dutchroll

The wind direction shouldn't really make a difference (unless you enter shear, but that's not going to happen when you're maintaining approximately level flight), but a slight lapse in concentration is all it takes when you have no height to recover in. When we did multi-engine low flying in the military, vigorous manoeuvring was done with a large margin above the stall speed for the configuration, bearing in mind that a 60 deg bank level turn is going to shoot your stall speed up x 1.4. A 45 deg bank level turn will increase it by x 1.2. That's almost instantaneous (as soon as the g comes on). When we were very low and slow (like when dropping life rafts at 200ft above the water right back towards approach speed), manoeuvring was kept to a minimum. Banked stall speed = level stall speed / √cos(bank angle)

I've watched a bunch of different views of it too. There's really only one way you can interpret what happened here, and it's already been said. Very sad. Tight manoeuvring at low level and slow speed - you've just gotta keep an eye on your energy level and be careful of g application. There are no second chances, unfortunately.

A commenter has clearly stated that this aircraft was operationally flying at the time the photos were taken. Yes planes can have corrosion and still fly, but there appears to be clear and substantial visible corrosion on flight control components and aerofoil bracing and/or attachment components. That is a no-no, and just because "it has happened on other planes" or "it's only RAAus" doesn't actually constitute a plausible excuse that this one is good to go. I have been flying professionally and privately for 30 years and am still alive to talk about it. Going on the two dozen photos presented (to me they're not "just meaningless photos" - they actually do start to tell a story, though an up close inspection would obviously be ideal), a simple standard pilot walk around would have me refusing to fly this aircraft. I'm actually a little horrified that anyone would think otherwise, but for those who do, perhaps we'll just agree to differ. Just my 2 cents worth.....

I don't think it's a requirement to use it "online only". It just talks about a bunch of copyright issues which are pretty standard, and it talks about it being "uncontrolled" if used in a format which can be corrupted, damaged or distorted.

You imply knowledge of statistical analysis and you quote that? What were the confounding factors? Who was in the study group? What was defined by "accident"? What type of medical examinations did they have? Were there inherent age differences? We're there inherent pilot occupational differences? How often did they fly? What are the causation/correlation factors? Etc etc etc. How do you expect to be taken seriously simply by saying (paraphrased) "people without a formal medical are less likely to crash?" That's utter nonsense. I'd suggest a study showing that is unlikely to be worth the paper it is written on.

Well surely if you have a hidden vice which flags an alert as far as operating machinery like an aeroplane, then it should be investigated by an appropriately qualified doctor to ensure that it is not something which affects your abilities in that respect? I guess what I'm saying is that there should be a medical standard to meet of some description. However I do sometimes get the vibe when reading commentary about "easing" private pilot medical standards (something I don't inherently object to as long as it is done sensibly) that there is a small community out there which would like to advocate for zero medical standards to meet, or a situation which would have the same effect like relating the aviation medical standard to that of a drivers licence, which in practical terms is virtually none at all. It is hard to collect data on whether medical standards have or haven't prevented accidents because by default, pilots with significant medical problems are grounded until those problems are resolved, like I was early last year (and was allowed back flying again when it had been fixed). So under the current regime you'll never know whether they would've ended up being a statistic or not. A certain level of gastro incapacitations in commercial pilots contributes little knowledge to this topic because by default, the inherent risk of eating out by necessity in weird and wonderful slip ports is going to sometimes result in consumption of a dodgy vindaloo, but in a two-pilot aircraft this risk is mitigated by default. My wife was recently driving behind a truck driver on the M1. He coasted to a stop right in the middle of the motorway. As a doctor she stopped behind him and walked to the driver's side to check whether he was ok. He'd gone into a diabetic coma which had been undiagnosed. From a risk-management perspective, that's not the sort of thing you want to happen in a single-pilot aircraft.

Right....so I guess it's an "absence of notified restrictions" rather than an actual medical category. Of course, the problem with these things is that going to your GP for such a condition is entirely voluntary, and if you don't go, no-one will know. So I guess it's food for thought with medical standards.

What exactly is a "car driver's licence medical"? Genuine question. As far as I'm aware, this is the exact same thing as not having medical category at all. I've been driving for 34 years and have never once had a medical examination for a driver's licence aside from an eye test at a licence renewal, and even then it was a long time before the eye test came in. Usually you just paid the money and that was that! Why wouldn't the proposal be to simply scrap any and all formal medical standards aside from an eye test for private flying (not saying I necessarily agree with that in its entirety, but it's the same thing)?

The airline management mentality drives what the aircraft manufacturers do, and is much the same as the FAA response. "If it hasn't killed anybody, we don't want to pay for it to change".

NTSB seeks traffic cameras on large airliners | HeraldNet.com The NTSB made this recommendation in 2012. The FAA rejected this recommendation citing the "lack of injuries or deaths" due to wingtip collisions and excessive costs: "From a safety risk management perspective, the limited safety benefit of a taxi anti-collision system, such as wingtip cameras, does not justify the cost burden of an FAA mandate for their installation on the transport airplane fleet." So there you have it. Someone needs to die first.

One of the problems with high capacity passenger jets is figuring out where the wingtip is going to go when turning. The arcs prescribing wing tip motion versus where the nosewheel tracks are quite different. Here's one for an Airbus A330 at 72 degrees nosewheel steering which although bigger than the B737 illustrates what you have to deal with. 27m radius for the nosewheel versus 33m radius for the nose and 44m radius for the wingtip! You have to be super careful in the vicinity of other aircraft.

The right seat pilot was Instructor Pilot 1st Class Vladislav Vasechkin, who was killed. The student pilot was Roman Chernov who survived. The aircraft was a Harmony LSA. 100% the instructor's fault. You do not just simply continue to apply control inputs overriding a student when they've messed something up. Then while he's jibbering to the student straight after the botched landing which was effectively a go-around after touchdown, he inexplicably pulls back the power with his left hand on the throttle while still at tree-top height. He realises this and puts power back on all the while still yammering away to the student who still has his hands on all the controls. You either takeover or you don't. If the student has buggered something up and you want to talk about it with his/her full attention, you take complete control of the aircraft and calmly chat about it when established back in normal stable flight while the student is not attempting to fly the plane and has caught their breath a bit. So having failed to meet all these basic instructional-technique requirements, the instructor, while both of them were making various control inputs, allows the aircraft to stall and crash. This was just a tragic demonstration of "How not to instruct 101".

German language certainly is very strictly governed by rules, like just about everything else in German culture. However the grammar gets pretty complicated. There are literally 6 different ways to say "the" (der, die, das, den, dem, des) in accordance with 16 different rules and that's only starting with the basics!

I've been doing military base turns my whole life in the circuit pattern and have never forgotten "final" checks (where they are applicable) or landed gear up in the retractables I've flown. A continuous base turn is actually a very sound technique, no more difficult to learn than a square one (actually easier in some respects), and is proven to work well. The showing off chatting to the passengers might've had something to do with it.

Jeepers Phil. Get your tongue out of there!

If you feel more confident using a checklist, then use a checklist. If your checks are simple enough to memorise and you want to do it that way, then do it that way. Just because "back in the good ol' days" they did it a certain way, doesn't mean it was a sensible way. Back in the good ol' days they also had quite high accident rates. Pilot's need to do what they feel is safest for them and not be pressured into thinking they're being some sort of whimp.

4 oil changes. There's only been a very small number of extremely fine particles in the filters. I've seen them myself, cut wide open and rolled out flat. These have been checked by three licensed engineers who were all impressed by its cleanliness. But there has been material deposited onto the cylinder wall. Piston & ring specs are being checked by the manufacturer. Sorry for thread drift!

It's not something they've experienced on other similarly modified ones by the same company (as far as I know) so I think there has been some debate about what has gone pear-shaped. Essentially what was found was excessive piston-cylinder wall wear, causing the engine to be very hard to start when warm and getting worse as it ran in. Interestingly all the oil changes (of which there have been several) have been extremely clean with virtually zero metal (filters pristine). Engine parameters have been consistently right down the middle of the green ranges. Rings are currently a prime suspect but they're looking at all angles.

Not sure about the demo flight but I do know in the test flying phase when they first went to fly-by-wire they certainly did have problems landing it and had to change the software. The ECAM display is pretty good at telling you exactly what has failed. Plus, the particular way it is induced is also indicated on the overhead panel. So there are different indications for a failed item, and one which has been deliberately switched off. There are three separate pickoff units which provide flap position data. Flap asymmetry is sensed by left and right asymmetry position pick-off units which have no other purpose in life. These units apply wing tip brakes to lock the flap position if asymmetry is detected and they can't be released in flight. An instrumentation pick-off unit provides separate position data to the centre display. Feedback position pickoff units provide data to the slat/flap control computer. So if the instrumentation pickoff unit went awry and gave a bogus position indication in the cockpit, the flaps would still extend just fine. If the asymmetry pickoff unit gave bogus information, they'd lock in position and what you have is what you have, but the indication in the cockpit would accurately show that the position is not asymmetric. You'd just be going "why the heck did they lock?" The only answer is that for some reason an asymmetry was detected but is not shown. The ECAM message, if there is an actual fault, guides the computation of the landing performance data if the flaps are in a non-landing position. Otherwise you'd go with what is shown. That data is all computed on our company iPad using a special Airbus app which does takeoff and landing performance for all normal and non-normal configurations. Unfortunately no. Still waiting for the engine people to decide what to do in the USA. Probably new cylinders and pistons under warranty is most likely, I think. At the very least it'll be new pistons and rings.

^^^ Having said that reversionary flight control laws can't be "selected", there is actually a way of quickly forcing the plane into alternate law by "simulating" a multiple failure. It has consequences for flight data display for the pilots though. It is designed to be used in the exceedingly rare case that a fault in the stall protection system causes it to activate falsely and force the nose down. By getting the plane into alternate law this protection is disabled and control is regained. It's basically tricking the computers. I'd be interested to know how they figure that out in a pilotless plane.

I am both a current Airbus A330 pilot and also a mate (from military days) and colleague of mine was one of the pilots in the QF32 cockpit when that incident happened. The Airbus has 3 basic flight control laws (actually it has some in between which are used for takeoff and landing but never mind about those) which are applied in certain circumstances by the flight control computers - "Normal", "Alternate", and "Direct" in order of priority and reversion. The plane is flown in normal law. With certain system failures, it will revert to alternate law or direct law. Each reversion causes the loss of certain flight control functionality including the loss of flight envelope protections, and progressive loss of flight control feedback and gains until with direct law, it's simply "control deflection proportional to stick deflection". It's not particularly easy to fly in direct law, because there is very limited tactile control feedback through the side-stick to the pilot. You cannot "select" alternate law or direct law. The only way of doing this is to deliberately induce certain failures which will then cause the reconfiguration to take place in the flight control computers. Alternate Law changes the pitch rate feedback and gains. Pitch attitude protection is lost. Alpha floor protection (stall protection) is lost. Bank angle protection is lost. Overspeed protection may or may not be lost depending on the failure. Yaw damper authority is limited. Roll rate is reduced. In direct law there are no flight envelope protections, pitch trimming is manual only, and control deflection is directly proportional to side-stick deflection. As I said above, it's actually not that easy to fly in that mode (especially given the number of failures which lead you there in the first place) - at least not smoothly.

That's a choice you shouldn't have to make. However with a pilot, the computers can spit out garbage (as can and does happen from time to time) and you still have a chance. With a good pilot, an excellent chance. Without a pilot, the computers spitting out garbage gives you a few moments to reflect on your life, which is about to end.

A number of times we have rejected an aircraft due to our dissatisfaction with its serviceability status, despite being pressured to take it by everyone who didn't actually have to fly in it. These are the everyday pressures which come from people trying to make money out of an operation. No such back-stop when there is no PIC! It'll just be dispatched regardless.

My prediction is that they will prove beyond any doubt that the pilotless plane is a perfectly safe and viable option. Until it crashes.

Speaking as someone who in his day job flies at flight levels across vast tracts of country with that airspace I can say broadcasts on area VHF rarely bother me. Unless Farmer Joe manages to drag a 10 second radio call out to 3 minutes. Then it bothers me, and where you get problems is often that exact scenario. It's not the fact they're broadcasting, it's the poor quality and lack of forethought going into the broadcast. It would bother me if it was on busy Centre frequencies getting close into major airports, but again I rarely ever hear that happen. Other than that it's something for Airservices and CASA to sort out.