"Peter R." wrote in message
...
On 2/6/2007 6:28:30 PM, "Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" wrote:

....

Alternate static won't help a frozen or otherwise blocked pitot tube, BTW.

Right. But if you aren't sure what the problem is...


In regards to the pilot of the Caravan, her brain was already
oversaturated
by the crisis of the aircraft stalling and falling. It is understandable
to
me that her brain did not register that perhaps the pitot heat was not on
or
had failed. I had the luxury of only having to deal with that one problem;
the Caravan pilot had a much bigger problem on her hands.


No kidding. Gotta give her credit for pulling her butt out of the fire.

Sound and g-forces are a good secondary indication that the aircraft is in
an
unusual attitude, but I am pretty confident that I would not be able to
recover my aircraft by sound and g-forces alone.

I would agree. I was just thinking if sound and G were "ok" then perhaps it
may have pointed to the airspeed as the bad actor.


In her case, again, her
aircraft was probably unrecoverable for a short period due to icing and
perhaps a misconfigured autopilot (a/p was probably flying the majority of
the leg and was allowed to take the aircraft into the stall due to icing
before the pilot noticed), so her instruments, other than her ASI, were
not
lying to her. I am surmising that it wasn't until she reached warmer air,
released the a/p, and lost some of the ice that she was able to recover.

It isn't clear from the tape at what point she switched on the anti-ice, but
she did say she had an OAT of 0 C. after she leveled off - doesn't sound
like a lot of "natural" melting happened. But I could be wrong.

--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
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