But rereading that old post from W0X0F does make me wonder:

how often is the turbulence so bad that one of the pilots has to grab for a barf bag? I assume it is possible, but rare...

I've never seen the other pilot use a barf bag or even come close to needing one (and I've never thrown up in an airplane).

I opened the link you sent and just saw a list of names. What is the gist of this site? Are these a bunch of pilots (mechanics, flight engineers, etc) who believe the conspiracy stuff about 9/11?

Pretty much this. At least they do not seem to believe the "offical version" and demand further investigation.

I have no clue about airplanes and was curious if those guys are complete exceptions or if there is a real controversy going on amongst pilots.
So question is answered since you told me you never ever had that discussion with another pilot.

Isn't a website like this interesting for you as a pilot? They have a lot of in depth articles there where they to try make their point(s).

P.S.
I am far from believing them and know that I know nothing so I am pretty much an "agnostic" if my point of view is any relevant to you.

And I was being completely honest. It hasn't ever come up. But in any group as large as ours, there is bound to be some guys on the fringe.

I believe you. This group can be very very small in fact. How small is probably impossible to determine.
Would be interesting to know whether the percentages of people not buying the "offical version" are as high amongst pilots as they are amongst the general population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion...iracy_theories

But I don't want to derail this great thread with this any longer and wish you all the best

I'm sitting here this evening just reading today's Washington Post and there's an article in the Metro section titled "Strong winds suspected in plane crash that killed general, wife." I started reading it and soon found myself muttering "what a moron!" about the author, R. Tees Shapiro.

I expect more from a paper like the Washington Post, but I don't know why. The story is about a two-star Air Force general and his wife who were killed in a crash while attempting to land at the Williamsburg airport. Here's the first statement that was really horrible. Just so wrong!

No, no, no!! Gusty winds do not cause a plane to stall and spin! This writer has no clue what he's talking about and it sets my teeth on edge!

Here's more from the article:

After reading this last part, I'm thinking that maybe the reporter is just a victim of bad information coupled with his ignorance of flying. How the owner of the airport could make such ridiculous statements is beyond me and I wonder if the reporter got the quotes right. A tailwind doesn't make a plane stall, nor does "being caught in a crosswind."

I am really tempted to call the airport and see if I can get Mr. Waltrip on the phone and at least educate him on some basic aerodynamics. This is so frustrating to read and I just had to blow of steam somehow. Posting here is cathartic for me.

I think you owe it to yourself to call the guy and find out if he was misquoted or he needs an education. Otherwise it will bother you (and we won't know what the facts are).

I'm sure that when the paper does more investigating they will find the usual cause of the accident :

I would think the skills and knowledge needed to fly and the skills and knowledge needed to own an airport* don't need to intersect.

*Own and airport? I know there are private runways, but anything I would call an "airport" I just assume is a public thing. Of course I've never flown out of anything that doesn't handle at least 737s. How many private airports are out there that are open to the public?

So perfect!

You're right, of course. The media often does throw this bit of irrelevant information into the mix when reporting on a GA crash, as if by not filing a flight plan the tragedy was inevitable.

I guess that's true in theory, but I've never known an airport owner who isn't also a pilot and aviation enthusiast

There are privately owned airports, but I can't tell you how many and I don't know if Williamsburg is really one of them (could just be a case of shoddy reporting again). A lot of it depends on whether the owner has accepted Federal funding for the airport.

As you noted, there are plenty (thousands?) of private airstrips in the country, many of them with grass runways.

W0F0F

What would the be doing in this video to cause such a crazy crash?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...v=icfVsql38oc#!

Other than the obvious stall, hard to say. maybe windsheer or microburst of some kind. Always the possible and ever popular pilot error.

I read it was probably a load shift. They had several military vehicles in their cargo that might not have been secured correctly. When they climbed out, the vehicles shifted to the back and caused the 747 to stall. You can see that while they manage to level the wings again, they were never able to drop the nose. Sad.

I'll wait for the NTSB report, but my suspicion is that it will come down to one of two things:

• some sort of mechanical failure in the trim and/or elevator, or

• an extreme out-of-CG situation, either due to poor load planning, incorrect loading (i.e. not adhering to the load plan) or failure to properly secure the load, which then shifted to the rear during the takeoff roll.

The second reason seems more likely to me, but the report will tell. (For a good example of this from WWII, read Ernest K. Gann's book Fate is the Hunter. He tells of taking off from Greenland with a load steel girders for construction overseas and they all shifted to the back on takeoff.)

The Bagram crash is just nasty. Those last few seconds must be the worst

Reminds me a lot of this crash

Just began to read this thread and see you are still answering questions!! Sry if this has already been answerred but cant wait till I read all pages.

I have seen amost all "aircrash investigation, seconds from disaster " episodes and often think about if someone is able to safely land a plane like for example in the ghostplane flight 522. Where everyone but 1 blacked out due to lose of air pressure. Would someone with no experience but normal conditions of the plane (enough full etc)in cruise altitude just no pilots, be able to land a plane? Would that person be able to contact radio and ask for a pilot to help him for example? What would be the best thing to do?
Thnx!!

How high can a boeing fly? What would happen if you kept climbing?

Continue reading the thread and you'll come across a discussion of this hypothetical situation. I hope you won't think I'm terribly rude if I don't address it again.

Different Boeing planes have different service ceilings. For the 757, it's 42,000 feet; for the 767, it's 43,000 feet. Depending on the weight of the plane, it may not be possible to achieve this altitude until burning off fuel to reduce the plane's weight. In fact, it's rare that we're light enough at takeoff to climb all the way to our service ceiling.

When getting near to the service ceiling (or the max altitude for a given weight), the plane's climb performance tapers off dramatically. If we do manage to eke out a climb above that limiting altitude, we then get into an area where we can experience some nasty aerodynamic effects that can cause a sudden onset of a stall.

So were you landing? If you could see it was a red cell why did you have to turn into it? I assume a red cell typically only shows up in a bad thunderstorm?

From my post:

We were taking off and we couldn't see the red return on the radar until after we rolled wings level on the assigned heading. The weather radar on the J32 was not very good and we were suspicious of what it was showing. It had poor stabilization and would often display ground return during a turn (ground return shows as red, i.e. something impenetrable) and for a while after returning to wings level.

If we had been able to see the cell before initiating the turn (we didn't), we definitely would not have to turn into it. We could refuse the ATC clearance and advise them that we would maintain heading for weather avoidance.

Tip for other newcomers who might wonder about this particular question:
search the thread for "autoland"

and if I'm bored enough someday, I'll add a "FAQ index" to the top of my quarterly W0X0F-collected documents. :-)