Never again on PE - share your mistakes

signmanbob
Posts: 99
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2016 8:13 pm

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by signmanbob »

I'm going to be honest from the beginning of my PilotEdge carrier and post my stupid mistakes (which will be many) for public perusal. This thread may become very long (I can be a slow learner)

Controller: "Skylane 6804B, state your location"
Me: "5 miles west of airport at fife-thousand-fife-hundred, Skylane 6804B"

...seems well stated and fair enough, don't you think?....Oh, wait..How can I be 5 miles west of the airport when I was heading west to the airport?.....DUH!!

After landing, I stepped out of the cockpit with a controller's size 11 foot print on the seat of my pants :oops:
V-3 * CAT-11 * i-11 Ratings 8-)....Yeah!!
CrzyDmnd
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2015 9:22 am

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by CrzyDmnd »

Here's something I did on a twitch livestream a few days ago. Was on approach into KSBA on the GPS RWY 25 procedure in JRollon's Jetstream 32 (with the community update), when Keith triggered a left engine failure. I started corkscrewing to the left, almost recovered it twice, and was unable to get the left engine feathered (my prop levers were locked together, more on that later...). So with my left engine unfeathered, I had too much drag and couldn't make it to land, ended up hitting the water hard :shock: . I was in communication with ATC all the way down to the "water landing". You're welcome to view this comedy of errors at https://www.twitch.tv/crzydmnd/v/83254900

After this incident, I found out that the FlyWithLua script I used to make custom joystick commands to move the prop conditions up and down (since this particular JRollon plane doesn't allow props to be bound to an axis), caused the two prop levers to be stuck together, so I couldn't feather just one engine :oops: . I've removed the commands on the next flight and have since come up with a much better code to be able to actually use two joystick axes for props with a FlyWithLua script (here's a dropbox link to the script for those interested: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lyxh6tl5rh065 ... s.lua?dl=0), so now I can independently control left and right props and feather them. I should now be better prepared to deal with a single engine failure in the Jetstream :geek:

So my lesson from this incident is to know your plane, and make sure that everything works the way its intended, especially feathering the props. ;)

Thanks to Keith and the PE crew for making this a valuable learning experience.

CrzyDmnd

Edit: Here's bonus footage of another flight that didn't end in total catastrophe: https://www.twitch.tv/crzydmnd/v/83281280
Last edited by CrzyDmnd on Mon Aug 15, 2016 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mudhen
Posts: 61
Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2015 6:45 pm

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Mudhen »

Just my opinion. (Plus, remember, I’m in the back seat…after the fact.)
I don’t use the JS32, so I’m way out of way league. I also don’t know if the JS32 can remain level, or climb, in its landing configuration on one engine with the other not feathered.
It seemed to me that both the torque and fuel flow were showing a pending failure well before the actual failure.
It’s been rightly asserted that severe upsets usually begin with small, almost imperceptible excursions.
To me, this is part and parcel to the problem with autopilots. While it is engaged, it takes a higher level of focus for the pilot to remain engaged with the airplane.
This includes a proper and complete scan, (with engine health and performance.)

As soon as the upset occurred, the most important thing is to recover from the upset.
Don’t spend time scanning away from the flight instruments, troubleshooting, or attempting to communicate with ATC.
Get the airplane under control first.
A helpful mnemonic is RUTAP.
Recognize, Unload, Thrust, Aileron, Pitch.

Recognize - Identify the direction of the upset.
In this flight an un-commanded roll to the left and descent.

Unload – This is helpful for several reasons. A reduction in load factor will always result in a reduction of stall speed. [√G x Vs, (or Vso) = Stall speed.]
Further if critical AoA is not met, the airplane cannot stall. Also a reduction in AoA will improve roll performance and in almost all cases will allow the ailerons to have greater affect in restoring wings level than the rudder.
At higher AoA’s, the greater the wing sweep the more effective the rudder for rolling moments. (Dihedral effect.)
Since the JS32 has a straight wing, then an unloaded airplane will have greater roll with the ailerons, (which also may be improved with rudder, but that’s something that should be covered in the POH.)
It can be unsettling to apply forward yoke while so close to the ground but is far less unsettling than to pull the airplane into a spiral with higher stalling speeds. Once the wings are level, or relatively so, then use rudder to center the ball.

Thrust – Since you were so low to the ground, configured, and slow, I would have applied full power.
(But the POH may have insight to this. To initially arrest the roll, an abrupt reduction in power on the good engine, plus unloading the airplane may be a good option. As soon as the airplane begins to roll toward recovery, then gradually apply power.)

Ailerons – Once the airplane is unloaded use the ailerons to roll the airplane wings level. This is nuanced, however, depending on a nose low, or nose high recovery.
Roll rates may be such that attempting to recover from one upset, may in fact, result in another.

Pitch – After the wings are within 20 degrees of level, then begin a gradual pitch change to stop the descent and restore a climb.
Truth is, you may have been too low for an effective recovery.

Another thing you can do is to fly the airplane and practice this scenario again, but at higher altitudes.
One of the things I do with a new model is to fly it into various conditions: nose high/low recoveries, slow flight, stalls, engine failures, heavy weight landings, no flap landings, etc.
All these exercises, plus digging through the POH help to inform me of aircraft performance and peculiarities.
This was a cool video and a great learning exercise.
Thanks for posting.
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x_plane_pilots
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 8:20 am

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by x_plane_pilots »

Heres a fun one!
Was joining Max Weldon into KSBA in some nice foggy weather; and being the idiot i can be sometimes, i took the call "enter left downwind for runway 25". I ended up lining up for the right downwind and since whoever was controlling that day hadnt have noticed yet... I ended up ending up in a nice pile of whatever was left of my CRJ into the mountains north of SBA.
What did i learn? Remember your rights from your left
CrzyDmnd
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2015 9:22 am

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by CrzyDmnd »

Hi Mudhen:

Yep, there were a LOT of things I did wrong in that video, in terms of aircraft loading and handling. Thinks that didn't immediately come to mind because I was too busy focusing on the engine and not crashing into the water. First, I was configured with 20 degrees of flaps and I don't think I ever brought them up, so there was a lot of drag I could have removed from the equation. I put my right engine past 100% torque for the first minute and was also beyond the EGT limit, and then brought it back into the green ('cause, a losing two engines would have guaranteed my demise if I burned up the right engine) and left it around 100% torque for the rest of the flight. Also, I was putting a lot of right aileron into what was essentially a stall, which could have ended up being bad. Towards the end I finally found the right combination of rudder and aileron to keep the plane relatively level, but I'd lost too much altitude and speed at that point that it was too late.

I did make a couple of flights after that clip (the full VOD includes it) once I disabled my bad plugin code that caused my prop levers to be linked, and the difference in handling, once I was able to feather my left prop, was night and day. I was able to fly and land with 35 degrees flaps and less than full power on the right engine with ease. Being able to feather the failed engine made that much of a difference. As you said, I should play around with flying the aircraft at its limits of different loadings to learn how to recover it at its extremes, which I admit I haven't done on a lot of the aircraft I have for X-Plane just because I like to fly a variety of aircraft on X-Plane (single and twin pistons and turbos, helicopters, jets, etc.) and don't usually focus on one. Up to this point, I've been more of a casual flight simmer, but I'm working on taking the sim more seriously as a training tool.

Thanks for the suggestions.

CrzyDmnd
x_plane_pilots
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 8:20 am

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by x_plane_pilots »

Hey all! So i made an "attempt" to fly the X-crafts E175 and of corse I made a lot of mistakes. I had no idea how to fly the 27R departure procedure, then the plane "jar'd" me and well, it wouldn't fly the MZB and SLI radials. After hand flying the whole rest of the flight we had a nice smooth landing in LAX! Thanks Marcus for the patience!

heres the tracker!
http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=164272

and heres a screenshot of my 45 degrees of yoke input to keep it flying straight...
Attachments
E175_2.png
E175_2.png (1.55 MiB) Viewed 9603 times
Ryan B
Posts: 856
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 2:37 pm

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Ryan B »

Looks like the AP is enabled... why the bank?
PE ID: 29
FAA ATCS
FAA PPL ASEL
Kyle.Sanders
Posts: 819
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:13 pm

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Kyle.Sanders »

Ryan B wrote:Looks like the AP is enabled... why the bank?
Agreed - the AP is enabled and trying to the turn your plane to the right. You are fighting against it. The flight director has somethings says go to the right...

I can't tell what it is as your LNAV box has nothing selected. On your ND, it shows that it could be wanting to track the red (magenta) line to the right to bring you "on course" or your heading bug to the north east.
Kyle Sanders
yajna
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2016 3:40 pm

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by yajna »

Departing Long Beach VFR headed toward Riverside, the tower controller, not clearance, gave me my departure instruction: "N740PC, on departure fly direct 91/605 Interchange, cleared for takeoff RWY 25L". My somewhat addled brain heard this as "91605 Intersection" which I then could not find on the sectional despite it being RIGHT THERE NORTHEAST OF THE FIELD by only 10 miles or so. I think I was looking for a point west. Moral of the story: sectionals are difficult to read quickly if you don't already know what you're looking for.

Thanks to the controller for his patience pointing out the obvious!
Kyle.Sanders
Posts: 819
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:13 pm

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Kyle.Sanders »

yajna wrote:. Moral of the story: sectionals are difficult to read quickly if you don't already know what you're looking for.

Thanks to the controller for his patience pointing out the obvious!
Have a look at the Fly or TAC charts. The Fly is easier to read in my option.
Kyle Sanders
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