…@panix.com> wrote:
>> It was as though
>>we had hit some wake turbulence, but there were no other planes in sight.
>Sure sounds like wake turbulence… which *can* last several minutes after the
>plane that caused it (if conditions are exactly right).
‘Can’t be sure but it sure doesn’t sound like wake turbulence. Gusty
conditions would tend to disrubt the vortices from another aircraft
and to move them rapidly downwind. Was there a parallel runway
upwind?
JetWayne
pe…@microsoft.com (Peter Duniho) writes:
> it could have been related to the gusty conditions (though, at only 10
> knots, it’d be hard to get any sort of well-developed roll-inducing wind),
> or perhaps some thermal/dust-devil activity.
> [...]
> If you hit a wake turbulence vortex from an airplane in front of you,
> and *especially* an airplane significantly larger than yours
Putting together clues from a few different postings, the wind at
the time was SW at 10, the airport was Morristown, NJ, and the date was mid
May. To interject a little local knowledge:
1) It hasn’t been hot enough around here yet to get any real thermal
activity going.
2) SW at 10 is the prevailing breeze and tends to be pretty constant (i.e.
no big gusts or rapid shifts, like a northwesterly can bring).
3) Morristown doesn’t usually get anything bigger than a Lear or Citation.
Maybe the occasional Gulfstream. Not the kind of stuff you’d expect to
produce roll-you-over vortecies.
4) As I remember from my early student days, a gust that rolls you 15
degrees feels like it must have been 80, if not more
—
Roy Smith <r…@nyu.edu>
Hippocrates Project, Department of Microbiology, Coles 202
NYU School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
"This never happened to Bart Simpson."
> >we had hit some wake turbulence, but there were no other planes in sight.
> Sure sounds like wake turbulence… which *can* last several minutes after the
> plane that caused it (if conditions are exactly right).
> >Has anyone else ever encountered this before?
> I’ve rolled about 45 degrees — but that *was* an encounter with wake turb.
When I practice steep turns, I can very often encounter my own prop wash which
is just a little bumpy. Recently I was flying formation with a Cessna 172 and
dropped back for some in-trail flying. Just hitting the slip-stream from the
172 at close range was quite educational. I can just imagine getting behind a
Heavy!!!
Slip’r
Carl J. Hixon <cjhi…@village.ios.com> wrote:
>Recently I was flying formation with a Cessna 172 and dropped back for
>some in-trail flying. Just hitting the slip-stream from the 172 at
>close range was quite educational.
Flying formation behind another aircraft is very similar to
waterskiing behind a large boat, with the wakes coming out
in a V behind the boat. You don’t waterski on the wakes,
you just cross them.
When flying close formation, a rule of thumb I have learned is
never to let the longitudinal axis of my aircraft get closer
to the lead than his wingtip. If you do this, you will not
have a problem with [the lead's] wake.
3 or 4 feet of fuselage overlap with 3 or 4 feet of wing overlap
is plenty tight enough for me.
–
#include <std.disclaimer>
In article <31AB6040.5…@village.ios.com>,
Carl J. Hixon <cjhi…@village.ios.com> wrote:
>Recently I was flying formation with a Cessna 172 and
>dropped back for some in-trail flying. Just hitting the slip-stream from the
>172 at close range was quite educational. I can just imagine getting behind a
>Heavy!!!
Recently I was on a research project in which we were trying to identify
pollutants in jet exhaust. I was flying in NASA’s DC-8-72, and we were
following NASA’s B-757-200. At closest approach, we were 5 miles in trail.
The DC-8 is a 300,000 pound aircraft, and we got rocked by the 757 wake.
Even when we drifted back to 20 miles in trail, the turbulence was intense.
During the contrail penetrations at 5 miles, the DC-8 regularly had
uncommanded roles in excess of 40 degrees, constant moderate turbulence,
and numerous loud thumping sounds could be heard that we guess were
compressor stalls. We spent a total of 9 hours flying in these conditions
on three different flights. I think I can safely say that it is in
everyone’s best interest to stay well clear of wake turbulence from large
aircraft (the 757 has some of the longest lasting, but any big aircraft is
bad news for something small).
During this project, a T-39 (Sabreliner) flew near field research, flying
as close as 100 feet behind the DC-8 and 757. Needless to say they found
lots of turbulence as well, with the worst encounter being an almost
instantaneous uncommanded roll to 110 degrees. Don’t try this at home.
___________________________________ _____
| Keith Barr b…@netcom.com \ \ \__ _____
| COM-ASMEL-IA-A&IGI \ \ \/_______\___\_____________
| Westminster, Colorado, USA }—–< /_/ ………………….. `-.
| ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/ba/barr / `———–,—-,————–’
|___________________________________/ _/____/0
In article <31AB6040.5…@village.ios.com>, "Carl J. Hixon"
<cjhi…@village.ios.com> writes:
>When I practice steep turns, I can very often encounter my own prop wash
>which
>is just a little bumpy. Recently I was flying formation with a Cessna
172
>and
>dropped back for some in-trail flying. Just hitting the slip-stream from
the
>172 at close range was quite educational. I can just imagine getting
behind
>a
>Heavy!!!
Boxing the wake is a standard part of glider training. It’s good to do
just so you get the feel and know what to expect and how to handle it.
–Bill
_________________________________________________________________________
Wm W. Plummer, 7 Country Club D., Chelmsford MA 01824 508-256-9570
PP-ASEL,G
>> Jeffrey Starin <je…@panix.com> wrote:
>>> It was as though
>>>we had hit some wake turbulence, but there were no other planes in sight.
I’ve had that happen here when the wind is 10-15 out of the mountains. Also,
the terrain drops sharply at the approach end – those seem to make things
squirly a lot of times.
-Dean
‘inkster. nonce-wd.
[f. ink v. or n.1 + -ster.]
A scribbler, an inferior writer.
1860 Reade Eighth Commandm. 343 These inksters are the enemies not only of the country but of the human race.