Posted: 8/4/2017 3:05:12 PM EDT
This is a great little documentary about the 1995 X-31 crash. Skip to around 17:00 for the money shots, but it is good to hear why contributed to it.
 X-31: Breaking the Chain: Lessons Learned |
Here you are, OP
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If you have a Kindle, Kindle app on your phone or tablet, or pretty much any e-reader, there's a whole host of e-books available for free from NASA. Among the many very good ones is "Breaking The Mishap Chain", which features a chapter ("It May Not Be Hooked Up") on the X-31 crash (including a photo of its wreckage on the cover), among chapters on some other very hairy moments and tragedies (the XB-70 collision, the "Six Million Dollar Man" lifting body crash, the pilot induced oscillation of Shuttle Enterprise during one of the ALT test flights, among others). Definitely worth a read.
Some other books they offer for free concern the history of the U-2 program in detail ("Unlimited Horizons") and the experimental aircraft programs, including the X-planes and others ("Probing The Sky"). |
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Neat seeing the computer try to correct attitude without concern for altitude.
Does the pilot have a switch to throw the computer into "safe mode" that ignores most or all sensor input and the finer points of programming? I get that a fly by wire fighter needs some computer input because they're naturally unstable, but you'd think it would be handy to be able to immediately isolate 90% of potential problems when something goes haywire. |
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Quoted:
Neat seeing the computer try to correct attitude without concern for altitude. Does the pilot have a switch to throw the computer into "safe mode" that ignores most or all sensor input and the finer points of programming? I get that a fly by wire fighter needs some computer input because they're naturally unstable, but you'd think it would be handy to be able to immediately isolate 90% of potential problems when something goes haywire. I wonder why the pilot didn't notice the odd airspeed reading. If he did, I missed it in the video since I didn't watch all of it. |
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I think they said it was an iced up pitot tube. Kinda like what hosed Air France flight (except that was a cabin full of guys that should have known better).
Quoted:
The computer was working on deficient airspeed data (way lower than reality) so I expected the plane to break up, myself. I wonder why the pilot didn't notice the odd airspeed reading. If he did, I missed it in the video since I didn't watch all of it. |
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Quoted:
The computer was working on deficient airspeed data (way lower than reality) so I expected the plane to break up, myself. I wonder why the pilot didn't notice the odd airspeed reading. If he did, I missed it in the video since I didn't watch all of it. |