[air-cool-me]

definitional understanding from Pax river, Lockheed, an Airbus instructor and mine.

I’ll go with what my and other professional pilots plus test pilots plus design engineers have a common understanding of the definition..

I understand you may not agree with the entire link .... but if your understanding of the definition is that below Va offers structural immunity in every situation then from what i know you were misinformed. I'm sure i just misunderstood you.

how did this airline manage to train its pilots to operate such an aircraft in such a manner?

the consensus is that they get a lot of fighter/attack types trained by the USAF, i.e. not well trained in rudders and let the acft try and fly itself out. Using all the flight controls plus differential power is also taught in more than a few places both commercial and military.

The Boeing guy i quoted earlier is my father. From what i gathered from the dinner table(so dont quote me on this) it was a combination of many factors. American Airlines did have alot of USAF types. The people in charge of training were also "heavy on the rudder" types. Also when they taught upset training they disabled the use of the ailerons until in 60 degress of bank for some situations. so the pilots quickly learned to use the rudder more often then necessary. That combined with the fact that requiring full deflection in both ways rapidly when calculating Va is not required for normal category aircraft, something most pilots don't know. The tail is WAY far back there... and the forces\moments it can produce at full deflection are pretty high... there just wasn't enough education on the subject because no-one has ever heard of this kind of incident before the AA crash.

or at least thats what i remember.

Pilots have always been taught (yes, even "Flying" Magazine's J. Mac McClellan) that flight at or below Va in any aircraft would prevent structural failure. The airplane would simply not be able to generate the aerodynamic force necessary to cause damage before an aerodynamic "stall" would occur.

very True. Thats why the misconception about the immunity below Va needs to be explained to everyone with a yoke or a stick in there hand. "moving the rudder from stop to stop is not a required certification load limit in normal category airplanes"

below Va = accelerated stall before over-g only in pitch..............Most of the time.........


-Nick (a sub 300 hour whippersnapper)

This is what I am aware of. I do not claim to be the expert here. im not trying to make anyone angry. I am simply someone who had to listen to this crap at the dinner table..