I feel confident that pretty much everyone has heard about it by now. As to the cause, it's much too early for that but they are looking at all possibilities. Turbulence is one, as mentioned in this very recent article:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29440965/ Personally, I think they probably should include a microburst as well (and they most likely are). If you aren't familiar with microbursts, you might want to do just a wee bit of research. They can be VERY deadly - especially when encountered on the final approach prior to landing. I remember hearing of more than one instance over the years since they have been understood. Basically, a microburst is a very strong downdraft of air and in a cone-shape. You can picture how it works by visualizing a water hose spraying a strong stream of water downward onto a flat surface. Air in the center is falling rapidly and the "spray" spreads outward in all directions. When a plane is descending, the first thing they've done is reduce engine power to decrease speed considerably for landing. They also extend the flaps to try and maintain lift as speed falls. So keep that in mind as we look at the next step - entering the microburst. When the plane first encounters the leading edge of the microburst "spray", the headwind effect causes a near instantaneous increase in lift. The pilot's immediate reaction is cut engine speed even more because the nose is starting to rise. But moments later, they are slammed by the direct downdraft. That would be bad enough, but the next moment is what spells disaster. As they have passed through the central core to the far side (and this is VERY quickly!), they suddenly have a very strong tailwind. So strong, in fact, that as it passes over the wings backwards the lift provided by the wings can drop to almost zero. The result? The plane falls straight down to the ground. It's already close anyway and the engines cannot possibly be spun up fast enough to keep it from falling like a rock.
Four reasons, Draqon. First, they a pretty rare - thankfully!! And they only occur near the ground. And they are also pretty small. And finally, they are short duration weather events - lasting only a very few minutes before they vanish completely. Put those four things together and you can see that they would have to pop up directly in the path of a plane that's in the process of landing and only at the right moment. And don't misunderstand me here: I'm NOT saying that's what happened - just that it's a possibility and the weather was the kind that produces them.
I think the plane ran out of fuel because there was no fire. I'm probably wrong when I say this but no one reported the smell of fuel at anytime during the evacuation and there weren't any fire engines on the scene when I was watching. It is really early in the investigation but we will see , I hope, in a short time to what did cause it to fall so quickly from the sky. There were no severe thunderstorms in the area when the crash happened, only foggy, cold and rainy conditions.
Planes don't work that way. Reducing or increasing engine power loses or gains altitude. Pushing forward or pulling back on the stick increases or reduces airspeed. Nope. If the nose rises, the plane will stall because it loses airspeed. The pilot will push the nose forward to increase or maintain airspeed.
From my experience, Reducing or increasing speed didn't make a difference unless you collaborated with a nose movement. I don't think that fuel was a problem, the article suggests the plane "dropped out of the sky", literally, if fuel had ran out, like a DC-10 crash in Portland in the 1980s, The pilots would have been able to glide. Essentially, Airspeed bleeds out over a few minutes, and by then they should have been able to land.
Clearly, it is you who knows nothing. If you're at a cruising speed and you pull the nose up, you decrease speed and eventually stall, if you push the nose down, you increase speed. If you increase the throttle (thrust), you go up, if you decrease the throttle, you go down. This is how pilots change altitudes, not with control surfaces.
Funny every time I have went flying, if I wanted to gain altitude, I eased back on the stick, and when I wanted to lose altitude, I moved the stick forward. Some times I added throttle to keep the airspeed in the climb, or when I wanted lose altitude I retarded the throttles so as not to gain speed. Now if you pull back to hard on the stick and zoom for altitude, yes your going to lose speed, and reach the stall point if you do nothing further to affect the flight of the aircraft. Now yes by increaseing the throttles and not changing the trim you will increace the air flow over the wing creating more lift, and there by gain more altitude, and the opposit can be done to decreace altitude, but in manuvering the Aircraft, the controal aurfaces do definity come into play, and in airobatics the fun really begin's.
You're a pilot?. *makes mental note*. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I read that the pilot was a really experienced F-4E pilot, They don't have that great a glide ratio, but a Civvie jet is not a F-4E. I think it has to be mechanical, but not the engines, perhaps a flap or control surface malfunction, or as you said, a microburst.
You would have no choice but to increase or decrease the throttle, unless you're just doing very minor altitude adjustments. You don't have to pull back hard at all, any amount of motion on the stick up or down is going to affect the airspeed and you'll have to compensate for it unless you let go the stick to go back to straight and level flight. Seems like you're agreeing with me. http://www.av8n.com/how/htm/energy.html
That's more of a secondary effect of increasing thrust, with the primary effect being the increase in speed. Just like how the primary effect of pitch is altitude and the secondary effect is speed. I don't think it's applicable in this case however, the pilot was landing, any speed change would take too long to take effect, Hence, why we're using control surfaces.
Precisely. Q's mistake is that he's thinking of normal flight as opposed to what's involved in landing. There's a major distinction. But I won't knock him TOO hard because it's evident he's never flown a plane and is just going by what he's read and heard about flying.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
OK, then, what kind of pilot - paper airplanes?? Because what you've said definitely does NOT apply to final approach operations!:bugeye:
3,300 Hours logged, rotor and fixed. The one in the Hudson was a F-4 jock, the one flying the Turkish Liner, I don't know about.
is there a difference between a mocroburst and a wind sheer? We had a wind sheer come through here a few years ago and it did as much damage as a tornado
OH! Now, you're interested? You just dismiss me out of hand at first and now you want to delve further? Up yours asshole. One of the biggest mistake I ever made here was defending a prick like you. Piss off.
Suit yourself, no loss to me. I'm finished with you and this part of the discussion anyway since you have taken this thread WAY off topic and the minor point I was trying to make. Which was that they should (and probably are) considering that it might have been a microburst that caused the crash. The weather was perfect for it - the same exact conditions that existed at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport several years ago when a microburst brought down a Delta flight while it was in the process of landing.
