Chris Hill
Well Known Member
I offer this as a part of a weekly series to prompt discussion about specific flight regimes where anyone interested can read and learn from someone else?s misjudgment and the advice and experience of others who participate in the forum.
When you read these accidents and provide input in the thread, please take the perspective that simply not flying or not performing the maneuver is NOT an acceptable solution. Instead, take the perspective that the pilot was definitely going to choose to fly in whatever manner that lead to the crash or accident. In this way, we can provide methods to perform the same maneuver in a safe manner or with risk mitigated through knowledge/prior planning.
That being said, please read the following accident report from the NTSB: NTSB Accident Report
Summary: Two experienced pilots were completing and instructional flight when they stalled and crashed while turning at low altitude in the traffic pattern.
I?ll start the discussion with a look at flight physics. A review of the effect of bank angle on level turn stall speeds?For an RV that stalls at 55 mph in level flight, the stall speed increases by 7% at 30 degrees of bank (Vstall 60 mph), by 40% at 60 degrees of bank (Vstall 80 mph), by 71% at 70 degrees of bank (Vstall 95 mph). If you are slow in the pattern, say 75 mph, and attempt to use a steep bank to correct an overshooting final turn, you are flirting with a dangerous flight regime. Depending on how your RV flies, you may get little to no warning that you are rapidly approaching stall. For example, my RV-8 only gives me about 5mph stall warning with buffet. Banking it up quickly and pulling it around could send me into an accelerated stall before I had time to react. Low to the ground, it would probably be fatal.
I will leave the opening post at that. I hope some instructors will talk about distractions in the cockpit, whether instructing or flying with friends, and how to reduce/prevent those distractions, especially during critical phases of flight such as takeoff/landing.
Hopefully participation here will remind people about this safety topic and keep it ready in the back of their minds when they find themselves in a similar situation.
When you read these accidents and provide input in the thread, please take the perspective that simply not flying or not performing the maneuver is NOT an acceptable solution. Instead, take the perspective that the pilot was definitely going to choose to fly in whatever manner that lead to the crash or accident. In this way, we can provide methods to perform the same maneuver in a safe manner or with risk mitigated through knowledge/prior planning.
That being said, please read the following accident report from the NTSB: NTSB Accident Report
Summary: Two experienced pilots were completing and instructional flight when they stalled and crashed while turning at low altitude in the traffic pattern.
I?ll start the discussion with a look at flight physics. A review of the effect of bank angle on level turn stall speeds?For an RV that stalls at 55 mph in level flight, the stall speed increases by 7% at 30 degrees of bank (Vstall 60 mph), by 40% at 60 degrees of bank (Vstall 80 mph), by 71% at 70 degrees of bank (Vstall 95 mph). If you are slow in the pattern, say 75 mph, and attempt to use a steep bank to correct an overshooting final turn, you are flirting with a dangerous flight regime. Depending on how your RV flies, you may get little to no warning that you are rapidly approaching stall. For example, my RV-8 only gives me about 5mph stall warning with buffet. Banking it up quickly and pulling it around could send me into an accelerated stall before I had time to react. Low to the ground, it would probably be fatal.
I will leave the opening post at that. I hope some instructors will talk about distractions in the cockpit, whether instructing or flying with friends, and how to reduce/prevent those distractions, especially during critical phases of flight such as takeoff/landing.
Hopefully participation here will remind people about this safety topic and keep it ready in the back of their minds when they find themselves in a similar situation.