Recovery from inadvertent inverted flight?

[Strega]

What is the best way ?

Some say split s, some say roll out.. thoughts?

[Strega]

https://youtu.be/cKZGe5hon3k

[Big Pistons Forever]

https://youtu.be/cKZGe5hon3k

Yes I can see how entering a split S entered from cruise flight in a unlimited aerobatic airplane with a full power recovery is exactly the same situation as an inverted stalled Seneca with the gear and flaps down doing 80 Mph at 4000 feet AGL

In most situations you are right, a Split S is not the best way to recover. In some situations, particularly close to the ground it will have deadly consequences. To say in every possible situation it is the wrong way to recover simply shows you have watched a lot of you tube videos but don't have a lot ( or any ) real world experience.......

But hey you want to pontificate on Avcanada, fill your boots it is a free anonymous forum .

[Strega]

actually BPF you mentioned "its amazing how fast the gear retracts when inverted" This would lead some to believe you were inverted with the gear retracted.. just sayin.

Also it would seem the altitude loss (from the split s maneuver ) between what you mentioned in the seneca, and the plane in the video is somewhat similar, around 2000'.. mind you in the case of the seneca, you had the throttles closed; the plane in the video was not in cruise flight.. they had slowed down....

When would you say that it is smarter to recover from inadvertent inverted flight by a split s than a roll? Myself and the forum would like to hear your answer and rational.

[DonutHole]

Doesn't strega fly a p51?

A. When your ailerons are jammed

I suppose you could snap roll it

[photofly]

myself and the forum would like to hear your answer and rational.

Some of us would like to hear some intelligent comment on the subject, but your belligerent and hectoring tone is not helping anyone feel motivated to provide it.

Get off your high horse.

[DonutHole]

That's rich

[Big Pistons Forever]

What means would you say that it is smarter to recover from inverted flight by a split s than a roll? .

I never said that you did

What I said was in that particular, and pretty unusual situation, that I was confronted with, I elected to pull through rather than roll.

I am not going to explain myself because it is obvious to me that you have made up your mind that I was wrong, you are right and nothing I am going to say is going to change that

Good night.

[Strega]

DH..

I have flown a couple of p51s on different occasions, however not as pic... Im a tad short on 500hrs of T6 PIC time for the insurance company to cover me, and I don't have 1.7 mil us to cover the plane if I prang it

[Strega]

What means would you say that it is smarter to recover from inverted flight by a split s than a roll? .

I never said that you did

What I said was in that particular, and pretty unusual situation, that I was confronted with, I elected to pull through rather than roll.

I am not going to explain myself because it is obvious to me that you have made up your mind that I was wrong, you are right and nothing I am going to say is going to change that

Good night.

BPF..

In your situation, you admitted to electing to split s to recover.. a reasonable person would believe as you chose this maneuver to recover, you believed it was the best choice (or some would say "smarter choice" at the time. What is your rational for this decision? or in the future, When would it be smarter to split s to recover from inadvertent inverted flight vs rolling out of this unusual attitude?

[Strega]

myself and the forum would like to hear your answer and rational.

Some of us would like to hear some intelligent comment on the subject, but your belligerent and hectoring tone is not helping anyone feel motivated to provide it.

Get off your high horse.

And people complain I am the disruptive one... I ask a simple question, and am lambasted..

[AuxBatOn]

How many Gs did you pull/how fast did you get in your Split S?

[PilotDAR]

Without wanting to offend anyone with my opinion....

But, none the less, having had to do this a couple of times in "regular" planes, which were not equipped with G meters, pulling through a split S would be my last choice. You have no idea how many G you are pulling, hence you will probably not pull enough, then the speed will really build up, and you're going to have to pull more, at the worst corner of the envelope. Simply recovering from straight down can be very scary, without having built up the speed from the inverted to vertical down portion before you got there. You are much less likely to structurally damage a plane rolling through at much less than Vne, than pulling through near Vne - particularly without a G meter!

This is why I feel so strongly that upset training received from an aerobatic instructor, in an aerobatic plane, is very valuable

[AirFrame]

I think it highly depends on the situation, as do many decisions while flying.

That being said, my grey matter wants to tell me that i'll lose more altitude in a split-S than in half of a roll, so i'd probably elect to do the half-roll to upright if possible. If my airspeed was low, I may let the nose drop first to build some speed, or if i'm high enough a split-S may be an option.

[AuxBatOn]

The only time I would consider the split S (F-18 or light aircraft) would be if I am in an extreme (60 degrees for a light aircraft, 85 degrees for an aerobatic aircraft) nose down attitude. Otherwise, roll upright and pull just outside of stall (or just enough so my speed doesn't decrease) maintaining just below Va.

[cgzro]

I would not try a split S unless i was very high and slightly above stall speed and even then without a G meter your adrenaline could easily lead you to rip the wings off. 6 G is not a lot really despite what top gun etc says. Safest bet would be to let the nose drop 10-20 degrees and as the speed builds apply rudder and aileron to the nearest horizon. The speed buildup will help with the roll rate and avoid a spin entry. Of course if you are extremely low ie small hundreds of feet your best bet to live may actually be to impact the ground level inverted rather than half way through a roll which is certain death.

Best bet as pilotDAR suggests - get proper upset training and see for yourself.

[2R]

Go with the flow, if you are rolling hard it might be easier to keep it rolling.
If it is pitching hard be careful not to pull to hard or the flight controls may stall. They are designed to stall outside of coffin corner ,to protect the airplane from self destruction from excessive g loading.

The right answer depends on how you became inadvertently inverted.
Coming out the bottom of a CB hanging on the five point harness with the tail 25 degrees passed the vertical requires more luck than skill in recovery. Being gentle enough to get maximum roll rate and pitch rate when required without stalling out the control surfaces requires a firm ,but gentle grip.
A transferrable skill set taught in slow flight, move the controls too quickly in the slow flight regime and nothing happens due to the surface stalling out. In the high speed regime if you are outside the VG load chart(coffin corner) it is possible to damage the controls and you might get the opposite , adverse pitching ,rolling and yawing movements that make a bad situation worse.
The best result might be, your airplane might getting as wrinkled as an old flight school beater.
Wrinkles the GA's factory fitted g meter .

Caw canny laddie

[cgzro]

.
The only time I would consider the split S (F-18 or light aircraft) would be if I am in an extreme (60 degrees for a light aircraft, 85 degrees for an aerobatic aircraft) nose down attitude. Otherwise, roll upright and pull just outside of stall (or just enough so my speed doesn't decrease) maintaining just below Va.

Bad advice, please go try it before giving advice here. You could safely execute a split S in exactly the reverese of that situation, ie pitched up substantially, speed bleeding off and approaching 1/2G stall speed or so.

[AuxBatOn]

I think I have enough experience with unusual attitudes to make this comment. I had to recover from precisely those situations after an exercise was complete and founs that rolling wings level and pulling is the most efficient way of recovering.


You are talking about nose up. I am talking about nose down.

[Strega]

This is why I feel so strongly that upset training received from an aerobatic instructor, in an aerobatic plane, is very valuable

This was my point in the other thread, when someone got all hurt..


I dont have any statistics in front of me, or for that matter, even know if I could compile them, but I would be wiling to bet a significant amount of $$ that more people have died from split s recovery from inverted flight, than have from rolling out.

Now I know the naysayers will say a split s is fine, well yes it is, if it is intentional, and executed as it should be. what Im talking about is botching something, becoming inverted, and then split s'ing to recover.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Strega, the original poster did not ask his question re Split S vs Roll out, because he woke up yesterday morning and sudden had this burning notion to explore the concept, his post is a continuation of what I had written in another posts namely.

No spin stories and I can only think of one time when a student well and truly scared me. It was a ME rating in a Pa 34 Seneca and we were doing the engine failure in the overshoot exercise. So we climb to 4000 feet AGL and set up in the final approach configuration , 95 mph , gear down, full flap. I call go around and as soon as the student pushes up both throttles I pull one back to idle. For reasons that remain a mystery the student immediately pulled the control wheel full back. Instead of immediately pushing the wheel forward I tried to talk to the student.

This was a big mistake as the airspeed went away in a hurry and the aircraft stalled. It immediately snap rolled. When I took over we were inverted and the nose was dropping. I yanked the running engine closed, slapped the flaps up ( love those manual flaps ) and selected gear up and then pulled through in a split S recovering at 2000 feet AGL.

Strega responded with

and then pulled through in a split S recovering at 2000 feet AGL

This is why aerobatic training is critical.. recovering from inverted flight via a split s is the WORST method of recovery.

Perhaps I am a bit touchy but I took this and his other statements as point blank declaration that i had done the wrong thing.

I did not think that at the time and I do not think it now.

Some relevant points.

1) I did not make the posts to advocate the Split S as the ideal means to recover from an upset or even with the intention of discussing upset maneuvers, I posted this as an example of how a student scared me in response to a question from another instructor. The lessons I was trying to pass on involved the poor decesions I made which allowed this event to happen in the first place.

2) Factors that lead me to recover by pulling through in this particular and pretty unusual situation

When I took control the aircraft was inverted, stalled , and with a nose low attitude ( more than 45 deg) with the gear and flaps down and one engine running at full power and the other at idle. I stopped the yaw with rudder while reducing power on the full power engine, and slapping the flaps up and selecting gear up. At that moment the aircraft was IMO very close to entering an inverted spin. However I had stopped the yaw and because the aircraft had a nose low attitude of more than 45 degrees and was now accelerating, I elected to gently pull through. I estimate I pulled about 2.5 Gees and recovered with the airspeed about 10 kts below redline at 2000 feet AGL.


3) What would have happened if I had rolled and then pulled. Well I think probably close to the same outcome. The Seneca 1 has very poor ailerons, which resulted in probably the lowest rate of roll of any GA aircraft I have ever flown and which is why they were redesigned in the Seneca 2 and subsequent models. By the time I had finished the roll the aircraft would have been going pretty fast and so I don't think I would have ended up pulling less Gee's although I would have probably lost a bit less attitude. My gut reaction is due to the very unresponsive controls this manoever would inevitably resulted in a rolling pull out or a significant negative Gee loading, neither of which the airplane is designed for.

All and all I let the student put the aircraft in a very bad place and the upset happened incredible quickly.

So back to the original argument. As a general statement, then yes I agree in most situations in the event of an upset it is better to roll to the nearest horizon, rather than pull through.

However I completely reject the argument that in all circumstances that is the case. If this offends Strega, well I am OK with that.

However I want to emphasize the aerobatic training that undoubtedly saved my life that day should never have had to be used in what was supposed to be a routine Multi Engine rating training flight. The fact that I had to reach deep into my bag of tricks to save the day is a very poor reflection on the decisions and actions I made that day that allowed this situation to develop in the first place.

[iflyforpie]

I agree with both Aux Bat's and BPF's rationale... and it lines up with my post in the previous topic.

Strega is just trolling again as usual.... doing his best to entrap other pilots with poor wording or overly simplified situations while never offering up any of his own experiences or mistakes.

[Strega]

MR pie,

Thank your for once again expressing your feelings about my posting nature.

Many years ago, I did make the poor decision to splt s recover from an inverted steep turn that I was doing.. nearly cost me my life.

My point I want to make to the newbie pilots, (not to mention instructors- see the vid I posted) is that recovery from inverted flight via a split S is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!!!!!! ( BPF I can use bold as well)


BPF as you have clearly mentioned you are a class 1 aerobatic instructor, you should know this...

[Big Pistons Forever]

Strega

I am starting to find your posts Extremely Annoying !!!!!

[Chuck Ellsworth]

This is an excellent thread to learn from, and I am a bit puzzled trying to sort out the time frame in this episode.

As I read the story the airplane went out of control during a demo of a single engine go around.

It snap rolled to the inverted attitude, at which point recovery was initiated by.

Reducing power on the engine producing power.

Selected flaps up.

Selected gear up.

Recovered to controlled level flight by a Split S maneuver.

Then there is this comment.

3) The landing gear will retract really fast if you are inverted when you select gear up

How long was the airplane inverted before the Split S was initiated?