MN_Moose

My Feedback: (1)

I understand that the best aircraft failure recovery technique is prevention.

However, assuming you did everything you could to construct a sound aircraft, and are flying an aircraft that matches your ability, what are some failure recovery techniques?

Let me give you several scenarios (please add to these if you see fit):

- Dead stick on takeoff.
- Dead stick at altitude.
- Dead stick at landing approach.
- Throttle stuck at wide open.
- Loss of radio signal.
- Loss of one or both ailerons.
- Loss of rudder.
- Loss of elevator.
- Complete loss of wing.
- Complete loss of vertical stabilizer.
- Complete loss of horiz stabilizer.
- Complete loss of tail.
- Unexpected wind gusts ant inopportune times
- flutter

Common sense would answer many of these, but if you have ever encountered one or more of these situations, do you have advice that you think would benefit rookie pilots who have yet to encounter any of these scenarios?

Have you found any literature, websites, or other discussion threads that have answered this issue well?

beardking

My Feedback: (4)

My most common recovery technique for these situations would be to walk out and pick the biggest pieces and sulk back home.

Unstable

level plane immediately, if enough altitude make 180 diving turn and land. while calling out to alert other pilots.

alert other pilots and head to end of runway. lose altitude in a spiral pattern until at correct altitude to land. announce landing and bring it in as normal.

announce deadstick and point nose slight down to keep airspeed.
if coming in hot a quick "s" turn to loose speed.

announce trouble and climb to high altitude. wait for fuel exhaustion then announce and proceed with deadstick landing.

alert all bystanders of loss of control, if headed for pit area work to clear area. move throttle stick and trim to full off in case of recovery of signal results in shutting the engine down.

alert all bystanders of loss of control, use rudder to steer plane if possible. if not attempt shallow "landing" in safe area.

declare emergency landing. make shallow turn and keep easy on throttle. land as normal.

announce loss of control to all bystanders, shut down engine use rudder and ailerons to direct plane to safe area.

alert all bystanders, attempt to enter knife edge flight and direct plane to safe area shut down engine

declare emergency landing, keep throttle low and turns shallow to land.

alert all bystanders, shut down engine attempt to direct plane to safe area with rudder and aileron.

alert all bystanders, shut down engine, if pointed in safe direction induce roll to stabilize direction.

apply throttle and climb. turn away from pits if able.

reduce throttle and enter climb to kill speed. keeping speed low declare emergency landing and land as normal.

some of these I have done (all the deadstick scenarios and the loss of vertical stab.) others I have seen or heard about. (loss of tail)

the most important thing to worry about is if its going in. to make sure it hits the ground in a safe area as slowly as possible and to make sure everyone around you knows that there is trouble.

seanreit

My Feedback: (60)

Very good answers, I'm a failry experianced RC pilot, but have run into very little of the problems foreshadowed above. However, I must say, I'm not sure I would have considered using the rudder to help direct the airplane safely (away from anyone) to the ground with loss of elevator. Very good answers, thanks for taking the time to respond.

MN_Moose

My Feedback: (1)

Unstable, thanks for sharing your experience!

Last point well said - make sure everyone knows.

Also points out that safety should always be #1 concern. Aircraft expendable, people aren't.

MajorTomski

Ironically a year ago a new student brought a Kadet LT-40 to the field. He stated that it had been flown before, and that He'd like some instruction. So we hooked up the buddy box and proceeded to aviate. On climb out at about 40 feet I lost the ailerons. No problem, switch to rudder make three left turns and land. OOPS on down wind I lost the throttle. Gladly it was still above half throttle so the bird was climbing. OK fly two channel till its out of gas. THEN I lost the ELEVATOR!! Thank the Chief Pilot that the plane was still climbing. So we did rudder only turns loops and rolls for the next 20 minutes. I was taking odds in my head weather I'd loose the rudder or the battery would die before we got it down. End of the story, ran out of gas, made a textbook no flair landing in the high grass at the edge of the field. Aircraft was fixed and flying an hour later. The Ailerons failed because he forgot the screw in the servo output shaft so the control arm fell off. The elevator and throttle failed when the quick links at the output arms loosened up. Sure glad he at least got the rudder right
Tom

MN_Moose

My Feedback: (1)

Tom, thanks.

Incredable story! Sounds like some great flying - rudder only. Gee wiz.

Cactus.

My Feedback: (1)

ummm we have loads of area so not too bad, but if your caught for space pulling up to slow down and get a steep glide angle helps, also side slipping or S turns. Call Dead Stick and also when you go out to collect


Call dead stick, dont go too far downwind and aproach from much closer than normal if its not a belly lander anyway. flare out as per normal but dont run out of speed by pulling up like you normally would. dont collect a bag of sticks from your feet, if you cant make it then dont stretch it
this is one of the least stressfull emergancys, esp when your in the club climb and glide and you get almost 6 mins


ok, maybe this is less stressful... call dead stick, keep the speed up, side slip or S turn, again, dont worry about landing at your feet.


Whats the problem? call you have trouble, enjoy your flight, if the plane dosnt like flying fast include lots of loops and turns to keep the airspeed down, stay high, call dead stick when you get it and come in for a change of underwear



Shout like hell to warn everyone, also to check your frequency, throttle back and trim back, keep trying to fly the plane till it hits, you never know.. looking down at the tranny quicky also helps incase you turned it off.


One aileron isnt a problem, call emergany landing, and be aware you'll have slightly less control at slow speeds than normal. loosing both is worse, not too bad if its flying level, try to use rudder to land, i have seen rolling planes saved by pros tho.


Bah, who needs it? if you've got ailerons call emergancy landing and land as per normal. if its causing problems with flight throttle back and side slip using aileron and elevator to compensate, you'll need a land a little fast to keep control.


Call emergancy, if still flying level use the throttle slighty to see if you can control pitch, if diving try inverted. if your gonna go in cut the throttle and use remaining controls to keep it away from people.


call emergancy and heads up, we all wanna see it pile in, cut throttle and try to use elevator and rudder to slow impact, after that watch the wing float down coz you'll want that back


first dont panic, call emergancy, you can sometimes fly without it, keep all turns home smooth, or lower throttle and land the direction your going, dont slow down too much. if its spinning call heads up, cut throttle and watch

This happened to me, call emergancy, use either flaps to control pitch or throttle, i had to flip inverted and use my throttle as pitch control, made a perfectly controled inverted harrier! landing, at our display if you've lost it, as with all things, cut the throttle and use remaining controls to keep it away from people, using ailerons here will keep it tracking straight down.



applogise to fellow flyers
dont over react, the gust that tipped you might also recorrect you, if you dont feel confident, power up to punch out of the turbulence. might want to try landing in a slight diffrent area ( comes from experiance with 20ft rotors!!)


flirt back ,aint often a lass turns up.
failing that, throttle back, pull up hard to loose speed, if you've lost a surface refer to above. land asap to find the troubble. if flying a SPAD, throttle up and enjoy




the rules are most, are let your fellow pilots be aware of the problem, and dont panic. most other things are instinct or 20-20 hinesight.
i've landed planes with no tail, snapped wings, other peoples wings in mine, loose rudder, no rudder ( stub fin only ) erm, what else. loads

MN_Moose

My Feedback: (1)

phillybaby >> :LOL:

Your reply was witty, hilarious, and informative.

Many thanks.

Blackie

OK I am still green in this area but I can add some input to "loss of radio signal" sometimes by moving the antenna or repositioning your body can make a difference to reclaiming signal, depending on what caused it it in the first place. Also if applicable adding a redundant system would aid in battery loss.

Blackie

Cactus.

My Feedback: (1)

oh yes, loss of radio signal, start running off after the plane like a headless chicken holding the radio high above your head, does nothing but give us lot a laugh
what did work for another guy was putting the radio down and walking off, the plane came back! he turned on again and landed


MN_Moose: glad you enjoyed

MajorTomski

AND... something that doesn't get printed enough is that the strongest signal off your transmitter antenna is a cone at a 45 degree angle away from the antenna. The weakest signal point is straight off the tip of the antenna. So if you think you've lost signal then DON'T point the antenna straight at the airplane.

Blackie

Boy aren't we funny today phiilly All that aside, actually that did happen to me once. I had one up doing its on thing moving future away from me but once I turned my body it started minding me again, thus allowing me to land it. Found the problem, was metal to metal, fixed and went back up.

Later I found out from another member "communications expert" what I mentioned above.

Blackie

visioneer_one

My Feedback: (506)

Let's see.

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I added a couple and clarified some others.

Blackie

Oh! you guys were serious about running after the plane, I thought that was a kidding gesture.

screamindemon69

hey, when it happens to you, you will do whatever it takes to get the damn thing to the ground!!! such as chase the plane! i have been known to throw sticks at it while it's coming towards me, (don't worry, i was by myself, if there was anyone else there i wouldn't have thrown anything into the air) any thing to bang the radio into working. (remember that you will not be sane when this happens) two of the three times that i have chased the plane the radio has come back. my batt. was low in the transmitter. just make everyone aware of the situation!!!

FLYING MOUNTIE

All excellent answers especially "Unstable" very clear and easy to understand. Most of us that have been flying for a while have been involved in more than one of the above. Just last weekend I took my new scratch built 1/4 scale cub up and had my hands full - come to discover the ailerons were bakwards and the worst part is I knew better and thought I checed out the plane thorougly. Just go to show it does not matter how long you've been at it we all get caught once in a while.
My advice is keep your cool and handle the situation as best you can when it happens as you don't have a lot of time to think let alone react in most cases. Keep it safe!

screamindemon69

oh yeah, safe huh i think that somethings just can't be avoided. have any of you seen the thread with about the plane that had it's tail come off in flight? all you can do is just spin and hope!

Wh00ps

Humorous mode: engaged
You've had to chase a plane three times for a low tx battery?

The following quote comes to mind:

"If you've been on TV more than twice, talking about what the tornado sounded like....."

:bananahea

dirtkiller

My Feedback: (36)

funny you should ask about a missing horizontal stab
This last weekend I had a structural failure in my Midwest extra 300s I managed to bring it back from about 900 ft out and 300 ft up in knife edge cleared the fence and killed the engine as I rolled it level and watched it pancake in broke the landing gear and firewall other than that wing is perfect and fuse is good easy fix

screamindemon69

well the third time the the reciever had some water in it. i'm not sure how that happend!!! i can maybe guess that, because it was really humid that day, some condensation might have formed on the inside. who knows!:stupid: the other two times it was a low batt. HOWEVER, in my defence i would like to note that the little beeper thing that was SUPPOSED to indicat a low batt was not working either time. i still felt pretty stupid though.

jw_j

is there any way to get the servos to go back to level, and the throttle servo to go all the way down to idle after the receiver battery dies? i just want some preventive ideas, i have seen some fancy digital hi torque servos out there that when they have no power you can spin the control arms forever and have no resistance, but you cant move it by hand when there is power going to the servo

fryfrog

My Feedback: (1)

i have a throttle servo failsafe in my boat that goes to a pre-set position (idle) when it loses radio signal. not sure if that is the same as out of power. how about a strong spring working against the throttle hooked to the arm, rigged such that when power was NOT applied the spring was strong enough to pull it to idle?

or perhaps a 2nd battery that was triggered (via electronics) when the primary battery was low on voltage, probably not hard for an electronics wiz to create

Cactus.

My Feedback: (1)

fail sifes wont work if the battery dies, springs will. attach a pen srping to the servo horn and a hard point, will pull it closed if the batt dies, wont if the servo locks tho

Jackal

Just a week ago I lost my brand new Extra300 on test flight. The whole tail section came off and the rest crashed hard on concrete runway (( Even lost my brand new OS 91FX (((((((

In that situation there wasnt much I could do........since I was only 200' above ground. I had that one made with extra large Elevators and Rudder. But it wasnt the flutter which caused the crash. Inappropriate stab reinforcement (although the stab was solid 1/8" balsa) is what we all at the club concluded.

Now I am having another one made. I could use some tips n ideas on strengthening the stab. What kind of reinforcement with what techniques should I use to avoid accidednts like the one earlier.

Than you all for sharing your experience.