4 ms·

"A $3.8 million Predator carrying a Hellfire missile cratered near Kandahar in January 2010 because the pilot did not realize she had been flying the aircraft u

by reirob 12y ago

"A $3.8 million Predator carrying a Hellfire missile cratered near Kandahar in January 2010 because the pilot did not realize she had been flying the aircraft upside-down." - how can this happen? Isn't the picture upside down on the screen?

rdtsc 12y ago
Presumably at a high enough altitude or at night it would be hard to tell. Looking at that video is pretty low res. The artificial horizon might not been working correctly as well. Getting disoriented even on a real aircraft is not that hard. Sometimes even during constant turning the brain's accelerator resets and can interpret the turning as level flight.
- derwiki 12y ago
  At a "high enough altitude" it probably wouldn't have crashed ;-)
  - rdtsc 12y ago
    But it could have stalled or got into a spin didn't have enough time to recover.
    - smoyer 12y ago
      A good point ... and wings are designed to provide lift while flying right-side-up. While upside down, you lower the elevators to promote level flight.
  - GHFigs 12y ago
    Apparently, USAF pilots aren't trained to watch out for mountains descending from above them.
- smoyer 12y ago
  The aircraft I flew in the '80s had an artificial horizon that showed whether you were straight and level. That aircraft wasn't capable of inverted flight (or maybe I wasn't) but the dial was vertically symmetrical and the only indication you were upside down would have been the (small) printed numbers showing you degrees. I saw the same dial in a flight simulator for an A-10 Warthog, so I'm assuming there were cues but no flashing red light.
baddox 12y ago
Drone pilots obviously don't experience acceleration, so some of these shouldn't apply, but there are many well-understood sensory illusions that pilots are vulnerable to. Many of these will cause flight characteristics that will sound ridiculous to the layperson, like the graveyard spiral, where a pilot incorrectly perceives the craft to be flying level and thus reacts incorrectly to the altimeter's indication of a descent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_Illusions_in_Aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_Illusions_in_Aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_spiral

by reirob 12y ago

rdtsc 12y ago

Presumably at a high enough altitude or at night it would be hard to tell. Looking at that video is pretty low res. The artificial horizon might not been working correctly as well. Getting disoriented even on a real aircraft is not that hard. Sometimes even during constant turning the brain's accelerator resets and can interpret the turning as level flight.

derwiki 12y ago
At a "high enough altitude" it probably wouldn't have crashed ;-)
- rdtsc 12y ago
  But it could have stalled or got into a spin didn't have enough time to recover.
  - smoyer 12y ago
    A good point ... and wings are designed to provide lift while flying right-side-up. While upside down, you lower the elevators to promote level flight.
- GHFigs 12y ago
  Apparently, USAF pilots aren't trained to watch out for mountains descending from above them.
smoyer 12y ago
The aircraft I flew in the '80s had an artificial horizon that showed whether you were straight and level. That aircraft wasn't capable of inverted flight (or maybe I wasn't) but the dial was vertically symmetrical and the only indication you were upside down would have been the (small) printed numbers showing you degrees. I saw the same dial in a flight simulator for an A-10 Warthog, so I'm assuming there were cues but no flashing red light.

baddox 12y ago

Drone pilots obviously don't experience acceleration, so some of these shouldn't apply, but there are many well-understood sensory illusions that pilots are vulnerable to. Many of these will cause flight characteristics that will sound ridiculous to the layperson, like the graveyard spiral, where a pilot incorrectly perceives the craft to be flying level and thus reacts incorrectly to the altimeter's indication of a descent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_Illusions_in_Aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_Illusions_in_Aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_spiral