Exadios

The original documentary is here. It is a little longer than the SBS edition. There are also links to the DCIS files. I've had a bad feeling about the 737 for a long time now.

Two walk away after crash rips wing off Meekatharra plane.

Scary. I've had two close calls (i.e. centimeters). I definitely do not want to kill an eagle - or be killed by one! I think the highest I've seen an eagle is about 9000' QNH. How high can they go?

We used to but not now.

I'm not sure whether its the case that almost everyone wants to go gliding. Most gliding clubs have a lot of trouble interesting people in gliding. One of the problems is the commitment needed to operate a gliding club.

I'm not a member of SCGC so I don't know who the target audience is. I presume that you think that there is a lack of 30 - 50 year old males in gliding.

A gliding

I imagine that these are profesional pilots so they are not going to do it incorrectly. Actually, I find your assertion regarding the 6000' a little hard to believe. These planes are not that bad at flying. The problem with using the engines is mainly to do with the fact that they take a long time to respond and do not have much top end. When using the stick to increase speed there is one lag - proportional to the mass. Using the engines adds another lag. This logic applies to small planes as well (although the engines are more responsive). In any case the decission has been made to use the stick first so the authorities cannot be too concerned about height loss.

So the plane drops from FL350 to FL290. No problem. Still seems to me that the correct proceedure is to move the stick foward and then play with the power - as the change recognizes.

I see your point but, at the altitudes where the two speeds come together, who cares about minimizing altitude loss? Assuming that the plane has not been flown to the altitude where the two velocities intersect (and I certainly hope that would not happen) there is a nose attitude, not too much different to the attitude at which incipient stall occurs, at which the plane will fly. My point is that it is not necessary to go into a dive in order to recover from an incipient stall.

Sure, but what you are saying just calls into question why would the stall recovery procedure be be anything else than to push the nose down since playing with the engines just makes a bad situation worse. The thrust vector may help by reducing the wing loading but that's a (advsrse) square law relationship where as airspeed is a linear realtionship.

"Round eyes", such as French, for instance? The squeeze between stall and Vne depends on wind loading and the Vne for a particular plane. For instance, gliders up to 100,000' have no problem. On the other hand the US U-2 aircraft has about 10 knots between the two at 75,000'.

For interest, here is what the BEA have released so far. Down near the bottom is: "the inputs made by the PF were mainly nose-up".

You have lost me. If you are only only 9 knots above stall why would you want to pull back on the stick or rev up the engines? And, with the lack of reliable air speed measurements and autopilot why would you want to climb to a higher altitude where the squeeze between Vne and stall speed becomes worse? A stall is a stall at any altitude.

My impression is that airline pilots do not do enough "real" flying and loose proficiency. I suspect they would benifited by an annual trip down to their local flying club or school and spending half an hour in the air with an instructor practicing stalls etc.

Specifically, reducing the the angle of attack by pushing the nose down.

This is what the big boys have decided to do in the future. This seems like a no brainer to me - why would you want to waste time playing with the engines when you are near, or in, a stall?

How not to land out.

An accident report arrising from a fatal glider crash in the UK.

I also work in oil exploration and have done so since 1972. My work involves engineering exploration equipment and software. I do not listen to "Bob Brown" but I do listen to geophysicists. And I (in the company of thousands of others) spent the 1970s and 80s trying to prove Hubbert wrong. PS. Do you have any coordinates for all these capped fields? (Some language removed - Moderator)

They have lowered their standards if they are calling a 100M bbl field an "oil giant". A better source is something like the OGJ exploration page. You will see lots of discoveries around the world there. With those in mind we still ran out in 1967.

Peak oil occured in 1967 - 1968. Since then we have just been running on what's left in the tank. I think with current battery technology, 600kgs will be too little. Unfortunately there are presently no batteries that match liquid fuels for Joules / Kg or Joules / M^2.

Thanks. Excelent work.

Hi Ken. How did you go with the DVD / BluRay?

Did you notice the negative dihedrial at the start caused by the positive flap? Also the wing flutter? Apparently that was caused by Terry cycling the flaps from full positive to full negative a number of times. I think that the Boeing 787 has ASH 25 like wings - for a jet airliner. High aspect flexible wings may be the future for power aviation.