Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Holden's Lightning Flight

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–57 of 57 posts

Re: Holden's Lightning Flight

#51

Post by ErroneousBosh »

xg15 wrote: post #43
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that it was that deep, to be honest. "Here, you're the electrics guy, go and see if you can reproduce the fault you get when you run that thing up to taxi"

Yeah, the story reads to me less as if it was time pressure and more like they underestimated the risk. "What could go wrong" etc etc

You've done it yourself.

It's fine, it's a five minute job. Never been a problem before.

Me? No, I've *never* done anything like that, that went wrong in an unexpected way, no no no, not me...

Re: Holden's Lightning Flight

#52

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

fergal_reid wrote: post #3
Waterluvian wrote: post #2

> According to Holden, in a review before Air Marshal Kenneth Porter, he was asked whether he agreed that "With the limited flying experience I had, the test would have been better left to an experienced and current Lightning test pilot", which he answered in the affirmative, following which Porter related some of his own unfortunate flying incidents. I feel like there’s something between these lines that I don’t und…

I have no specific context here, but in case it's not obvious, I think you have to read the exchange in the context of British, and I guess RAF, indirectness and understatement. I'm guessing the air marshal means "what the hell were you thinking"; Holden is agreeing, indicating that he has learned his lesson and acknowledges the error; and the air marshal is then graciously moving on.

I think you're reading too much into the quote. RAF simply acknowledged that the whole episode was an accident that happened during routine work and they wouldn't punish their man for an accident, especially since there was not much harm done (except the repairable damage on the plane).

If he had taken the plane for a joyflight then he would have gotten a right bollocking (to put it mildly) but if it was an accident what exactly could they hold against him?

If there's something peculiarly British about it, it's that their airmen are well-trained professionals and they do not mete out unnecessary punishments just to show who's boss.

Re: Holden's Lightning Flight

#53

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

svobodamartin wrote: post #47

Having 17y of experience flying military (subsonic) jets and being test acceptance pilot for a few years as well, I feel I can share my perspective on this extraordinary event: First I was just wow! Then I read the PDF from 2013 blog and little bit of relief came from knowing that he was qualified pilot too. But there is a big but! Before that, he flew dramatically different, slower only propeller planes, no jet, no…

>> Regarding speed jets are obviously different level fast from propeller engine planes, landscape runs below you way much faster than you are used to. Higher speed means less time for decision and reaction, no time for "wait, I need to think something over", because times flies and jet flies with it, fast. Nobody waits for you and your pondering there. Its totally different workload.

I am guessing this accounts for the fact that he couldn't turn the afterburners off until he had lifted off: he didn't have the time to fiddle enough with the controls.

>> During final seconds you learn to feel through your butt the rate of descent - you coordinate butt feeling of descending (less speed means less lift, thus more descending) with hand pulling the stick to compensate decreasing speed with increasing the angle of attack (thus increasing lift), you smoothly balance this dynamic imbalance, you slowly decrease speed, increase lift and slowly decrease the height above the concrete in order to land smoothly from desired height.

That must be what people mean when they talk about "flying by the seat of your pants" XD

Re: Holden's Lightning Flight

#54

Post by svobodamartin »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #53
svobodamartin wrote: post #47

Having 17y of experience flying military (subsonic) jets and being test acceptance pilot for a few years as well, I feel I can share my perspective on this extraordinary event: First I was just wow! Then I read the PDF from 2013 blog and little bit of relief came from knowing that he was qualified pilot too. But there is a big but! Before that, he flew dramatically different, slower only propeller planes, no jet, no…

>> Regarding speed jets are obviously different level fast from propeller engine planes, landscape runs below you way much faster than you are used to. Higher speed means less time for decision and reaction, no time for "wait, I need to think something over", because times flies and jet flies with it, fast. Nobody waits for you and your pondering there. Its totally different workload. I am guessing this accounts for…

>> I am guessing this accounts for the fact that he couldn't turn the afterburners off until he had lifted off: he didn't have the time to fiddle enough with the controls.

Yes, his survival instincts were correct choosing priorities of what to solve first.

>>That must be what people mean when they talk about "flying by the seat of your pants" XD

Yes, its butt-flying!

Re: Holden's Lightning Flight

#55

Post by detritus »

_doctor_love wrote: post #4
fergal_reid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no specific context here, but in case it's not obvious, I think you have to read the exchange in the context of British, and I guess RAF, indirectness and understatement. I'm guessing the air marshal means "what the hell were you thinking"; Holden is agreeing, indicating that he has learned his lesson and acknowledges the error; and the air marshal is then graciously moving on.

It's English Understatement all the way.

Absolutely, and beautifully so.

Re: Holden's Lightning Flight

#56

Post by svobodamartin »

sandworm101 wrote: post #38

Small thing: there is a difference between a "test pilot" and a "maintenance test pilot" or MTP. A test pilot is an elite aviator who participates in the development of new aircraft and systems. An MTP is a pilot trained in prodeedures for verifying functionality of systems after repairs and maintenance. Test pilots are very rare whereas literally every squadron or base should have multiple MTPs availible for each ty…

Another POV:

maintenance/acceptance test pilots test the aircraft within its flight envelope (safe operating limits), while test pilots help discover and define that envelope.

Re: Holden's Lightning Flight

#57

Post by gavinsyancey »

petreradu wrote: post #18
gavinsyancey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's enough of an oversimplification as to not really be true. They developed an issue with explosive decompressions, because at the time we didn't fully understand how cyclic stress caused metal fatigue. It is true that they had square-er windows than modern planes, but they knew that and added reinforcement. The stress concentrations inducing fatigue cracks were around square cutouts for an antenna, not the passe…

As Henry Cavill would say: “Wikipedia? You get your facts from Wikipedia?”

Not the first place I'd heard that, but I found it ironic that the parent comment's own link refuted their claims in the first couple paragraphs. And Wikipedia tends to be pretty reliable -- in a 2005 Nature analysis, Wikipedia was found to have on average less errors per article than Encyclopedia Britannica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/Natur...
Post reply on HN