witchdoctor
Active member
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2003
- Posts
- 40
*********************************************
This is for the dipstick whale pilot and his idiotic comments regarding flt 587.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printed...son11jan11,1,2791965.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
COMMENTARY
From By-the-Book Pilot to Fall Guy
He did what fliers are trained to do. So why are he and 264 other
people dead?
By Peter Garrison
Peter Garrison writes a monthly accident analysis column for
Flying magazine.
January 11, 2005
Ever heard of Sten Molin? He was the pilot whose overaggressive
use of the rudder pedals of an American Airlines Airbus brought
the airplane down on Long Island late in 2001 with the loss of
265 lives. His name was in all the papers. The National
Transportation Safety Board said it was his fault.
Close reading of the NTSB report, released in late December 2004,
reveals, however, that Molin was merely a convenient fall guy.
The real cause of the accident was a conspiracy of ignorance
persistently tolerated by the Federal Aviation Administration,
the airlines and the airplane manufacturers. The pilot was the
last link in a chain of causes that made him as much the innocent
victim as anyone else who died in that airplane.
Molin, whom colleagues described as a smooth, accurate and
above-average pilot, was just doing what he had been trained to
do, and under circumstances in which he and all other pilots
believed that nothing they did could possibly hurt the airplane.
That a few not-very-hard kicks on the Airbus' unusually sensitive
rudder pedals could actually break the vertical fin off the
plane, dooming it to certain loss of control, was a fact that
only some aeronautical engineers, and a few oddly reticent
bureaucrats at the FAA, understood.
The Federal Aviation Regulations prescribe the strength of every
part of an airplane. Some requirements are based on turbulence,
others on maneuvers that the pilot can perform. Because the
strains that maneuvers impose on an airplane increase as the
plane's speed increases, engineers select a certain speed, called
the maneuvering speed, as an upper boundary. Before the Airbus
accident, nearly all pilots believed that as long as an airplane
was flying at or below the maneuvering speed, nothing they could
do would break it.
That belief was universal in part because it was so logical.
After all, what would be the point of publishing a "maneuvering
speed" if it were not a safe speed for maneuvering? Besides, the
FAA explicitly supported it. The government's own Pilot's
Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge says "any combination of
flight control usage [below the maneuvering speed], including
full deflection of the controls … should not create an excessive
air load."
Airlines and manufacturers had developed training curricula
designed to encourage pilots, who normally fly with a velvet
touch to keep passengers comfortable, to use all the controls
uninhibitedly in certain emergencies. Sometime before the Airbus
crash, when an instructor pilot asked Molin why he had used the
rudder so vigorously during a simulated wake turbulence
encounter, Molin had cited an American Airlines pilot-education
program that specifically encouraged doing so.
Molin's Airbus was below the maneuvering speed when it broke
apart. Its fin came off because he stepped on the rudder pedals
alternately, in quick succession, in an attempt to steady the
aircraft after it had been jolted by the wake of another
airliner. Strangely, federal regulations require the vertical fin
to be strong enough to withstand full deflection of the rudder —
the movable rear portion of the surface — only when the airplane
is flying straight ahead, but not when it's "yawed" — that is,
pointed a few degrees to one side or the other. The effect of
alternating rudder inputs is just that — to yaw the airplane. Yet
no pilot's handbook, no simulator curriculum and no FAA
publication mentioned the possible dire consequences before the
Airbus crash.
Neither the regulations nor the airplanes have changed, nor will
they, but there's been a good deal of verbal backing and filling
in the three years since the accident. Handbooks and curricula
have been revised, articles have been written and bulletins have
been circulated to pilots pointing out the limited protection
provided by the maneuvering speed. Too late for Sten Molin,
though, and for his fellow victims of a pervasive and dangerous
misunderstanding.
***************************************************
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please go here:
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This is for the dipstick whale pilot and his idiotic comments regarding flt 587.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printed...son11jan11,1,2791965.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
COMMENTARY
From By-the-Book Pilot to Fall Guy
He did what fliers are trained to do. So why are he and 264 other
people dead?
By Peter Garrison
Peter Garrison writes a monthly accident analysis column for
Flying magazine.
January 11, 2005
Ever heard of Sten Molin? He was the pilot whose overaggressive
use of the rudder pedals of an American Airlines Airbus brought
the airplane down on Long Island late in 2001 with the loss of
265 lives. His name was in all the papers. The National
Transportation Safety Board said it was his fault.
Close reading of the NTSB report, released in late December 2004,
reveals, however, that Molin was merely a convenient fall guy.
The real cause of the accident was a conspiracy of ignorance
persistently tolerated by the Federal Aviation Administration,
the airlines and the airplane manufacturers. The pilot was the
last link in a chain of causes that made him as much the innocent
victim as anyone else who died in that airplane.
Molin, whom colleagues described as a smooth, accurate and
above-average pilot, was just doing what he had been trained to
do, and under circumstances in which he and all other pilots
believed that nothing they did could possibly hurt the airplane.
That a few not-very-hard kicks on the Airbus' unusually sensitive
rudder pedals could actually break the vertical fin off the
plane, dooming it to certain loss of control, was a fact that
only some aeronautical engineers, and a few oddly reticent
bureaucrats at the FAA, understood.
The Federal Aviation Regulations prescribe the strength of every
part of an airplane. Some requirements are based on turbulence,
others on maneuvers that the pilot can perform. Because the
strains that maneuvers impose on an airplane increase as the
plane's speed increases, engineers select a certain speed, called
the maneuvering speed, as an upper boundary. Before the Airbus
accident, nearly all pilots believed that as long as an airplane
was flying at or below the maneuvering speed, nothing they could
do would break it.
That belief was universal in part because it was so logical.
After all, what would be the point of publishing a "maneuvering
speed" if it were not a safe speed for maneuvering? Besides, the
FAA explicitly supported it. The government's own Pilot's
Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge says "any combination of
flight control usage [below the maneuvering speed], including
full deflection of the controls … should not create an excessive
air load."
Airlines and manufacturers had developed training curricula
designed to encourage pilots, who normally fly with a velvet
touch to keep passengers comfortable, to use all the controls
uninhibitedly in certain emergencies. Sometime before the Airbus
crash, when an instructor pilot asked Molin why he had used the
rudder so vigorously during a simulated wake turbulence
encounter, Molin had cited an American Airlines pilot-education
program that specifically encouraged doing so.
Molin's Airbus was below the maneuvering speed when it broke
apart. Its fin came off because he stepped on the rudder pedals
alternately, in quick succession, in an attempt to steady the
aircraft after it had been jolted by the wake of another
airliner. Strangely, federal regulations require the vertical fin
to be strong enough to withstand full deflection of the rudder —
the movable rear portion of the surface — only when the airplane
is flying straight ahead, but not when it's "yawed" — that is,
pointed a few degrees to one side or the other. The effect of
alternating rudder inputs is just that — to yaw the airplane. Yet
no pilot's handbook, no simulator curriculum and no FAA
publication mentioned the possible dire consequences before the
Airbus crash.
Neither the regulations nor the airplanes have changed, nor will
they, but there's been a good deal of verbal backing and filling
in the three years since the accident. Handbooks and curricula
have been revised, articles have been written and bulletins have
been circulated to pilots pointing out the limited protection
provided by the maneuvering speed. Too late for Sten Molin,
though, and for his fellow victims of a pervasive and dangerous
misunderstanding.
***************************************************
--
To update your e-mail addresses and privacy preferences with APA,
please go here:
http://www.alliedpilots.org/Members/Services/Profile/Member_Profile.asp
--
