HD Video of the Crash
So the Good News is that it looks like there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with the Airlanders design from what I can see.
As you can see from the HD Video above the thrust vectoring really shows what the pilots were doing before the crash, and it seems they may have been a bit overly ambitious to get the thing back on the ground, as the intensified angling of the nose going down (at the 11 seconds mark) was clearly induced by them with thrust vectoring. When they realized they had gone too far they angled the thrust vectoring back up (16s mark) but cut the power at the same time, which is the exact wrong thing to do in this situation as the thrust vectoring cannot vector the ship without power. This lead to it crashing gondola first (at the 25s Mark, a full 9 seconds later.)
Clearly this is similar to when Helicopters were first invented and nobody even knew that Ring Vortex State was a thing. This lead to a number of unfortunate deaths and even today it is the bane of all Helicopter pilots as they must train hard to never induce the problem in the first place.
In this case the test pilots both survived, so that is a win for airships in it's own way. The only real change that needs to be made seems to be in the procedures of how the Airship is operated, particularly when landing.
Much in the same way that helicopter pilots must never do certain things when they are landing, Hybrid Airship pilots must do the same.
In this case the big problems seem to be:
It seems that what might have been going on here is that the test pilots may have been instructed to try and find out how steep they can land the craft as part of the test phase. This is all speculation on my part, but I think they didn't do this because someone had to go to the bathroom real bad and 9 seconds is too long to not react to the problem (The human mind can only be stunned for 7 seconds max.)
It's an unfortunate hiccup but the reactions I'm seeing on social media seem to indicate this is actually a win in some ways.
Lot's of random commentators and some reporters are pointing out that if Airplane crashes looked like this they would feel a lot safer flying in them. That's actually rather interesting, and while it is something I was aware of for some time now this Crash actually shows it happening in reality and can be shown as proof Hybrid Airship crashes are a hell of a lot safer then any airplane or helicopter crashes.
Had the craft been an experimental helicopter or osprey, it's most likely the test pilots would be dead right now, instead they escaped without a scratch on them, and they happen to have been in the part of the Airship hardest hit and most likely to get them killed.
In a lot of ways the Airlander saved their lives today, and that is no small feat. Hammering that fact home might change a lot of peoples opinions about Hybrid Airships.
As you can see from the HD Video above the thrust vectoring really shows what the pilots were doing before the crash, and it seems they may have been a bit overly ambitious to get the thing back on the ground, as the intensified angling of the nose going down (at the 11 seconds mark) was clearly induced by them with thrust vectoring. When they realized they had gone too far they angled the thrust vectoring back up (16s mark) but cut the power at the same time, which is the exact wrong thing to do in this situation as the thrust vectoring cannot vector the ship without power. This lead to it crashing gondola first (at the 25s Mark, a full 9 seconds later.)
Clearly this is similar to when Helicopters were first invented and nobody even knew that Ring Vortex State was a thing. This lead to a number of unfortunate deaths and even today it is the bane of all Helicopter pilots as they must train hard to never induce the problem in the first place.
In this case the test pilots both survived, so that is a win for airships in it's own way. The only real change that needs to be made seems to be in the procedures of how the Airship is operated, particularly when landing.
Much in the same way that helicopter pilots must never do certain things when they are landing, Hybrid Airship pilots must do the same.
In this case the big problems seem to be:
- The Pilots allowed the Airship to be pitched too much on landing.
- The Pilots did not add power when the Airship entered it's "Soft Stall" state to allow the thrust vectoring to pull the nose up out of the stall, and or angle the nose up as to not hit the Gondola First.
It seems that what might have been going on here is that the test pilots may have been instructed to try and find out how steep they can land the craft as part of the test phase. This is all speculation on my part, but I think they didn't do this because someone had to go to the bathroom real bad and 9 seconds is too long to not react to the problem (The human mind can only be stunned for 7 seconds max.)
It's an unfortunate hiccup but the reactions I'm seeing on social media seem to indicate this is actually a win in some ways.
Lot's of random commentators and some reporters are pointing out that if Airplane crashes looked like this they would feel a lot safer flying in them. That's actually rather interesting, and while it is something I was aware of for some time now this Crash actually shows it happening in reality and can be shown as proof Hybrid Airship crashes are a hell of a lot safer then any airplane or helicopter crashes.
Had the craft been an experimental helicopter or osprey, it's most likely the test pilots would be dead right now, instead they escaped without a scratch on them, and they happen to have been in the part of the Airship hardest hit and most likely to get them killed.
In a lot of ways the Airlander saved their lives today, and that is no small feat. Hammering that fact home might change a lot of peoples opinions about Hybrid Airships.
No comments:
Post a Comment