To be honest I never for a second would necessarily follow that advice in the real world. Training events I will certainly fly the shaker try and maintain altitude etc, but an airplane is an airplane and if its losing lift, I am reducing the angle of attack, its that simple. If I am 20ft off the ground and I stall the plane I might try to power out of it, but anything else, I am using the basic principles from private pilot days. In these airplanes when you are behind the power curve there is just not enough thrust to get you flying again. In the training environment they teach how to perform and recover from a stall, heres the problem

----You basically have a procedure memorized, power idle, pitch up, call fopr flaps, turn 15 degress, watch the PLI come down, shaker, BOOM power right away................thats ridiculous, talk about controlled environment!

Now imagine the crew of Colgan, the airplane is flying along like normal, they are heads down or distracted then BOOM out of nowhere, completely by surprise the shakers goes off, by the time they reacted the airplane was already a few knots slower then SHAKER activation speed, and the trim was all the way back, so by following STANDARD procedure trying to POWER out of it is hopeless.

The FAA and an airlines OPS SPECS can give you guidance and tell you how something should be done, but flying an airplane is "the artful application of a scientific process", every situation is different, no airplane stalls the same etc, but the one fact remains, you stall a wing the ONLY way to get it flying again is reducing AOA.

I am not faulting the pilots, all I am saying is 121 training on stall procedures will be looked at very CAREFULLY from here on in.

Fly safe guys

 

The stall recovery techniques used by airlines are approved procedures for each airline that conform to the manufactorers procedures. They are also techniques that are designed to be used at the FIRST sign of a stall. We do not normally practice full stall reoveries for transport category aircraft. I do not believe that 121 stall training procedures will be looked at very carefully from here on in either......

I do have aquestions for SAAbrooski, why do you state the trim was full aft?

 

And you are dead on correct...however history has proven that under stress or more likely surprise (unexpected shaker..) people react the way they are trained (its rudementary muscle memory). So the questions remain and I hope your right, and they will look at 121 stall training procedures in this investigation. There is however a disconnect between shaker...or buffet, and a full on deep stall. We only train on first sign of stall ect..ect.. so who knows.

 

as it was slowing on A/P the trim would have been trying to maintain altitude, hence moving to the aft or "up" position. Also with the initial upset of a 31 pitch up I would have to imagine the trim was all the way up, along with the 25lb force of pulling back


well I was trained when you stall an airplane, you point the nose down and apply max power. I know what the CFM states and what the FAA says but real world I stall an airplane, unless I am 50 ft from the ground I am releasing back pressure and adding power. I am not faulting the crew, just thinking out loud.

The Q 400 has MASSIVE amounts of Torque with the trim up all the power, had to be damn near impossible to regain control with that little altitude.

 

I think SAAbrooski assumes, like I have, that the autopilot in the Dash has a servo on the elevator and the trim. The elevator would be used first and then the autopilot would then use the trim to get rid of the pressure much like we do when we are hand flying. As the aircraft leveled/slowed the autopilot would be continually trimming the pressure out using nose up trim. After reading the partial factual from the NTSB, it states that when the shaker fired the elevator went to near full nose up travel. This may be due to the increase air flow from prop wash over the compensated trim tab for relatively low speed, roughly 130 knots, now is introduced to the prop wash, air traveling much faster than 130 knots, which cause the elevator to go full nose up. this of would also assume that a large amount of power was added at the shaker. I am not an expert in aerodynamics or the dash just my two cents

I also noticed that the NTSB's numbers on the stall. In the report the NTSB says the air separated from the wing at 125kts. Later they state the stall occurred at 1.42Gs, and the un accelerated stall speed was 105. All of those numbers plugged into a certain formula almost work perfectly....

like I said not an expert just my two cents....

 

Therein lies my point, as supported by TPROP: under duress, we tend to do what we have been repeatedly trained to do.

But if what you would really do is different than what you've been taught to do, there is a problem: either the training is bad, or we do not understand or apply correct training.

NWA:

The airlines don't do full-stall training as 1) they hope you never get that high of an AOA (notice I didn't say 'slow,' as speed has nothing to do with it); 2) the stresses of a full-stall and ham-fisted recovery would be rough on a transport-category airplane, and 3) some airplanes (T-tailed rear-engined jets) have non-recoverable deep-stall modes, spins, or compressor-stalls.

That's why it is often called "Approach to Stall" training...you get close to it, just can't touch it. But I think it has provided negative training. Pilots think "I'm in a stall, because the stall-shaker is activated," but they aren't. They only learn to recover from an AOA below the stall....and not above it. And they get the incorrect impression they can recover from a full-stall with power alone, unless they revert back to earlier flying experience.

I still believe, and hope, that stall training (and upset recoveries) will benefit from this trajedy.

 

Very good post, with me it goes back to the "Law of primacy", I know what the airline has taught be, but now around 5,000hrs of total time a lot of that was piston time and from day one I was taught, STALL----> reduce angle of attack, but you are right being in a 121 airplane, I might react with the recommend 121 recovery procedure

 

Recently while doing stalls in a swept wing jet equipped with a pusher for flight test we had a 500 hr intern along in the jump, and he was shocked at the fact we would perform a whole series of 5 different stall configurations to the pusher while leaving the power at idle and just lowering the nose to reduce the AOA. His first question was why had we not added power? So I hope instructors are doing a good job teaching students that yes there is a relationship between the stall and airspeed but you must include load factor in that relationship, and it is much easier to understand that it is AOA. Having been involved in a few incidents where a deep stall has been inadvertently entered I can tell you that power really isn't very effective. Luckily we usually start the series at 17500 giving plenty of room to figure something out.

 

Having flown the DHC-8 in my previous life the autopilot would not trim for the forces required to pitch up to that attitude. Either someone pulled the yoke aft or there was some form of malfunction. I have also worked in the flight department writing the procedures that are used plus deal with the FAA and manufactorers. The procedures used at airlines are specific for the aircraft flown and the enviroment we operate in.

So if we used the accident at hand, no transport aircraft is designed to be in a 31* nose high attitude, hence one of the reasons for the PLI. Something or someone caused this, and this is for the NTSB. The previous thread was all hot on tailplane icing yet this appears to not be the issue from what was published so far. Lets not try and re-write the procedures that have been used effectively for years based on speculation. I do agree that once a full stall has developed trying to maintain attitude/altitude is no longer an option. But based on your training you should not ever find yourself in a full stall situation.

 

Is the horizonal stab/elevator in the propwash?