Timeline for Why did my plane descend nose down?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
26 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 17, 2021 at 12:28 | comment | added | mkrieger1 | It took me a while to realize that you were not the pilot. That would have worried me... | |
| Sep 16, 2021 at 20:33 | history | protected | user14897 | ||
| Sep 16, 2021 at 13:46 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | For learning about flight safety procedures and stuff, Mentour Pilot might be a better choice. Fewer jokes, more focus on how procedures and everything are designed to promote safety, and how aviation has learned from past disasters. | |
| Sep 16, 2021 at 2:38 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | TL:DR: aviation gets less scary for many people when they learn more about it while sitting comfortably on earth. And learning some about cabin crew responsibilities, and what they do in an actual emergency, might shed some light on things. | |
| Sep 16, 2021 at 2:35 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | @EliseBarker: Some pilots have youtube channels where they explain stuff about aviation for a general audience, for example Kelsey, aka 74 Gear has a good sense of humour, and has answered questions from viewers. (Also some movie reviews explaining how real flying is different from what you see in most Hollywood movies, or what's accurate in movies like Sully). Learning some more about everything pilots do to fly safely might help you get over some fears. Maybe including crash investigations to learn what's actually bad. | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 23:15 | comment | added | DeltaLima♦ | AIrcraft usually land into the wind, but your flight landed with a ~5kt tailwind. My hypothesis: The crew may have planned the descent profile so that they would fly past the airport, turn and then land into the wind. At some point they discovered that a straight-in landing would result in an acceptable tailwind. This reduces track length and therefore flight time, but it also meant a steeper descent. The descent speed peaked at over 4000 fpm, which is very high for airline operation. | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 21:02 | comment | added | Maxpm | @GdD: It's simply wrong to say an airliner can't descend "any other way" than by "throttling back the engines and putting the nose down." Airplanes (even airliners!) can absolutely descend by throttling back without putting the nose down. That's not necessarily a stall; it's just some positive angle-of-attack. It's safe and controlled. Your link about why intentional stalls can be impractical doesn't have any bearing, because it's a false dichotomy to say the airliner either has to be nose-down or be in a stall. | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 16:29 | comment | added | jamesqf | @GdD: Did I say anything about "a fully developed stall"? No, the point of the exercise is to fly close to the stalling point, so that you learn what it feels like, and so avoid getting into a stall in real flying. What you wrote is "it really can't be done any other way". I'm just pointing out that IT CAN, as your airshow example also shows. Of course it's not usual practice, but there are a lot of things that are possible that aren't usually done. | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 15:15 | answer | added | axus | timeline score: 0 | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 14:04 | comment | added | Opifex | This question was so confusing for me to read, because up until I started reading the answers, I was under the impression that OP was the pilot of that flight. Not a passenger :) | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 13:22 | answer | added | Graham | timeline score: 8 | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 8:44 | comment | added | Tim | @EliseBarker I’ll just point out that your flight had a (brief) moment of something slightly unusual happening and landed 100% safely and normally. If anything, it sounds reassuring to me that something can be different, and it’s still incredibly safe! | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 7:10 | comment | added | GdD | I've never seen or heard of anyone using a fully developed stall to descend outside of airshow routines @jamesqf, as for the landing flare that's a very different circumstance. | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 6:28 | answer | added | yankee | timeline score: 26 | |
| Sep 15, 2021 at 3:32 | comment | added | jamesqf | @GdD: But you wrote AIRPLANES, not airliners. Airliners are only a small subset of airplanes. I doubt whether many of us here fly airliners, or ever want to. (Comments from actual airline pilots would be welcome :-)) I've certainly seen airliners descending in a nose-up attitude, and certainly they nose is up at touchdown - do a search for pictures. | |
| Sep 14, 2021 at 21:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackAviation/status/1437883880745414659 | ||
| Sep 14, 2021 at 16:25 | comment | added | GdD | I'm well aware of that @jamesqf, it is not a method for descent in an airliner, which has been asked and I have answered such here: aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/79236/… | |
| Sep 14, 2021 at 16:13 | comment | added | jamesqf | @GdD: Actually it can. If you've taken flying lessons that involved stalls, you've probably done an extreme version of it: point the nose up until you're on the edge of stalling, then add power to stay stable. You can vary the power to climb or descend, And pretty much all airplanes do the last part of landing in a nose-high attitude. In a single engine plane, nose down landing can get you a prop strike. | |
| Sep 14, 2021 at 14:50 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Sep 14, 2021 at 8:44 | comment | added | Elise Barker | Thanks... I just hope I can make myself fly again. Maybe the plane that alerted our flight was in trouble and we had to descend quickly ! | |
| Sep 14, 2021 at 8:14 | history | edited | Bianfable | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
clean up post, use paragraphs, add tags
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| Sep 14, 2021 at 7:36 | answer | added | Sanchises | timeline score: 36 | |
| Sep 14, 2021 at 7:33 | answer | added | Ben | timeline score: 28 | |
| Sep 14, 2021 at 7:27 | comment | added | GdD | Welcome to the site. Airplanes always descend by throttling back the engines and putting the nose down, it really can't be done any other way. I believe you when you say it was more exciting than usual, and it is unusual for them to remind people to leave their bags behind at that phase of the flight so it's possible the airplane experienced an emergency of some kind. Please keep in mind it was all fine in the end, chances are they were acting out of an abundance of caution. | |
| S Sep 14, 2021 at 6:50 | review | First questions | |||
| Sep 14, 2021 at 8:14 | |||||
| S Sep 14, 2021 at 6:50 | history | asked | Elise Barker | CC BY-SA 4.0 |