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Would a possible recovery method be to roll the plane somewhat so that when the nose is forced down, it doesn't take the plane directly toward the ground?
by argc 7y ago
Would a possible recovery method be to roll the plane somewhat so that when the nose is forced down, it doesn't take the plane directly toward the ground?
- nosianu 7y agoNo. Now a substantial part of the lift no longer points up because you use it for turning instead. That's why when you turn you have to increase lift (i.e. you pull back a bit, or adjust trim if it's a shallow turn that takes a while to complete) or the nose drops, to compensate for the loss of lift by not using all of it to remain at the original altitude. Remember that unless you have negative or zero g you always have positive lift even with a nose pointed down, so taking away some of it won't help you, you'll just help gravity. You could slow down (forward speed) - if you can, that is. Banking won't help your descend rate all else remaining equal.
- pjc50 7y agoYou'd need to turn it all the way over, which is likely to upset the passengers.
- lutorm 7y agoWell, I'm sure they'd prefer being upset over being dead... although the likelihood of successfully rolling over and flying a negative-g recovery in a transport airplane seem dubious at best. Transport category airplanes are only certified to -1G so an inverted pullout would definitely exceed those limits.
- bayareanative 7y agoWasn't this a story element in the movie Flight (2012) taken from Alaskan 261?
- GuB-42 7y agoThe reason for the nose down is to prevent a stall. Rolling the plane in stall conditions can cause a spin, which is very, very bad. A spin is an aggravated stall which is harder to recover and puts a lot of stress on the airframe. While almost all planes can safely recover from stalls given enough altitude and pilots are trained for it, spins are normally limited to aerobatics.
- lutorm 7y agoWhile that's why the system exists, in this case we're not near a stall, we're just bringing the nose down because the system erroneously thinks we're near a stall.
- Calloutman 7y agoThis has actually been tried as a last resort. It didn't end well unfortunately. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261?wprov=sfla1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261?w...