HookedOnChthonics posted:

hobbesmaster posted:

"The concept, which included a complementary 747 AWACS version with two reconnaissance "microfighters", was considered technically feasible in 1973"

Salami Surgeon posted:

It's not actually the sole flyable L-1011. There is another that is still in flying condition.
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N910TE

illectro posted:

Teenage boy in left seat, girl in right seat. Boy applied some force to the yoke, overriding the autopilot which disengaged control of the ailerons. The plane slowly rolled and nobody noticed until it reached about 45 degrees, by which point the autopilot was pulling up to maintain altitude, so people were feeling extra G loading. Few tried to get kids out of the seats, and get in, but g loads made this harder.
Aircraft slowed, disengaged autopilot, went into a steep dive, the co-pilot got into his seat and pulled out of the dive, but he overcompensated, ended up nose high, stalled, spun and failed to recover.

One gem that I remember was that if they’d just let go of the controls during the spin the aircraft would have recovered naturally.

quote:

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/painted-into-a-corner-the-crash-of-xl-airways-germany-flight-888t-04257538ac3b

The insidious aspect of this feature on the A310 was that the disconnection of one channel but not the other would fail to trigger either the visual or aural autopilot disconnect warnings. If, for example, only the lateral channel was disconnected, then not only would the autopilot remain engaged, but the selected lateral mode would continue to be displayed on the autopilot control panel, even though the autopilot actually no longer possessed any lateral control authority.

In the event, the lateral channel disconnected when the roll force on the control columns reached 11–13 kilograms, and did so with no warning whatsoever. Flight data showed that Eldar alone was not responsible for the disconnection — First Officer Piskaryov was holding onto his control column as well, presumably in order to react if Eldar made any sudden inputs. Because the control columns were linked, he could feel every input which Eldar made. He might therefore have been unaware that it was the autopilot which was trying to turn back to the left, and not Eldar.

Furthermore, the disconnection threshold was met when the cumulative force on both control columns reached 11–13 kilograms, meaning that Eldar and Piskaryov might each have been applying as little as 5–6 kilograms of force when the disconnection occurred.

As the lateral channel disconnected, a torque limiter engaged to physically declutch the autopilot’s aileron actuator, preventing it from making any roll inputs. This would have caused a change in the feedback forces on the control columns as the resistance put up by the autopilot abruptly vanished, but Eldar could not have been expected to notice, and Piskaryov probably thought the change in feedback was because of an input by Eldar. As a result, no one noticed that the autopilot was no longer steering the plane — in fact, Piskaryov and Eldar were.