Geniune Fear Of Flying

I said less than an hour not over, when I was a passenger in a 2 seater and the instructor was demonstrating best glide at idle the descent rate was around 300 at ~6,000ft, an average of 300 from 15,500ft is 51.7mins. My main point was that planes can glide for significant distances, eg the gimli glider incident and that you can be waiting some time before your doom. :p
 
Energize said:
I said less than an hour not over, when I was a passenger in a 2 seater and the instructor was demonstrating best glide at idle the descent rate was around 300 at ~6,000ft, an average of 300 from 15,500ft is 51.7mins. My main point was that planes can glide for significant distances, eg the gimli glider incident and that you can be waiting some time before your doom. :p
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Ahh, I see. A 300fpm ROD wouldn't be sustainable in anything but the most efficient airframes, especially with no thrust. It would be even worse with a windmilling propellor or a jet engine producing no thrust.

Maybe Blinkz can chime in with an accurate figure but off the top of my head, the average airliner with 100% power loss is going to average well over 1000fpm in the descent, significantly more if it's heavy and/or in a dirty configuration.
 
Energize said:
There have been numerous incidents where all the engines have failed and the plane has stayed in the air for nearly an hour before crashing or where the plane has been slowly cremated in the air from fire. Rarely is a plane crash fast, a car crash is pretty much instant in comparison.


That's far worse than any car crash!
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You *******! That's my fear of flying ingrained now. ;)

Seriously though, I just hate the idea of absolutel relinquishing ALL control when I'm in a tube at 38,000 feet. The pilots are men with the same failings as us all.
 
On the one hour thing, I think the record gliding time for an airliner is the 19 minutes it took Air Transat 236 to make a successful emergency landing in the Azores.
 
Cleeecooo said:
Less than 1% chance.

Happens maybe 30-40 times a year worldwide, but no crashes apart from the minority.
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Its a lot less than that due to mechanical failure. Its almost immpossible. Most complete engine losses are due to external factors like bird strikes, ash clouds etc...

The hardest part of keeping a big aircraft flying with all engines out is trying to keep it above the minimum speed for the rat (ram air turbine) or similar to provide emergency power to some of the flying controls. Once you go below this speed its game over.

I managed to land a Vc 10 from 15000 ft with all engines failed running on emergency power with limited controls in the simulator. The descent lasted about 10 mins and that was the limit of the glide. Its so hard to maintain the minimum speed and control the descent...
 
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Blue160 said:
Seriously?

Wikepedia has a list of fourteen in total going back to 1963.
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Sorry, meant 3-4. Mind was elsewhere.

[TW]Fox;19848416 said:
Thats very common indeed. If you took 100 flights, 1 would suffer full engine power loss?
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When I said leads than, I meant much much less than. Even if there is 100% power loss, chances are you won't die :p

[FnG]magnolia;19848440 said:
What does it take for a pilot to get uncomfortable with a flying situation and how often does this happen? Is it stuff passengers would be aware of or not?
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There have been cases where pilots have gotten distracted or have made critical errors. The FAA usually makes severe changes after crashes to stop them happening.

Some examples of human error are the gimli glider, flash airlines crash, eastern airways tristar crash in Everglades, and I think it was aeroperu 603.

Those are human error crashes. Most of them have something to do with distractions in cockpit or disorientation.
 
[TW]Fox;19848340 said:
How common is 100% power loss on a commercial airliner?
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Very uncommon. Any cases are usually due to fuel starvation or exhaustion. One of the most prominent recent events was BAW38 at Heathrow. I believe that was caused by waxing of the fuel due to lower than normal temperatures at cruise level for an extended period.


 
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Modern Airbus have a RAT believe it or not :D The Ram Air Turbine can be deployed during a power failure such as when the Aircraft runs out of fuel (not good). The RAT allows for basic Avonics which in turn can control the Aircraft to land (providing there is an Airfield close by). I have not seen this on a Boeing plane however. Maybe the 787 Dreamliner has it.. Not sure.
 
philtorrens said:
Modern Airbus have a RAT believe it or not :D The Ram Air Turbine can be deployed during a power failure such as when the Aircraft runs out of fuel (not good). The RAT allows for basic Avonics which in turn can control the Aircraft to land (providing there is an Airfield close by). I have not seen this on a Boeing plane however. Maybe the 787 Dreamliner has it.. Not sure.
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I'm fairly certain that all modern Boeing aircraft are equipped with a RAT.
 
albert said:
In 2001 i went on my honeymoon to Gran Canaria and on the flight back i thought i was going to die and I've never flown since.

Just as the plane was taxiing the Captain came onto the mic and told us all to put on our seat belts. 3 minutes later we flew into the thunderstorm. The engines kept revving up and then dying then revving up again. We were sitting 3/4's up on the plane but the people sitting at the front were going above and below us. A stewardess trolley shot down the aisle by itself due to the momentum. The worst thing was looking out onto the wing of the aircraft and all i could see was flashes of lightning hitting it. People on the plane were screaming. Add to that the plane was shaking really really bad. Sounds daft , but my feet and legs went cold and clammy and i really thought i was going to die.

Since that flight all our holidays have since involved me driving to France or Holland.

My problem is that the missus wants to go somewhere hot next year which will involve flying.
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Is this your missus?

200px-Dennis_Bergkamp_cropped.JPG
 
Cleeecooo said:
Less than 1% chance.

Happens maybe 30-40 times a year worldwide, but no crashes apart from the minority.
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My god man, its FAR rarer then that!! If that was the case then we'd have 10 or 20 dual failures a DAY around the world lol :eek:

Its very very rare, in the 1 in a millions range!

[FnG]magnolia;19848440 said:
What does it take for a pilot to get uncomfortable with a flying situation and how often does this happen? Is it stuff passengers would be aware of or not?
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Well I guess that depends on the pilot haha, however its like asking how long is a piece of string! Its not possible to list everything that could go wrong! I've had a couple of abnormal situations but none of them took me out of my comfort zone, we have a lot of training that covers all of the issues the aircraft can have. Whether the passengers know or not is again totally dependant on what the issue is. I've had 2 RTOs (rejected take-offs, if you work in aviation you've got to love acronyms haha) which involves the aircraft using maximum brakes from around 100mph to a total stop, its fairly uncomfortable and yes the passengers definitely noticed! However I've also had a generator fail and other minors things like that which no one would ever know about!

Scuzi said:
I'm fairly certain that all modern Boeing aircraft are equipped with a RAT.
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Well no RATs aren't on all Boeing aircraft, it all depends on how the aircraft is setup. The 737s (even the NGs) and the 747s have no RAT. This is because they have manual reversion on the flight controls. This means that the controls in the cockpit are physically connected to the control surfaces by means of cables and pulleys. In an emergency situation when you loose all power and hydraulics the aircraft is still totally controllable. In the A320 we have total fly-by-wire and so the controls aren't physically connected to the flying surfaces. In this case we do have a RAT that deploys if we lose electric or hydraulics. The RAT powers the essential electrics and a backup hydraulic system to allow the aircraft to remain controllable. The newer Boeing's (777 and I think the 787) are fly-by-wire as well and so have a RAT.

You all have to remember that there are so many backup systems onboard, which is what makes the aircraft so safe. In my A320 we have 2 engine generators, the APU generator, batteries as well as the RAT to power things if needed!
 
people are forgetting though that you life isnt in the hands of just a pilot, its in the hands of a pretty beffy computer aswell that can fly the plane mathamatically much better then any pilot even in an emergancy.
Remember that new york hudson incident and the reason they landed well in the river? because the pilot got the backup power up and the computer kept the plane in check despite the serious conditions they were in.
 
iamtheoneneo said:
people are forgetting though that you life isnt in the hands of just a pilot, its in the hands of a pretty beffy computer aswell that can fly the plane mathamatically much better then any pilot even in an emergancy.
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Aside from when the computer causes the plane to crash, eg maxing out the engines throttles causing them to disintegrate, as in Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751.

I feel much safer in the smaller aircraft, far less things that can go wrong, don't have to worry about power failure, explosive decompression or even instrument failure. With the ballistic recovery systems the vast majority of engine failures and loss of control scenarios are survivable.
 
Blinkz said:
The 737s (even the NGs) and the 747s have no RAT. This is because they have manual reversion on the flight controls. This means that the controls in the cockpit are physically connected to the control surfaces by means of cables and pulleys.
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Crikey - what sort of physical effort does it take to control a 747 when the 'power steering' fails?:eek:
 
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