Notice the bold. I get all of this. But what if you don't realize that the flaps were accidently retracted? How much time do you have to make corrections? They were only at 625 feet when they started losing altitude. You don't have time to pitch down and gain speed.
You will notice the accidental flap retraction almost immediately, as stall warnings will trigger nearly instantly. 600 feet is plenty with both engines running. It will be hard to override your urge to pitch down when you see the ground coming at you quickly, but just leveling off with max thrust should be fine, especially if the aircraft is well under max takeoff weight, which this one was. I fly Airbus, and the auto thrust will go to TOGA (max thrust) and lock itself if that configuration until you take some steps to take it out of max. I assume the 787 has something similar.
We know one thing by the video. They did not put the nose down. It looked like they were coming down for a landing, flair and all. Double engine failure? I think I hear the engines in the original video, not the one from the cell phone.
I have no idea what I am talking about but I did watch a pilot configure a 787 exactly like this one was and set the atmospheric conditions exactly as they were. He thought the plane would be sluggish but could accomplish the takeoff and that is how it played out in the simulator.
The ram air only deploys if both engines are out; without it there is no real electrical power. What batteries it has basically is enough for emergency lights and things like that.
The pilots I've seen talk about it describe its purpose as providing emergency backup to critical hydraulic and/or electrical failures. Can be deployed manually any time or automatically in any of four different scenarios. Dual engine out being one of them. It will run the flight controls but not the landing gear. Give you enough electricity to fly the plane, navigate and communicate.
Passenger or cargo? What routes and for how long? Yeah I ask a lot of questions but have always been fascinated with high tech equipment operators.
No, we always takeoff with a minimum of flaps 1, up to 3. You would know instantly if the flaps were inadvertently retracted. We retract them at 1000 feet, so while 600 feet is bad, it’s not unrecoverable. You have a decent amount of time, maybe 20 seconds for the engines to spool up. At TOGA thrust, they produce a lot of thrust.
I’ve been flying for close to 25 years. I’ve been a passenger airline pilot for the last 7. I work for a major legacy airline. I did corporate/charter business jet flying before.
There are batteries, in addition to the RAT.
but the RAT is necessary to retain control, right?
I can't speak to the 787, but in the other airliners I have flown, the batteries alone can sustain flight for 15-30 minutes, with very limited systems. The systems shed to lower the load on the batteries to provide just the bear essentials. Generally, if you have time, you will use the batteries to start the APU, which will give you electrical power, like Sully did.
So you fly Airbus, maybe you have flown Boeing too. My question is as a pilot can you control these planes to do what you think should be done. Example would be a car, I have a couple of high performance cars where I can pretty much control them how I feel then need to be controlled. Is flying a big Airbus the same or much more controlled by physics? In other words, you get into a deep dive, can you get back control easily or it would be a real fight. I’m probably not too clear here. Anyways, congrats on a rather cool job!
Everything is very standardized in the USA and our training is very good, so pilots generally know the airplane well. Most airplanes of the same type fly in a similar fashion, they just have specific quirks and features. In other parts of the world, the training isn't so great.. I want to be clear, though, we don't know what happened and I am not blaming anyone. We need to wait and see.
Why does the RAT deploy? Is that for a loss of power? Because you can hear it too. It would be a horrible coincidence if something went wrong past the point that they could abort the takeoff.
We’re still not sure the RAT deployed. Again, I don’t know the 787, but in general, it is deployed automatically when an essential electrical bus loses power or manually by the pilots. A dual engine failure would cause it to deploy.
They have better video out which shows what most assuredly is the RAT. The second telltale is the sound the RAT makes which is likened to a small two blade prop plane. That is evident on the video.
