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Saw this video on another forum a while back and just came across it again, it might've been posted here as well. Inadvertent IMC, or getting into clouds when you shouldn't, is a big killer in general aviation. This gang seems like they were actually pushing the odds instead of being surprised by it, it almost ended very abruptly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C6bo9sz9uQ
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Nov 26, 2010 19:09
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Ok, I'm a big fan of experimental aviation a.k.a. kitplanes. Done right it is one of the finest home engineering hobbies and with easy access to the wealth of knowledge from fellow builders it can truly turn out a wonderful flying machine that puts comparable certified machines to shame. But this is the complete opposite. This is the most incredible NTSB report on a GA accident I have ever read. Put something soft on your desk, your jaw will be doing multiple drops. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20071120X01821&ntsbno=NYC08FA023&akey=1
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Nov 27, 2010 20:31
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Ola posted:Ok, I'm a big fan of experimental aviation a.k.a. kitplanes. Done right it is one of the finest home engineering hobbies and with easy access to the wealth of knowledge from fellow builders it can truly turn out a wonderful flying machine that puts comparable certified machines to shame. quote:The pilot had installed a fuel filter on the upper pilot side of the firewall prior to the engine being installed. During the installation, the pilot discovered that the filter would not clear one of the diagonal engine mounting tubes, providing the main support for the nose wheel, and removed it. Rather than relocate the filter to another location, the fuel feed line, from the high-pressure fuel pumps, was run through a nylon grommet in the firewall. This penetration, as well as the fuel return line, was at the front of the center tunnel. there isn't a  big enough
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Nov 27, 2010 21:13
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Ola posted:But this is the complete opposite. This is the most incredible NTSB report on a GA accident I have ever read. Put something soft on your desk, your jaw will be doing multiple drops. Goddamn. We need to rename bad electronics after that guy. The ONLY reason duct tape should be holding your plane together is because you were out hunting and a bear attacked the skin.
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Nov 27, 2010 21:18
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I could understand someone duct taping a piece of wood or styrofoam to the rudder when trying to size the fixed trim tab which most of these aircraft have. But only for sizing it, after the quantity is know it gets installed properly with rivets or aluminum and ideally it takes place during the Phase 1 testing. This guy didn't bother with the Phase 1 testing, although he claimed to have done 40 hours in one week. Which should have launched many eyebrows up into the stratosphere given that a completely orthodox installation gets a 25 hour Phase 1 but easily takes a month to finish. The list of errors is so long and amazing, it's frankly quite shocking that nobody in the community around him really sat him down for a talk. If afraid of personal confrontation someone should just have called the FAA. Anyway, one has to admire the linguistic restraint of the NTSB guys writing that report.
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Nov 27, 2010 21:45
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Ola posted:But this is the complete opposite. This is the most incredible NTSB report on a GA accident I have ever read. Put something soft on your desk, your jaw will be doing multiple drops. Obviously, real men don't bother with things like "reading manuals" or "connecting the flight instruments". I'm amazed it took him that long to get himself killed, especially since he had a lovely combination of useless instruments (that he didn't understand anyway) and a propeller control system that required constant babysitting for any change in power settings.
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Nov 27, 2010 21:58
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It just got more and more bizarre. Channel locks? gently caress.
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Nov 27, 2010 22:26
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Ola posted:I could understand someone duct taping a piece of wood or styrofoam to the rudder when trying to size the fixed trim tab which most of these aircraft have. But only for sizing it, after the quantity is know it gets installed properly with rivets or aluminum and ideally it takes place during the Phase 1 testing. Congratulations Ola on posting some genuine aeronautical insanity. I wonder, once he got done crimping contacts with his channel locks, did he try to solder with them too? "Dear, pass me that blowtorch, my special reading glasses and a pair of oven gloves would you..."
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Nov 27, 2010 22:41
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Last time I saw a plane with duct tape on the wings, I was in Africa, and they were proud to have been crash-free for 6 months... I'm never flying Kenyan Airways again.
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Nov 27, 2010 22:57
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A little late on .mil plane talk from last page, but all the arguments you guys brought up were things Col. John Boyd brought up many years ago. He noted how airframe costs had risen exponentially each generation and fewer and fewer were built. He was part of the lightweight fighter mafia that got the F16 built (and to a certain degree, the F18) with a strong design principle of a simple, cheap and easy to produce airframe that if you lost one it wasn't that big of a deal total numbers wise. He also developed a methodology for measuring performance and systematically analyzed airframe performance of the US arsenal in 60's and 70's and determined features like swept wings like the F14 were a bad trade off for the little benefits they gave; in addition, that the US was behind compared to everything the USSR had. An amazing thinker and visionary. The more I've read about him, the more I've gotten pissed by the way .mil procurement has gone on in the US. Also, quote:Boyd is credited for largely developing the strategy for the invasion of Iraq in the first Gulf War. In 1981 Boyd had presented his briefing, Patterns of Conflict, to Richard Cheney, then a member of the United States House of Representatives.[1] By 1990 Boyd had moved to Florida because of declining health, but Cheney (then the Secretary of Defense in the George H. W. Bush administration) called him back to work on the plans for Operation Desert Storm.[1][5][6] Boyd had substantial influence on the ultimate "left hook" design of the plan.[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_%28military_strategist%29
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Nov 28, 2010 10:00
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grover posted:Last time I saw a plane with duct tape on the wings, I was in Africa, and they were proud to have been crash-free for 6 months... Sure it wasn't just speed tape? At least that stuff's meant to be on airplanes
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Nov 28, 2010 10:12
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Ola posted:This guy didn't bother with the Phase 1 testing... That's not what the logbooks say.
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Nov 28, 2010 14:22
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The Electronaut posted:A little late on .mil plane talk from last page, but all the arguments you guys brought up were things Col. John Boyd brought up many years ago. He noted how airframe costs had risen exponentially each generation and fewer and fewer were built. He was part of the lightweight fighter mafia that got the F16 built (and to a certain degree, the F18) with a strong design principle of a simple, cheap and easy to produce airframe that if you lost one it wasn't that big of a deal total numbers wise. He also developed a methodology for measuring performance and systematically analyzed airframe performance of the US arsenal in 60's and 70's and determined features like swept wings like the F14 were a bad trade off for the little benefits they gave; in addition, that the US was behind compared to everything the USSR had. Also, the F-14 and F-15 that Boyd so hated were the aircraft that finally did actually put the US ahead of the USSR. grover fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Nov 28, 2010 |
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Nov 28, 2010 15:38
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well that and the USSR collapsing
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Nov 28, 2010 15:46
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VikingSkull posted:well that and the USSR collapsing
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Nov 28, 2010 15:55
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I agree with you about the edge we gained in the 70's, it's just that the Soviets didn't get a full chance to counter us before they fell. There's no reason to think that they wouldn't have, and Russia is still producing some excellent stuff today. They only held an edge over us for a few years anyway, our stuff was way better in the 50's and early 60's. e- I think a bigger advantage we gained was our integration of air forces via things like AWACS while the Soviets relied on ground-based control and individual radar systems so powerful they could melt kittens at 20 miles. e2- plus, our Navy held the seas for the duration in all aspects Seizure Meat fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Nov 28, 2010 |
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Nov 28, 2010 16:07
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The whole premise of the lightweight F-16 was that it would be stationed up and down the European front lines and intercept the Soviet bombers. The MiG-29 was designed with the same concept in mind, a point defense fighter. The scenario is long dead of course, now F-16s look like this: and MiG-29s look like this:  Not a slight on John Boyd though, his theories are all over the military, corporate and political world.
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Nov 28, 2010 16:14
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Boyd was both entirely correct and completely off point. As a fighter pilot he thought of dogfighting first of all. The F-14 sucked in that role. Of course, it was build to intercept heavy bombers at the maximum possible range, and dogfighting was never a core role. Boyd's lightweight fighters would have performed fairly poorly when tasked to intercept Backfire bombers launching supersonic missiles from 250 miles away from the task force. His larger concept of maneuver warfare took most of the best ideas in warfare and put a theoretical framework around all of them. You have to respect someone with the brainpower and drive to start out asking why the F-86 seemed to do so much better in combat than the broadly similar MiG-15 and end up analyzing the entire history of war.
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Nov 28, 2010 20:09
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Ola posted:Ok, I'm a big fan of experimental aviation a.k.a. kitplanes. Done right it is one of the finest home engineering hobbies and with easy access to the wealth of knowledge from fellow builders it can truly turn out a wonderful flying machine that puts comparable certified machines to shame. Oh hey, it's a build report! http://www.our7a.com/20070708.html This is amazing, it has everything and would be a classic for a human factors course. Some of the work isn't bad. Some is like "oh, I wouldn't do that" and other stuff is "HOLY poo poo!!" You can see the point where he gets frustrated with the project and his work gets sloppier and sloppier as he gets more impatient. I would yell at the apprentice who brought this to me and thought it was "good enough": http://www.our7a.com/images/20070830-04.jpg EDIT: Actually now Rot fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Nov 28, 2010 |
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Nov 28, 2010 22:00
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http://www.myrv10.com/builders/N289DT_accident.html A bit more information on that.
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Nov 29, 2010 00:16
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It's also worth saying that the effectiveness of a given aircraft (like the MiG-29) relies much more on the quality of the pilot then of the plane. If you look at all the conflicts that the MiG-29 fought in against western planes, the pilots were all second or third rate. The same is true of tanks. The Israelis during their wars with the arab world were up against an enemy that consistently had better tanks then they did, yet managed to defeat the Arabs time after time. Hell, the Israelis used friggin' Shermans (admitted modified and massively up gunned) well into the 70s. It's strange to think, but in the end the USA air force superiority is not maintained by technology, but by superior training, especially by having lots of real life seat time. If you've been following the Korean scuffle on the news, you've might have read about North Korea's air force, which on paper seems kinda formidable. What they don't tell you is that nearly all North Korean planes have been grounded for lack of fuel, and most pilots are lucky to fly once a year. In a real battle, it would be decimated by western forces who are well trained and get plenty of flight time, even ignoring the technology advantage that the west has. Rot posted:Oh hey, it's a build report! For me, anyway, you may need to underline the mistakes. I don't know enough to really get a kick out of it so far.
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Nov 29, 2010 01:51
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grover posted:Take the F-15 for example; 104 kills to 0 losses. You'd need at least 104 aircraft for every F-15 and even then, the F-15-equipped air force would still come out ahead. As much as the F-15 is one of my favorite aircraft, I don't really understand your math 
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Nov 29, 2010 02:25
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Manny posted:As much as the F-15 is one of my favorite aircraft, I don't really understand your math You see F-15s in the real world are just like F-15s in Ace Combat. They carry almost 200 missiles! (Sorry Grover, couldn't help it)
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Nov 29, 2010 02:45
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Nebakenezzer posted:For me, anyway, you may need to underline the mistakes. I don't know enough to really get a kick out of it so far. I guess a lot of it comes down to just simple sloppy work. Some of his sheet metal work looks like he took his time, was careful, and as a result did well. Other stuff, like some of his wiring, was obviously rushed and sloppy. To me that's a sign that he didn't like it, was getting frustrated that everything wasn't coming together like he expected, so he just got through it however he could. The link blugu64 posted touches on that in regards to the RV-10 crash. Bare conductors super close to metal fuel lines, inside the fuel tank. Humming and hawing if he should bother prosealing the joints of the tank. Surprised that his tank leaks when he's not using the proper fasteners. The lockwire I showed in my previous post is total bullshit, won't do anything to secure the b-nut, and looks like there'll be some awesome chaffing down the road. It looks like poo poo, he knows it, and couldn't be arsed to redo it better. Despite some of his good sheetmetal work, you can see in the background of some shots of some real botched jobs. Torn and deformed drill holes, some real iffy rivets (he redid a couple spots but I'd still say some of the pieces are scrap), and his modified dimpling tool makes some awesome tool marks all over, which he figures out later. Maybe the crash report of the other RV-10 has got me all super critical of this guy's work and perhaps that's a bit unfair, but so be it. lovely work is lovely work and he should have the sense to redo something he knows isn't up to par.
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Nov 29, 2010 03:28
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What did he think he was going to achieve with that lockwiring? I was waiting for you to explain something abstrusely aeronautical, but no, it turned out to be exactly as dumb as it looks. I've always liked the RV series and in an ideal world would love to build an RV10, but one thing that puts me off is I just wouldn't trust myself not to screw something up. One of the attractions of the RV is of course that they're sheet metal, so you don't end up with the airframe delaminating in flight like a badly-built Lancair. But still. Rot posted:I guess a lot of it comes down to just simple sloppy work. Some of his sheet metal work looks like he took his time, was careful, and as a result did well. Other stuff, like some of his wiring, was obviously rushed and sloppy. To me that's a sign that he didn't like it, was getting frustrated that everything wasn't coming together like he expected, so he just got through it however he could. The link blugu64 posted touches on that in regards to the RV-10 crash.
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Nov 29, 2010 11:08
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Saga posted:What did he think he was going to achieve with that lockwiring? I was waiting for you to explain something abstrusely aeronautical, but no, it turned out to be exactly as dumb as it looks. I find that with a lot of tasks (lockwire and other safety stuff like cotterpins, sheetmetal or body work, paint, general assembly, etc) it's really that simple: if it looks like poo poo, it probably is poo poo. Saga posted:I've always liked the RV series and in an ideal world would love to build an RV10, but one thing that puts me off is I just wouldn't trust myself not to screw something up. We had a pilot retire and he bought himself a kit. Can't remember off hand what it was. Anyway, he was constantly in the hangar, asking questions about such and such fastener or tool. Or looking for advice on certain methods or ideas he had. He eventually sold the kit because it was just too stressful and that's not exactly what you're looking for in a retirement hobby. That's a tough decision to make, he put a lot of time, money, and work into that project. I think making a kit aircraft would be awesome and it really doesn't seem like that difficult of a project. IF you're willing to take your time and know when to ask for help. If these hobby guys aren't willing to do that, then I really wish they'd take up golf or fishing instead.
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Nov 29, 2010 11:32
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Nebakenezzer posted:It's strange to think, but in the end the USA air force superiority is not maintained by technology, but by superior training, especially by having lots of real life seat time. quote:The only way an F-15 eagle is going to get in there and kill an F-22 Raptor, is if the Eagle has a driver with 3,000+ hours, and the raptor driver is fresh from HOT training. Also, it would have to be 2 on 1. And the raptor driver had to have drunk the whole night before. And he drank during the flight. Also he passed out. - Anonymous F-15 pilot Germany operates a lot of Mig-29s and is as highly trained as any western nation. The Mig-29's HMS plus high off-boresight Archers and low-speed maneuverability gave it an edge in close dogfighting during the first joint exercises until US pilots learned the tactics to counter it. After that, combat was squarely in favor of the F-15, F-18 and even F-16. In real-life combat, the Mig-29s would be dead before they even close to dogfighting range. Here's a clip from a video about F-18 vs Mig-29: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5DAaknkJWU&feature=related
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Nov 29, 2010 13:03
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Have been reading a few NTSB reports lately, this one is quite amazing. Summary: - Cessna 337 (the one with 2 engines, tractor/pusher) goes to high altitude to take pictures - Oxygen system has erroneously been filled with compressed air, both occupants go hypoxic and pass out at 20.000 feet. - Plane descends uncontrolled, overspeeds and breaks up. - Passenger loving survives! http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20001208X07722&ntsbno=IAD97FA060&akey=1
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Nov 29, 2010 13:22
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Saga posted:I've always liked the RV series and in an ideal world would love to build an RV10, but one thing that puts me off is I just wouldn't trust myself not to screw something up. That's a good attitude to have. I think you need to approach it like someone doing a 15,000 piece puzzle - it's not the finished object that's attractive, but the meticulous process of building it right. If you want a big pretty picture of a Venetian bridge, buy a poster. If you want to fly right away, buy a factory plane. But the resources available for the builder, particularly in the US, provides such a vast amount of knowledge, experience and technology within easy reach. And of course the NTSB provides a lot of "don't do this" information. If you approach it as a hobby engineering project where you're willing to learn everything that remotely affects your situation, above and beyond what is actually required, you're on the right track. And also the patience and persistence of a Buddhist monk traveling to the shrine by glacier. Obviously the massive carrot at the end of the 3-7 year project is a plane that will blow the doors off any rental/club machine, perfectly equipped to your desires. I'm currently dreaming about a night VFR RV-7 with a Deltahawk diesel, autopilot, a bit of EFIS candy and oxygen system to take advantage of the high altitude capability of the engine. Might as well be dreaming about my own F-15 with Nerf missiles. 
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Nov 29, 2010 14:02
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Ola - having seen what it takes to get a kit car built well/safely is why I know I don't have that attitude. At least not yet. Aside from seeing one built from chassis up, I bought one that was built by a young mechanical engineer (working in the aeronautical field - be afraid) and despite having that background, a lot of stuff was just messed up. If it was a plane, it would have been the one we're discussing. Stuff badly designed or badly executed, which then had to be fixed. Luckily you can stop a car and get out if something's about to fall off. With something this complex, the impression I've gotten is that you need to be a real perfectionist to build it safely in your garage (or if "it" is an RV, your 3-car garage converted into a heated, lighted, ventilated workspace). If you tolerate minor mistakes, imagine how many you have after thousands of hours of work. Then you end up going down in flames clutching your channel locks. The stuff the professionals did in years past is pretty amazing as well. I was reading an account of some British bomber - a Hampden? - where it was explained that before setting flaps for finals, the pilot had to make sure elevator trim was the right side of neutral. Due to an exaggerated pitch-down tendency, they designed in a mechanism that automatically retrimmed when the appropriate flap setting was selected. If you had the trim "incorrectly" set (which you presumably might in a combat aircraft, given how they're operated), the mechanism would just keep on trying to wind on trim until a cable, spindle or control surface failed. Also from memory, if the pilot of a P39 had the gear mechanism set up for manual extension/retraction but then activated the powered system, the handle would simply be rotated with enough energy to mutilate any limb in the vicinity. There are a couple of equally bizarre passages in the pilots notes to the Hurricane II where it's explained that what should be a trivial error in control operation of cabin switches would mean you had to land it wheels-up. In England this would likely be on grass (or wet grass, or wet grass with extra mud), so hardly trivial. There's just so much stuff that completely contradicts any modern sense of how any systems would/should be designed. If you let those engineers design a salt shaker, they would do it in such a way that everyone in your household would be dead within a week. It would look GREAT though, and it would have a supercharger.
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Nov 29, 2010 16:03
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Hahaha I love stories about aircraft idiosyncrasies. I don't have any links or usable memory available, but have read some rather hairy stories about, for instance, Royal Navy pilots in the early jet age. Carrier ops in the 50s was pretty rudimentary stuff. Here's a great video which I'm not sure has appeared in this thread. Yak-50, popular acro plane, suffers engine failure and lands in a field. All in glorious high-res, annotated, pilots perspective video. quote:Post major maintenance/life extension at EGMJ a YAK 50 loses oil pressure over the Lake District at 1250ft. http://exposureroom.com/members/ANDYWILSON/516c094e78e441e4942f22ff800ade28/
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Nov 29, 2010 16:58
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Ola posted:Hahaha I love stories about aircraft idiosyncrasies. I don't have any links or usable memory available, but have read some rather hairy stories about, for instance, Royal Navy pilots in the early jet age. Carrier ops in the 50s was pretty rudimentary stuff. I've got copies of pilots handbooks for a bunch of early jet aircraft, and some of their "quirks" are pretty terrifying. On the YB-49 (a six-engine, jet powered flying wing built in the late 1940's), the throttle system requires something like three pages to describe, and makes it quite clear the engines would pretty much quit or catch fire if someone looked at them funny. When increasing or reducing thrust under 10,000ft, the throttles had to be moved incredibly slowly (~30 seconds from idle to full power), since the engines would flame out or catch fire if the throttles were moved faster than that. The B-47 suffered from the same slow throttle response (which makes an aborted landing interesting), so the aircraft were occasionally fitted with a parachute that was deployed on approach to allow the engines to be kept at a higher RPM without accelerating the airplane. The B-47 manual also describes the aircraft as having an oxygen system installed, as well as reminding the pilot that "ash trays for the crew are conveniently located", which seems like there was a bit of a potential for disaster.
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Nov 29, 2010 18:23
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azflyboy posted:The B-47 manual also describes the aircraft as having an oxygen system installed, as well as reminding the pilot that "ash trays for the crew are conveniently located", which seems like there was a bit of a potential for disaster. I love that about the 1950s. Ashtrays were everywhere.
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Nov 29, 2010 20:02
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Ola posted:Hahaha I love stories about aircraft idiosyncrasies. I don't have any links or usable memory available, but have read some rather hairy stories about, for instance, Royal Navy pilots in the early jet age. Carrier ops in the 50s was pretty rudimentary stuff. That was a great video. Guy walked away from it, can't ask for more than that.
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Nov 29, 2010 20:56
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Nice attitude indicator.
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Nov 30, 2010 15:01
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azflyboy posted:The B-47 suffered from the same slow throttle response (which makes an aborted landing interesting), so the aircraft were occasionally fitted with a parachute that was deployed on approach to allow the engines to be kept at a higher RPM without accelerating the airplane. This is a tendency of most jet engines. Fast throttle response from a jet requires some really advanced tuning. "just a jet that works" is pretty easy. Most engines of that era were "just engines that work, and engines that work without melting down under normal operation. Modern jet engines are metallurgical miracles. Oh, and thank god for fadac!
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Nov 30, 2010 16:56
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Also, FADEC.
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Nov 30, 2010 18:17
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The most stunning kitplane I've seen for a while. Holy hell. Designed in NZ, based on the Italian Falco. All carbon fiber. Retractable gear. http://www.falcomposite.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzGd_j7SYGQ
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Dec 1, 2010 19:21
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Ola posted:The most stunning kitplane I've seen for a while. Holy hell. Designed in NZ, based on the Italian Falco. All carbon fiber. Retractable gear. Beautiful, but I wonder how they're dealing with fatigue in the CF. From my classes, it's a bitch to detect fatigue damage before it reaches unsafe limits.
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Dec 1, 2010 20:03
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Snapshot posted:Beautiful, but I wonder how they're dealing with fatigue in the CF. From my classes, it's a bitch to detect fatigue damage before it reaches unsafe limits. That made me wonder too. There is quite a lot of glass fiber aircraft around, is it very different from carbon fiber? In other news, flying a U-2 is hard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eamnTyfkUBY
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Dec 7, 2010 21:17
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