In article 7a611b72-866e-4c6a-8dbb-
, says...
On May 14, 5:53*pm, Mike Ash wrote:
In article
,

*xyzzy wrote:
It may boggle the mind of a PP like you (or me for that matter) who
seldom or never flies in icing conditions. *However in icing
conditions a tail stall is possible, and the recovery from that is
exactly what this flight crew did. Yes, I know *the Q400 is alleged
not to be suspectible to this but the captain had just come from a
type that is, and the FO spent a good part of the five minutes before
the crash chatting about how she feared icing, had never experienced
it before, and how would she handle it, etc. *So then after chatting
and worrying about icing, they got something that felt/looked like it
could be an ice-induced tail stall and since it was on their minds
they did the recovery from that. *They acted on instinct and it was
the wrong instinct. *IMO.

Thanks for the input. However, there is something about what you say
which worries me greatly. You say that pulling back on the stick is the
correct response to a tail stall, the exact opposite of what you do for
a normal stall. Well, if you have a normal stall and react to it like a
tail stall, then you die, as evidenced by what happened here.

Do you also die if you react to a tail stall as though it were a normal
stall? Assuming the answer is "yes", how exactly are you supposed to
handle a situation where you don't know which is which?

You seem to be implying that the answer is "guess" (and please forgive
me if that's not what you meant to imply), which seems to be extremely
dangerous if you're basically flipping a coin to decide whether or not
you get to survive the stall.

The way you recognize a tail stall is that pitch control becomes
abnormal when flaps are extended. Plus knowing that you're in icing
conditions.

Unfortunately that's what happened to the Q400, because coincidently
their airspeed decayed through wing stall speed at the same time flaps
were extended, so in this case they had a perfect storm to fool
themselves on the type of stall

Note, I'm not saying they were totally innocent here because they
aren't, as they should have been on top of their airspeed before it
happened, I'm just saying that internet PPL holders who never fly in
icing conditions have no right to say that "it boogles" the mind or is
inconceivable that the captain would "be so stupid" as to pull back on
the stick when he entered the stall.

Well I think it's fair comment - there was no uncommanded pitch *down* -
(if that's what the pilot saw on instruments, then fair enough - but it
clearly isn't).

--
Duncan