BS: Gimli Glider

Subject: BS: Gimli Glider
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 22 Jul 13 - 10:14 PM

Gimli Glider July 23, 1983

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 03:19 AM

An interesting report of a relatively little-noticed incident.

A few more technical details would have been of interest, but the point of the story is that dead-stick with no instruments there really wasn't much for the crew to work with, or to report.

At first glance the 12:1 glide ratio doesn't look too impressive, but for the pilot to guess at an optimim speed and get close enough to it to get there without any instruments is actually very impressive. (I can visualize some very brown britches for a first attempt at flying a 390,000(?) pound uninstrumented sailplane, with no flight manual for that flight mode.)

The maintenance/loading errors claimed in the report obviously reflect some significant problems. While "chain errors" of that magnitude probably are rare, for people in the business they shouldn't be too surprising. Similar things happen more often than they should, although in most cases hardly anyone notices - and if nobody catches them nobody talks.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: Mr Happy
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 04:21 AM

......oh, I thought the thread would be about Gimli!

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 10:48 AM

I was under the impression, had been told, that when all engines fail a jet liner plummets almost immediately to the ground, that only the small planes will glide. This is heartening news!

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 12:54 PM

Any airplane will glide. If you point the nose down a little you'll "slide forward" and maintain some forward speed, which allows the wings to provide some lift.

Some glide like a gull.

Some glide like a brick.

It even works for helicopters, although some of them glide more like a bucket of loose bolts.

The record for the longest dead-stick glide home quite possibly is still one reported some years ago. An unidentified aircraft contacted an airport by radio (recollection is that the airport was in Hawaii) and reported "engine out and unable to restart."

The airport requested his position and he reported someplace about 240(?) miles out. They asked for an estimate of his "point of impact" so they could send rescue planes, and he said "Don't bother. I'll bring it in."

And he did.

Of course he was in a U2 and started with around 102,000 ft altitude to burn off before he could land. (Rumors claimed a 22:1 glide ratio for the U2, so 240 Miles was only about half what he might have made.)

The reassurance given to pilots transitioning from single-engine planes to multi-engine ones has traditionally been:

"If an engine fails don't worry. The remaining engine(s) will always carry you to the point of impact."

Single-engine pilots point out that having two engines just means it's twice as likely that one of them will fail. (And the remaining engine(s) will be overloaded enough to burn themselves out before you get anywhere.)

[All pilots are liars - or at least mildly insane.]

John

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: GUEST,Ed T
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 08:59 PM

I belivev, the Air Canada glide in the OP set the stamndard for future pilots for glides, and. Pilot manuals were changed to reflect this procedure.

I believe Air Transat flight 236 may have the record for the longest commercial airline glide - somewhere around 2001.

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: bobad
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 09:20 PM

As a point of interest Gimli and the surrounding districts are home to the largest concentration of people of Icelandic ancestry outside Iceland.Since 1874 it has celebrated this heritage with the Icelandic Festival, which hosts several thousand tourists for three days each year during August long weekend.

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 09:31 PM

A pilot's worst nightmare...

You are always thinking "What if I had to put it down?"... You are always looking down and thinkin' that... Goes with flyin'...

But like my brother says, "Any landing you walk away from is a good 'un"...

When I was 16 me and Jim Clark borrowed a Piper Super Cub from a friend of my dad's... Well, wasn't exactly borrowed since neither of us were licensed pilots and my dad's friend didn't exactly know we were going to borrow his plane...

Well, seems that one of us (I am sworn to secrecy) messed up the landing, ground looped the Cub and broke it in half... We each got a butt whup outta that one...

But, hey, we both walked away... Good landing...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 11:10 PM

The Air Canada brass tried to blame the incident on "pilot error" and actually had the audacity to suspend the pilots. The air transport board exonerated them and praised their flying ability, but took Air Canada severly to task for not providing proper training or following proper procedure. Captain Bob Pearson was an ex-RCAF pilot, and knew the location of the closed base and runways. His military training included flying gliders. There was no emergency manual aboard the plane telling what proceedure to follow if the plane lost all power. Bob Pearson was made a national hero, a title he rejects but richly deserves!

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: GUEST,highlandman at work
Date: 24 Jul 13 - 09:51 AM

Actually, Eb, commercial jets glide quite well, being designed sleek for speed and fuel economy. It's all the other stuff not working (controls, instruments, little things like that) that can make it a serious problem.

John, we always said helicopters have the glide ratio of a ring of car keys.

And Bobert, walking away only rates as a so-so landing. Being able to use the aircraft again makes it a good one.

Cheers
-Glenn

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: Ed T
Date: 24 Jul 13 - 10:27 AM

From what I understand:
The aircraft was returned to Air Canada's fleet, where it continued to fly for another 25 years before being retired and sold in 2008. It is stored at the Majove Desert aircraft boneyard. In April 2013 it went up for auction for between $2.5 and 3 Million. But, was not sold.

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 24 Jul 13 - 09:13 PM

The simple fact that the crew got the plane down, given the numerous problems they had to contend with, certainly qualifies their performance as "heroic."

A question that's of peripheral interest arises from the note that the pilot had "glider experience." The ordinary assumption might be that the reference was to conventional "sailplane" flying, but with his knowledge of the abandoned airfield, his having served there previously, and some other clues, it is possible that the "glider experience" was with the "cargo gliders" used in the WWII era.

An acquaintance at "little B airplane Co" was documented as being "the next to last glider to successfully land in Bastogne." I believe he said that 7 others followed him, but only one made it behind him, since the Germans had "zeroed in" on the flight path. He described his landing as "ungraceful" but good enough to get his ton of ammo and HE supplies on the ground.

Those gliders were exceedingly crude, with virtually no instruments, and justifiably described (by him and others) as like "flying a brick."

Simple curiosity makes one wonder whether that's the kind of experience meant by the reference to his "glider experience," and whether that kind of practice made him even better suited to "intuitively gliding" the Gimli plane down than he might have been with the more common kind of "glider training" (relying heavily on excellent instruments) one might think they were talking about.

IFF that's what they meant, he was likely something of a hero before he got to Gimli (IMO). It took more "guts" than most of us have just to grab the stick in one of those things for the training.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Gimli Glider
From: gnu
Date: 25 Jul 13 - 04:41 AM

Wiki... "They immediately searched their emergency checklist for the section on flying the aircraft with both engines out, only to find that no such section existed.[3]"

= OH FUCK!

John... brown britches... well, they had the manual handy to use for toilet paper.