Flying into a mountain.

Darkside

Darkside

Registered User
Well, I was reading this issue of Flying magazine at work today and came across this article about a couple of pilots that were flying IFR and ran into a mountain near San Diego. For the people that don't know what IFR is, its when you fly a plane by the instruments only, no visual out of the cabin, like when you're flying through a cloud and can't see anything or flying late at night and can't see anything. Simply put, it's like flying an airplane with the windows painted black. Anyway, the ATC told the pilots to descend to 5300ft., which they did, the only problem was that the mountain was 5500ft. :eek: 2 people dead because of someones mistake. Needless to say, the NTSB is investigating. At this point I was thinking about the amount of guts it takes to fly a plane without being able to see. You are totally dependant on the instruments to get you to your destination safely. How many of us would drive our cars at 60 MPH around the highways if the windows were painted black and all we had to go by was the guages telling us where we were at and when we needed to turn. I've know about IFR flights for a long time but for some reason it never hit me until reading this article. Bottom line: pilots are freakin nuts. Some of the pilots I know fly at or above 200 mph without being able to see anything in front of them. No thanks. I'm afraind to even drive in that cold white stuff that falls to the ground. :eek:
 
Darkside said:
Well, I was reading this issue of Flying magazine at work today and came across this article about a couple of pilots that were flying IFR and ran into a mountain near San Diego. For the people that don't know what IFR is, its when you fly a plane by the instruments only, no visual out of the cabin, like when you're flying through a cloud and can't see anything or flying late at night and can't see anything. Simply put, it's like flying an airplane with the windows painted black. Anyway, the ATC told the pilots to descend to 5300ft., which they did, the only problem was that the mountain was 5500ft. :eek: 2 people dead because of someones mistake. Needless to say, the NTSB is investigating. At this point I was thinking about the amount of guts it takes to fly a plane without being able to see. You are totally dependant on the instruments to get you to your destination safely. How many of us would drive our cars at 60 MPH around the highways if the windows were painted black and all we had to go by was the guages telling us where we were at and when we needed to turn. I've know about IFR flights for a long time but for some reason it never hit me until reading this article. Bottom line: pilots are freakin nuts. Some of the pilots I know fly at or above 200 mph without being able to see anything in front of them. No thanks. I'm afraind to even drive in that cold white stuff that falls to the ground. :eek:
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That's what i do when I run the 1/4 mi. I close my eyes so I don't see my times and wanna keep driving that slug out into the desert! We'll go to the mall parking lot this winter and I'll show you how we drive in the snow in Buffalo! Sideways, in circles, Whatever :eek: Did you hear about the F-16 crash a few years ago when the pilot didn't trust his instruments and didn't know he was upside down and pulled UP? :( OUCH They also flew one into the side of a mountain down here somewhere.
 
If i remember Chris Wise is an airline pilot. Cant even think about not about not seeing.
 
Uh, pilots almost always depend on just the instruments to fly. Visual is nearly useless unless you're taking off or landing. You really can't see much up in the air thats of any use, trying to fly by using landmarks on the ground would be very difficult unless you've flown that route many times.

Some of the most realistic flight simulator machines don't even have a visual display. I found it was actually easier to keep on course in that machine than in the air (I'm not a pilot, but I have done some flying before).
 
I have flown in a helicopter at 150ft AGL (Above Ground Level) at night at about 160 KNTS IFR. You wanna talk about sucking up some seat... lol But we do use night vision on most of our night flights. :eek:
 
Pilot's that fly Pitts, which are small biplanes used for aerobatics, tape a red piece of yarn about 6 inches long to their wingstruts so they know which way is down when doing certain tricks. Crazy bastards. :eek:
 
Darkside said:
Pilot's that fly Pitts, which are small biplanes used for aerobatics, tape a red piece of yarn about 6 inches long to their wingstruts so they know which way is down when doing certain tricks. Crazy bastards. :eek:
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I could be mistaken, but I believe that's a cheap and simple angle-of-attack indicator, not to show which way is down. Remember, if it's taped in airflow, it's going to be blown with that airflow!
 
Vyk said:
I could be mistaken, but I believe that's a cheap and simple angle-of-attack indicator, not to show which way is down. Remember, if it's taped in airflow, it's going to be blown with that airflow!
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One of the tricks they do is to tumble the plane end over end. The only way to get out of it is to go into a freefall spin. Imagine if your plane is tumbling going down, the string will always point up, letting you know which way is down so you can recover correctly.
 
Darkside said:
One of the tricks they do is to tumble the plane end over end. The only way to get out of it is to go into a freefall spin. Imagine if your plane is tumbling going down, the string will always point up, letting you know which way is down so you can recover correctly.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a plane is climbing steeply and then decelerates rapidly, wouldn't the string then point upwards?
 
J.D. said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a plane is climbing steeply and then decelerates rapidly, wouldn't the string then point upwards?
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OK, you're wrong. No, it wouldn't point upwards.
 
Darkside said:
OK, you're wrong. No, it wouldn't point upwards.
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I think it would as it is affected by the laws of gravity, if you go into negative G's, then it will face the opposite direction :) And flying IFR isn't that bad, That is all we use to fly 1300 miles over nothing but rocky islands up in alaska...They are quite reliable, and if one fails, we always have at least 3 backups :)

Shane
 
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