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3 Answers

controls

Asked by: 2568 views Student Pilot

What do you do if the controls lock up in flight and all you have are rudders?

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3 Answers



  1. EAD on Nov 14, 2016

    Pray…

    On a serious note, you can turn with the rudder and pitch with power.

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  2. Skyfox on Nov 15, 2016

    In addition to using rudder for turning and pitch for power, I once heard about some people at one of the flight schools in the area (not sure if it’s the one where I used to work or over at the university) experimenting with this kind of situation. They were flying a Cessna and used the doors on either side, pushing open one or the other to introduce differential drag and help turn the aircraft. You also have flaps, but you’d have to put those in very carefully to see how they affect your ability to maintain control.

    Also, try to fly to an airport that has a good crash response team. You may need it in this situation.

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  3. Skyfox on Nov 15, 2016

    Forgot to mention, don’t forget you also have elevator trim to control pitch, and in some aircraft you have aileron trim you can use, assuming the elevator and/or aileron systems are not completely seized up.

    In the case of a broken throttle cable where you can’t bring the engine back to descent RPMs, you can control that by leaning the mixture. The engine will run like crap, but you can reduce RPMs to help the descent.

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