Upset Recovery Training
On December 19th 2013 I took part in the APS Upset Recovery Training, which takes place at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport. There are a variety of options for the course, depending on the ratings that you have. The basic package for VFR pilots (Which OAA gave me) lasts two days. There is also a three day package which adds on spin recovery and recovery in IMC.
A group of BA Future Pilot cadets were kind enough to offer me ride to the course over the two day duration of my course. Upon entering the APS center on day one, we were greeted by a lot of friendly staff. The APS building only really consists of a waiting room, several classrooms and offices for the instructors. After a few minutes of filling out paper work we got started with a two and a half hour introduction to the course and a briefing of our first flight (URT 1). We had an instructor named Clarke 'Otter' McNeace. All of the instructors there have an immense amount of experience on them, and because they are all ex-US Navy fighter pilots, they all still go by their call signs. The coolest instructor there had to be William 'BORNEO' Gregory, if you don't recognise the name then I suggest you copy and paste it into google, he's only an ex-Space Shuttle pilot!
Otter began the class by talking about the history of the programme, and also talked about why it came about. He brought up some accident statistics for General and Commercial Aviation, with the number one cause being loss of control in flight. What the statistics and several case studies show in both General and Commercial Aviation is that due to lack of appropriate training, pilots were using incorrect inputs to the flight controls when their aircraft was upset, putting themselves into an even worse situation and making the aircraft unrecoverable.
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| Otter in his commercial piloting days |
After the introduction, Otter went on to talk about theory of flight. It was quite possibly one of the best ground lessons I'd ever sat through. In that hour and a half he explained everything about Lift, and how G loading affects stall speed. All of this was illustrated with a drag versus angle of a attack curve, and a V-G Diagram. After the brief on the theory of flight, he then went on to talk about the aircraft and our first flight (URT-1). The most important five words of the course is: Push, Power, Rudder, Roll and Climb. These are the steps in this order that are taught here for any of the upset situations that we would encounter. For example if you're stalling, you would push to unload the Gs, which in turn reduces the stall speed so that controls can be regained. Power as appropriate, which would need to be increased in a nose-up stall on a prop. Rudder if the aircraft is yawing. Roll if the aircraft has suffered a wing drop, or even worse inverted. Then finally once the aircraft is wings level, climb to safety. It's a "Say and Do" command so everyone is expected to verbalise then initiate the recovery action.
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| Before we upset the aircraft |
The first flight involved basic general handling and familarisation with the aircraft. After our ground brief, me and two others were called up to go first. After tightly fastening the parachute (which I was hoping I wouldn't have to resort to) I stepped into the front seat of the Extra 300L, with Otter sat behind me. The first thing you notice is the complete lack of instruments, all that I had was an ASI and Altimeter. The reason being here is so that pilots who do undergo this course, learn how to spot and fix upsets visually and through seat-of-the-pants feel.
After an initial brief and being told to give a thumbs up for the Go-Pro, we were rolling on the taxi way towards the active runway. Once cleared for take off we were rolling on runway 12C, the sheer power of that engine was evident when we hit rotation speed in what must have been five seconds. Very soon after take off, Otter handed over the controls to me and vectored me towards the South East practice area to begin the maneuvers. The first thing to get used to is the sensitivity of the controls, only very small inputs are required since the aircraft has a potential roll rate of 400 degrees per second! The aircraft also uses a stick which wasn't actually too difficult to get used to.
The flight started off with a steep turns, then went into slow flight and stalls. As mentioned earlier, the Push, Power, Rudder, Roll and Climb criteria were used to recover. We then went onto an exercise called the Falling Leaf where the aircraft loses lateral stability. He starts by stalling and says to me "Now it's your chance to try and be the first person to keep the wings level using the rudder", so naturally I stepped up to the challenge. As the aircraft stalled, the left wing dropped and with my right rudder input to correct it, the aircraft immediately rolled violently to the right and I was upside down before I knew it. The aircraft was basically in free fall and even with the airspeed increasing to over 120kts, it was still stalled and buffeting. Otter then appropriately pushed and as soon as that was done, the buffeting stopped and the aircraft was now controllable. After the recovery it became clear how someone without experience would have simply kept trying to pull back with the ground racing towards them, especially with the adrenaline running.
We then went into a Zoom Maneuvre, which is a flight below 1G. This is to emphasise the controllability of the aircraft below Vs, which helps to further understand why you would push in a stalled situation, even if the aircraft is invert and diving towards the ground. To finish off, we did an Aileron Roll, Loop and flew Inverted for a few minutes which was so much fun.
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| The Extra 300L fleet |
Once back on the ground, some of us had a long break before our next ground brief so I went to the Gateway Cafe to grab a pretty huge sandwich. Once back in the classroom, Otter briefed us on the next two lessons (URT-2 and 3) Both of which were looking even more exciting, especially URT-3 which has an optional full deflection Roll, Loop, Cuban-8 and Hammerhead!
Day two was again an early start. Once again I was up first but this time with another instructor named Schlimmer, very nice guy. We promptly started URT-2 which consisted of Wings Level Accelerated Stalls, Steep Turns to Accelerated stalls, Slipping Techniques, Skidding Turn Stalls and Prevention, and some all attitude maneuvering. We progressed quite quickly so Schlimmer offered to bring some of the stuff in from URT-3 so that we would have more time left over at the end for "fun stuff", and of course I was very happy to agree with it.
URT-3 got very interesting, particularly with the rudder, aileron and elevator jams. The reason they teach this is due to several cases of where controls have jammed and caused fatal accidents, particularly in the case of USAir Flight 427 where a 737-3B7 that was 6 miles away on approach to Pittsburgh, suddenly spiraled and nose dived into the ground. Both pilots were extremely experienced, however none had experienced a problem like that before where the rudder servo unit suddenly became jammed below a speed that would allow aileron authority. Otter mentioned in the brief that the first and most important thing to do in this situation is to gain airspeed as quickly as possible so that enough airflow can pass over the ailerons to give them enough authority to counter the roll, which is the secondary effect from the rudder This is known as the "crossover speed". In my flight, Schlimmer taught me how to keep the aircraft straight and level in such an event, which is to pitch down, increase power, and correct with ailerons to essentially regain control and fly in a slip.
The last 20 minutes of URT-3 is something that I will always remember. In essence it was an air show experience! I mentioned that the last part of this lesson is entirely optional, and since I'm a bit of a thrill seeker I opted to see what Schlimmer could do with this aircraft. The first thing he demonstrated was the Hammerhead. The maneuvre begins by first entering a descent at full power to gain maximum airspeed, then climbing vertically. The airspeed rapidly decays and just before the upward motion of the aircraft stops, full rudder is applied so that the aircraft yaws 180 degrees and enters an immediate vertical nosedive. After the first demonstration, I was allowed to have a go! I managed to do it pretty well since it isn't a very difficult maneuvre to grasp, however the timing needs to be quite accurate. I also asked to put the smoke on which makes it look even more spectacular! After that he showed me a Knife Edge Spin, which is a forward flipping motion of the plane with one wing facing towards the ground. Then I was shown a Lomcevak, which is like a tumbling spiral front flip (if any of those descriptions make sense). Being in those two maneuvres is something that I will never forget, made even cooler by the fact that the smoke was on so it felt like I was in an air show. I have to give my respect to these instructors too for knowing how to recover the aircraft immediately, because you just have no sense of orientation.
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| Inverted |
The two day upset programme went so quickly, and when I landed at the end of that last flight I felt quite saddened to know that I would probably never experience anything quite like that again. However despite the fun and joy of experiencing what it was like to be in an air show, I feel that Upset Recovery Training has been the most important part of my training so far. Why? Because I believe it will save lives. Upset Recovery Training is vital for any pilot at any level of experience, particularly so nowadays in an age where aviation is becoming evermore automated. Aircraft are becoming more sophisticated, yet at the same time being designed in such a way where pilots are now having less to do. Good in terms of decreasing the workload, however it all comes at a price, which is that pilots are losing the aviation skills that are so desperately required when these automated systems fail. In one of the briefs, Otters advises all of us to take manual control whenever we have the chance in ALL phases of flight. In the case of Air France Flight 447, all of the flight crew had thousands of hours of experience, yet none of them had ever manually flown an aircraft at cruising altitude, so when the autopilot disengaged, none of them were prepared to fly it. That is just one case of many, and given the accident statistics, it is clear that with loss of control in flight still being the number one cause, the aviation industry needs to collectively agree on training programmes that will prepare all pilots for potential emergencies that can happen in all phases of flight. I'm very fortunate to have gained the knowledge and expertise in Upset Recovery from these very experienced instructors, and I hope that anyone else who has the opportunity to take up this programme will take it just as seriously as I did.
