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That would be the pits...........

Goose

Goose

Well-known Member
Our niece told me yesterday that a few days ago she was cruising along in their Comanche 180. Bright, sunny day, beautiful VFR weather. She glanced down at the artificial horizon and it told her she was flying inverted.

No harm done under those conditions, and she landed normally, but you don't even want to think about something like that happening at night or while on instruments. She said the problem was in a vacuum pump and regulator. I'm not that current on avionics, so I'll take her word for it.
 
For redundancy, some gyros are electric, some are air powered. They could be pressurized from the output side of the pump, but with the gyros hooked to the suction side of the pump, if the pump craps out, it doesn't blow the expensive gyros full of garbage. Hence, the "vacuum" pump, regulator, gauge, etc.

I don't have enough confidence in these old instruments in these old planes to be gambling my life on them.
 
Never flew in a small plane ever ...... but I do wonder, would you not be able to somehow sense that you were flying upside down without looking at the instruments? Man, sounds scary to me.
 
That seems strange to me can't you feel strain on your seat belt or blood rushing to your head or something, obviously I am not a pilot so excuse my curiosity.
 
It is surprising, but the mind has very little sense of reality when there are not visual cues, recipe for disaster if IFR.
 
Google vertigo. Your mind can over power eb eruthong including perfectly working instruments.
 
Yes but what if you spit and it stays right in front of your lips? LOL

The spit becomes just one more distractions.
 
I would think you wood feel the blood going to your head like if you were woorking head down in a hole.
 
If you spit, and the spit just sticks to your lips, because you are going down sooooo fast, then you are right. It probably doesn't matter.
 
I flew a friend's Nanchang CJ-6 and the Chinese artificial horizons normally look like our artificial horizons when when ours are inverted. Kind of makes sense when you think about it since they are on the other side (bottom) of the planet from us.
 
Don't know much about planes, but drove in occasional white out conditions last Wednesday, 1/2 of snow but 30+ mph winds.

Person loses all sense of direction and relation to anything, just like that. Odd.

In fog, we tend to speed up, not slow down. We don't sense any movement around us, and so feel we are going too slow.

Paul
 
"[b:654c4848f0][i:654c4848f0]would you not be able to somehow sense that you were flying upside down[/i:654c4848f0][/b:654c4848f0]"

Potentially covered in dirt from the floor of the plane.

Probably the seat belt would feel a lot tighter supporting your weight while hanging in the seat.

Maybe a dull headache from all the blood rushing to your brain from being inverted.

Most definitely screams from the passengers.
 
First off, unless it was a specially built aerobatic aircraft with an inverted fuel and oil system it wouldn't fly for long without shutting off or blowing up. If you still felt positive 'Gs' you could be in a mild 'Graveyard spiral' or flat spin but your other instruments would be "unwinding" at a pretty rapid pace. Might be an argument between "flying" and "falling"
 
(quoted from post at 07:56:04 02/05/18) That seems strange to me can't you feel strain on your seat belt or blood rushing to your head or something, obviously I am not a pilot so excuse my curiosity.
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I was a passenger in a stunt plane that did a barrel roll and it looked like the ground below was rotating around me when I looked out the cockpit but if I couldn’t have seen the ground I wouldn’t have known what position I was in.

That was three years ago and I think my stomach is still up there in the air somewhere south of three forks Montana.
 

take a string, hang it from the roof, tie a small ball to it. It will work well most of the time except for negative g's but you should be able to figure that one out by watching the ball float on the string.
 
JF ...... your comment "Kind of makes sense when you think about it since they are on the other side (bottom) of the planet from us" ..... reminds me of my dad telling me if I dug a hole deep enough in our garden (or digging a fence post hole), that I'd end up in China. Your comment makes me wonder how often you slept in geography class OR maybe you are one of the "Earth is flat" people that are in the news lately and are about to prove that this month sometime !!!!
 
AS a flight instructor, I routinely would put my students under the hood and do some basic unusual attitudes. The The student had no idea how the airplane was flying and would try to correct by what he believed he felt in his body. Always were surprised when I removed the hood and student would make the correction visually.

Gene
 
I've often lost sleep at night wondering how people in China or Australia walk around with all that blood rushing to their heads. It's like on Married with Children at Kelly's 5 year high school reunion when one of her friends asks her; 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' and she answers; 'Why don't things fall up?'
 
JF ............. I've wondered similar things myself. I do know for sure though (because my brother works in China at a take out noodle house) that American cars over there, if you don't reverse your battery terminal cables, have a tendency to show your fuel level as empty when you just filled up (and of course reading full when you car starts to sputter to a stop from lack of gasoline). If I had to put up with that, I would use a bicycle, even if it meant pedaling backwards to move forwards down the road.
 
(quoted from post at 11:13:30 02/05/18) JF ............. I've wondered similar things myself. I do know for sure though (because my brother works in China at a take out noodle house) that American cars over there, if you don't reverse your battery terminal cables, have a tendency to show your fuel level as empty when you just filled up (and of course reading full when you car starts to sputter to a stop from lack of gasoline). If I had to put up with that, I would use a bicycle, even if it meant pedaling backwards to move forwards down the road.
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You are kidding.....right?
 
Went up in a chopper a while back, non work related and then I hear of 2 fatal chopper failures,if that had happened before I may have not been so enthusiastic to go.
 
Flying straight and level upside down would be easily detectable, even with no outside references....just stand on your head upside down...but, introduce an acceleration factor into the situation...upside down at the top of a loop...and you would easily be fooled into thinking otherwise, since the accelerating force would be higher than the g force, resulting in a net force that would make you think your were sitting upright in your seat. That's why spirals in ifr conditions are so dangerous, you are subject to many different forces, and excellent comprehension of instrument readouts are critical.
Ben
 
Gene, Knew you were a pilot but did not know you were an instructor as well. Are you still flying after your health problems?
 
All of these comments reminded me of a book I once read by a Marine Second Lieutenant torpedo bomber pilot, WWII era. Part of his flight training was in double open seat biplanes at NAS Memphis. (The base was still like he described it when I was there in the late 1950's and early 1960's).

Anyway, one day a student and instructor went up with the instructor in front and student in the rear. The student forgot to buckle his lap belt, and when the instructor pulled the plane up and over in a loop, the student fell out.
The instructor started to say something to the student through the speaking tube, and realized the student wasn't there. All the way back to the base, the instructor worried about how he was going to tell the CO that he'd lost a student out of his airplane.

After he landed, the instructor taxied up to the flight line, and at the same time the student walked up from a different direction dragging a deployed parachute. He forgot to buckle his lap belt, but at least he had the presence of mind to use his parachute when he needed it.

Actually, I suspect the author was what we would have referred to as a "s**tbird" during my days in the Corps. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and several years later mustered out of the Corps, still a Second Lieutenant.
 
(quoted from post at 07:41:42 02/05/18) Never flew in a small plane ever ...... but I do wonder, would you not be able to somehow sense that you were flying upside down without looking at the instruments? Man, sounds scary to me.
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Many very experienced pilots have found themselves in lots of trouble when they thought the instruments were lying to them.In this persons case she was VFR with a clear horizon she knew the gyro was wrong,she kept her wits about her and flew on.
 
(quoted from post at 13:13:30 02/05/18) JF ............. I've wondered similar things myself. I do know for sure though (because my brother works in China at a take out noodle house) that American cars over there, if you don't reverse your battery terminal cables, have a tendency to show your fuel level as empty when you just filled up (and of course reading full when you car starts to sputter to a stop from lack of gasoline). If I had to put up with that, I would use a bicycle, even if it meant pedaling backwards to move forwards down the road.
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You're two months early.
It's not April 1 yet.
 
Every Air Force aircraft that I've flown had a "peanut" gauge - a backup attitude indicator to confirm what position you were in. I would think that her aircraft had a backup....hopefully. Not a time to be the weather! She did well.
 
> Every Air Force aircraft that I've flown had a "peanut" gauge - a backup attitude indicator to confirm what position you were in. I would think that her aircraft had a backup....hopefully. Not a time to be the weather! She did well.

In the case of a light plane like the Commanche, the attitude indicator (aka vertical gyro) IS a peanut gauge. There's no backup attitude indicator. Instead, if the attitude indicator fails, instrument rated pilots are trained to use the remaining instruments: airspeed indicator, altimeter and turn coordinator. The turn coordinator is a rate gyro that doesn't tell attitude but does indicate if the aircraft is turning. The attitude indicator and turn coordinator always use independent power sources; typically the attitude indicator is powered by a vacuum pump while the turn coordinator runs off the electrical bus.
 
I think that is how JFK Jr. wound up screwing himself and his passengers into the ground or was it water? TDF
 
SHE HAS RUSSIAN ANCESTRY...ALSO, RUSSIA COLORED THEIR ATTITUDE INDICATORS REVERSE FROM OURS...OOPS...BE BLESSED, GRATEFUL, PREPARED...YAK-52 OWNER...
 
That was water, in the dark. My wife was taking a lesson on that very same day and conditions were so bad she was having a hard time controlling the plane. The instructor had her concentrate on the instruments instead of visual references and she was able to complete the lesson.
 
I had the same experience with a rental plane while enroute to Springfield Missouri once. Conditions were VFR and during daylight, I noticed that artificial horizon was doing a slow roll. It finally dawned on me that there was something wrong with it! Checked the vacuum gauge on the far right side of the panel, it read "0".The mechanic at the FBO confirmed, once we landed, that the vacuum pump was shot as the plastic drive connector was sheared. We had it replaced before we left for home. That time we didn't have to pay the rental fee, they paid us.
 
And if you are IMC when that happens you had better PRAY you get VMC quickly! I've been IFR rated since 1987 and have had more than my share of "fun" when things go south. Fortunately, I always had some form of backup :)
 
Some aircraft have a backup of sorts where you can switch to intake manifold backup. IIRC it was on older aircraft and not great at high manifold pressure but better than no vacuum at all.

I haven't flown analog gauges in years. Everything is glass and even the backup is a glass all-in-one affair. I preferred having analog backup for the glass and the earlier version of the last thing I flew was setup like that. Even after a total electrical failure you supposedly had 9 minutes of useful time out of the backup AI. If you are on the backup and out of battery juice then you are indeed having a bad day.

GA typically uses vacuum AI and DG; cheaper.
 
Paul, saw a show on the new "Quest" channel a few days ago, about snow plow drivers in Alaska driving in "white out" conditions for extended periods. The trucks are now fitted with GPS and "heads up" plastic screens that show center line, white line, guard rails, road signs, on coming semis. Just stay inside the dotted lines! Life saving technology.
 
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