Just Flying Around

By Jeremiah Wainwright

I’m confused.

I’ve just read an NTSB report, listened to an NBC story and read MSNBC’s detailed accounting of the crash of a Continental Airlines Dash 8-Q400 Bombardier, a twin-engine turboprop near Buffalo, NY last year, that killed 50 people.

Conclusion, Captain Marvin Renslow got himself into a stall and instead of pushing the nose down (he even had a stick shaker on board to do it for him) jerked back on the yoke and held it there. You know what happened next.

Captain Renslow also failed several test rides in aircraft simulators over the course of his career, said the NTSB sources, who asked not to be named. Then USA today did an extensive story on the need for effective airline simulators so pilots would know that when the wings stall, you push the nose down.

How bizarre. Is there anyone left flying who doesn’t know that?

Is there a CFI around who hasn’t told his or her student to push the nose down. Yet USA Today seems to think we’re all just flying around, wondering what would happen if we stalled our airliner.

Then the Associated Press checked in, reporting that the pilot of the plane “didn’t receive hands-on training on a critical safety system aboard the aircraft.”

The training by the airline - Manassas, Va.-based Colgan - for the plane didn’t include a demonstration or simulation of the stick-pusher system, sources said. Well, duh.

I’ve always thought stick pushers were toys anyway if you’re a competent pilot who knows how to read an attitude indicator, an airspeed indicator, a VSI and come to a conclusion, even if it is in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm.

When I got my license, my examiner worked for the FAA and he put me through five hours of hell in that C-152, pulling every trick he could think of to fail me, mostly under a hood.

I even experienced my first spin, which almost did me in, but that 152 saved us all on its own (not that I let him know that). Point is, anyone who has reached the rank of captain on any airline should know the basic principles of flight.

Here’s what Alan Levin of USA TODAY reported: “Accident investigators say new flight simulators could help correct the biggest killer in aviation: pilots who can’t recover from out-of-control situations like the one that killed 50 people in a crash near Buffalo last year.

Pilots at airlines receive almost no hands-on training in how to recover from aerodynamic stalls and other extreme scenarios, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

“The reason for the glaring shortfall is that current flight simulators, the backbone of airline training programs, cannot accurately reproduce such calamities.”

Balderdash. Go over to Fly-It Simulators in Carlsbad, Calif. and fly one of their’s; it’ll put the fear into you. And by the way, I’ve flown B-707, -727, and -747 simulators and all of them go slightly bananas if you get anywhere near a stall, with stick shakers, horns, buzzers, lights and all sorts of attention-getters.

It’s my opinion that Mr. Levin may be a competent reporter, but he dropped the ball here, just like Renslow - and whoever appointed him captain - did. If there’s anything easier to get out of (presuming you’re not flying at 15 feet) than a stall, I can’t think what it is - just let go of the @#%#$# stick!

All Levin would have had to do is call any competent pilot and ask: “What would you do if you felt your airplane going into a stall and your yoke was vibrating like mad?” But he didn’t and now the nation (or whoever reads that rag) thinks that airline pilots don’t know how to get out of stall.

Poppycock and Balderdash. Somebody should get the head honchos over at NBAA, EAA and AOPA to write a letter to the editor of USA TODAY and explain that, yes, by golly, we do know how to get out of a stall. All of us.

And the only one who didn’t, apparently, is dead. (Although I’m still wondering why his co-pilot didn’t reach over and smash the captain in the mouth and take control.)