Shock! Horror! Door pops open!

haha ... I suspected as much.

good point then!

--
Marco Rispoli - NJ, USA / PP-ASEL
My on-line aviation community - http://www.thepilotlounge.com

"Mike Granby" wrote in message
ups.com...

I don't want to seem to be insensitive to it or something but
honestly this sounds to me like another very minor news
piece over-dramatazied by attentioned-starved media.

Well, quite. That was the point I was making........

Marco,

If your door pops open you land, you close it, you take off again ...


You're right - except for some planes. I wouldn't want the gull wing
doors on our Tobago to come open in flight. Some reports have it swing
up and stay in a position about 5 to 10 inches open, some have it dent
badly and some have it rip off, with a likelyhood of hitting the
stabilizer. That would ruin the day.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

In article 3oc7e.19394$1p4.12250@trndny06,
George Patterson wrote:

Mike Granby wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4439341.stm

And the headline from the Daily Mail link on that site is "New Zealand PM
cheats
death in air drama - 4 hrs ago" -- all because the door on an Aztec popped
open
in flight? Give me a break!

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.


There are GA aircraft whose doors will latch closed? Not sure I've ever
seen one...

--
Take out the airplane for reply

"Wallace Berry" wrote in message
...
There are GA aircraft whose doors will latch closed? Not sure I've ever
seen one...

Lake amphibs (LA-180, EP, Buccaneer, Renegade), for example. The doors are
hinged on a forward-facing surface, and the pressure on the door from the
slipstream is far greater in the closing direction than any minimal opening
force caused by pressure differential.

Pretty much anything with a sliding canopy (Grumman Tiger/Cheetah, Ercoupe,
Thorpe T-18, etc), of course. Without a hinge, there's no problem at all.

Anything with a canopy that opens forward, like the Diamond DA40 or Lancair
360, probably would not have any trouble either.

In fact, there's such a wide variety of cabin door designs, that I think
it's entirely possible that there are more designs that CAN be closed in
flight than that can't. Of course, the most popular designs all have that
problem, and so might outnumber the others in terms of actual numbers of
aircraft. But it's certainly not hard to find an airplane whose doors can
be closed and latched in flight.

Heck, for that matter...even those designs that "can't" be closed actually
can, given the right airspeed and airplane attitude. I probably wouldn't
bother trying, unless it was REALLY cold and I was a long way from landing.
But there's often a way.

Pete

Wallace Berry wrote:
In article 3oc7e.19394$1p4.12250@trndny06,
George Patterson wrote:


Mike Granby wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4439341.stm

And the headline from the Daily Mail link on that site is "New Zealand PM
cheats
death in air drama - 4 hrs ago" -- all because the door on an Aztec popped
open
in flight? Give me a break!

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.



There are GA aircraft whose doors will latch closed? Not sure I've ever
seen one...

Never seen a Cessna 150?

In any case, what of it? Flying around with an open door in a light plane is a
non-event. Certainly not "cheating death" as was reported.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

George Patterson wrote:
Wallace Berry wrote:
In article 3oc7e.19394$1p4.12250@trndny06,
George Patterson wrote:


Mike Granby wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4439341.stm

And the headline from the Daily Mail link on that site is "New
Zealand PM
cheats
death in air drama - 4 hrs ago" -- all because the door on an Aztec
popped
open
in flight? Give me a break!

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next
to the
mashed potatoes.



There are GA aircraft whose doors will latch closed? Not sure I've
ever
seen one...

Never seen a Cessna 150?

In any case, what of it? Flying around with an open door in a light
plane is a
non-event. Certainly not "cheating death" as was reported.

It's election year here George. Politicians will do anything to attract
attention. Especially ones who are having problems :-)

george wrote:

It's election year here George. Politicians will do anything to attract
attention. Especially ones who are having problems :-)

Crystal.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

In article mQF7e.8258$ff4.7120@trndny08, George Patterson wrote:
Never seen a Cessna 150?

I've steered Cessna 150s with the doors :-)

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Dylan Smith wrote:
In article mQF7e.8258$ff4.7120@trndny08, George Patterson wrote:

Never seen a Cessna 150?


I've steered Cessna 150s with the doors :-)

I was once flying the club 172 with my buddy MadDog. We'd recently
heard Captain Al Haynes speak about United 232 - the DC-10 that suffered
a total hydraulic failure - and how they controlled the plane with only
power.

So we decided to try it ourselves. While trimmed for cruise we
pretended that we had a total control failure. It was simple to control
altitude with power. We unlatched both doors and pushed one or the
other open for directional control. Turns were very slow but control
was good enough that we flew back to the airport and established a
straight-in approach with an appropriate rate of descent. At about 200
AGL common sense prevailed and I took the controls and went around. I'm
sure we'd have landed OK (on a wide runway) but I wouldn't have wanted
to deal with a crosswind gust on short final.

The only problem with opening the doors was the turbulence inside.
After we secured all the loose charts and checklists that was no problem.

- John Ousterhout -

Granted it's not normally a big deal to have a Piper door unlatch, my
IFR instructor failed to close it properly once. It was about 15
degrees F and we were IMC when it popped open. Strong, very cold gale
through the cockpit, instruments began to fog over, and by the time we
found a place to land we were both shaking with the cold. Since then
I've always briefed passengers not to freak out if it happens.