Old 02-19-2009 | 11:45 AM
  #61  
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captain152
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Originally Posted by eaglefly
I certainly agree with what you'd WANT to do (also with many experiences in the sim and for real), but in the simulator you know what's going to happen. Many years ago, when the Embraer RJ's were new, we had a lot of trim faliures. Once I had a complete pitch trim faliure in a 135 that occured AFTER the airplane was configured for landing at flaps 45 and the VREF speed was around 135 knots (in light freezing rain to boot). Anyone whose flown a lightly loaded 135 knows what full power can do. At that time, some faliures could go UNANNOUNCED either aurally or on the EICAS and this was one of those times. When "set max thrust" along with gear and flaps was completed by my F/O, it took both hands and all the pressure I could muster to keep the airplane from going past a pitch attitude that would have been WELL past 30 degrees. Since no alert of any kind occured and I couldn't take my hands of the controls, I had the F/O reduce thrust and our gentle turn also unloaded the wing. Nonetheless, we blew thru the missed approach altitude by almost 1000 feet before we got everything back on an even keel. ATC understood when we reported a flight control faliure and subsequent emergency landing.

Point is, that without the timely power reduction, the stick forces required to prevent an excessive nose up attitude and inevitable stall may be beyond what one (or even two) pilots could produce depending on the aircraft and the excess power available. Any residual ice on the wing (thankfully, I don't think we had any) would only add a unpredicatble wildcard to the ultimate results of any incipent or full stall or excessively unusual attitude.

Again, just thinking out loud....................
I think you and I are on the same page, but just saying things a little differently...

I think you could muster enough force to control the plane to the point of recovery, but if it caught you off guard and you had ice on the wings ... it might be game over before you even try.

That's a scary story on your end though, glad you made it out safely! Having a runaway trim is NEVER fun! I remember one time they gave us a runaway trim and then failed the main trim, so after about 3-5 seconds of trying to figure out what in the world happened I finally went to the standby trim and it worked like a charm. It's amazing how fast your brain works when it's in overdrive
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