Someone breaking into your cockpit...

[Cornelius]

I'm lucky most of my passengers are from Wyoming. Can anybody say, "You got a purty mouth", and "SQUEEEEEEEAL like a pig". Those Al Queda bastards wouldn't last one second with the country boys.

 

[pilot141]

Yikes, sdpilot!

sdpilot, since you said

"grab the sidestick", I assume you fly an Airbus.

If you are willing to ops check the structural integrity of an Airbus, my hat is off to you. Also my tail, my engines, and anything else hanging out in the wind.

On a serious note about maneuvering to stop hijackers, I would consider it only as an absolute last resort, eg the hijacker is in the cockpit with his arms around the throat of the other pilot. As many people have mentioned the pax are going to be a huge resource now, and if someone is attacking the door, your maneuvering may hurt the good-Samaritan pax and end up helping the hijackers. Or Bruce the F/A may just be winding up to brain a hijacker with a bottle of Chardonnay when you lay on the G's. Unless you know FOR SURE that maneuvering will help the situation, it's not worth it.

Better to have the strongest (usually the most junior, right?) person waiting by the door with the crash axe, flashlight, bad breath, and lots of adrenaline. Soon, though, you will have the awesome equalizing power of a gun at your disposal.

Use the maneuvering if you have to, but I would not use it lightly.

 

[Freight Dog]

If two or more hijackers rushed the cockpit - do you honestly think you could successfully defend it? UAL 93 crew was unarmed, put up a fight and couldn't fend them off.

I want that door bullet-proof and I want guns!

 

[avbug]

Big bag of marbles; the cheap cat's eyes. Toss them on the floor. Hang fly paper just inside the cockpit door. Those little thin tapes you pull from the rolled up cardboard tubes to hang inside the tack room in the barn. A little crisco on the door handle before you lock it up to start the trip. Set a rub just inside the door and put a whoopee cushion under it...nobody will pass that without being both embarassed and highly distracted.

Then while the intruder is distracted, double tap two 230 grain hardball rounds to his center mass.

After that, it's just a matter of explaining to little Jimmy's mother why you popped him, when all he wanted was to come forward and listen to some more of your gladiator stories. Too bad...if little Jimmy had just been a hair taller, he wouldn't have got hit in the HEAD...

 

[ShawnC]

Ok we all know that the B707 and the LJ23 both roll "real nice" so how well, would your speculate, does an aircraft like the A320 or the B757 roll? Assumming that it is a true alerion roll with no unnessary G-load.

 

[TwinTails]

Will a flying hard drive like an A-320 even "let you" roll? I guess it should. It's a perfectly coordinated manuever if you know what your doing.

 

[EagleRJ]

Will a flying hard drive like an A-320 even "let you" roll? I guess it should. It's a perfectly coordinated manuever if you know what your doing.

The A320 can't be rolled. Once you get to 60 degrees of bank, the controls stop responding and the HAL-9000 reminds you that you're doing something wrong.

Cause, you know, the computer knows better than the pilot.

 

[TwinTails]

Wait one second here. Are you saying that once you've past 60 deg. you have no controle? That can't be right. There has been many a pilot who've been knocked upside down by turbulence weather it be wake, t-bangers, or CAT where the safest and best recovery option was to continue the roll all the way around. I guess no matter how you do it, you gotta get things dirty side down one way or another.

 

[Eagleflip]

Although this reply doesn't have any resemblance to the origin of the thread... nope, the A320 won't do an classic 360 degree roll unless you are no longer in what's called "normal law."

A320 normal law is the flight control software in charge when all of the flight control computers and some other critical pieces of equipment are working. It will give you (in part) up to 67.5 degrees in bank, 30 to 20 positive pitch (depending on configuration and about half that negative, and will provide a bunch of over and under speed protections, including the ability to automatically roll out of a bank and level off (if overspeeding downhill originally). Roll control is normally limited to 15 degrees per second. There are a bunch more protections in the system as well, but there are safeguards too in case of system/aircraft faults. Don't worry though--you can be rough with it if you are careless or if you want to.

If you were to find yourself upside down through no fault of your own (guess it would have to be, since you can't get there under normal circumstances), e.g. turbulence or wake, alternate laws for recovery would take effect and give you the control to recover the aircraft.

Its a pretty cool jet, let me tell ya'. At first, I was aghast that those Frenchys would design something that took control out of my hands, but after I flew it a bit, I realized that safety is the name of the game, and this is one amazingly safe airliner.

 

[TwinTails]

Thanks Eagleflip, yeah off the subject a little but I got a curious.

 

[ShawnC]

Can't you disable the control law computer and give the pilot direct access to the controls?

 

[dispatchguy]

Does the phrase "Open the pod bay door HAL" mean anything?

Fifi doesnt like being messed with, even in direct flight control law (if my rudimentary understanding is correct), youre still talking to the flight control computers thru the side-stick controller, there is no direct mechanical connection from the side stick controller with the control surfaces.