Pitot FAILURE Leads to OVERSPEED

[Torbinator]

Hi guys,

So I don't practice emergency procedures and failures too often, and it shows in this video! 

The link takes you to the point where my descent starts and the initial fusion begins.

Unfortunately I had shut off my structural failures the night before, it would have been interesting to see if this overspeed would have resulted in a crash.

One thing that struck me was my own delay in realizing I should use the stby ASI to confirm which side was failed. This delay was no doubt very dangerous.

At first I thought the overspeed was coming from another browser tab I left open! Then I mistakenly thought the FO side was the issue.

I felt I did OK in utilizing ATC to confirm my speed.

Anyway, it was an interesting and eye opening event!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/712226145?t=01h16m20s

Edited August 17, 2020 by Torbinator

[Litjan]

Unreliable instruments and especially airspeed/altitude is one of the hardest problems you can have in the aircraft - especially since it takes a lot of mental effort to NOT trust your instruments (when all you always hear during IFR training is: Trust your instruments!)

Once you realize that something is wrong, you often have to deal with erroneous warnings (overspeed, stick shaker, GPWS callouts,...) and then you have to realize WHICH one of your instruments is the faulty one. It isn´t unheard of to have TWO faulty ones and ONE good one - all too easy to dismiss the single outlier.

When you have a problem like that it is important to know rough "pitch and power" values to keep you both from falling from the sky and also give you a chance to guess which of your instruments are still good. If you are climbing with 30 degrees nose up and your airspeed is increasing...chances are that it it wrong (Birgen air).

To confirm speed you can use ATC, the IRS (ground speed), DME and so on - to confirm your altitude you can use GPS altitude (not in the IXEG), use the weather radar (tilt -7 then first ground return in NM = height above terrain in thousand feet) or you could even depressurize the aircraft and use cabin altitude (once you are lower).

Cheers, Jan

 

[XPJavelin]

5 hours ago, Litjan said:

use the weather radar (tilt -7 then first ground return in NM = height above terrain in thousand feet) or you could even depressurize the aircraft and use cabin altitude (once you are lower).

Great tips !

[mizra108]

On 8/17/2020 at 11:04 AM, Torbinator said:

Hi guys,

So I don't practice emergency procedures and failures too often, and it shows in this video! 

The link takes you to the point where my descent starts and the initial fusion begins.

Unfortunately I had shut off my structural failures the night before, it would have been interesting to see if this overspeed would have resulted in a crash.

One thing that struck me was my own delay in realizing I should use the stby ASI to confirm which side was failed. This delay was no doubt very dangerous.

At first I thought the overspeed was coming from another browser tab I left open! Then I mistakenly thought the FO side was the issue.

I felt I did OK in utilizing ATC to confirm my speed.

Anyway, it was an interesting and eye opening event!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/712226145?t=01h16m20s

I’ve been looking for a way to get unpredictable subtle failures to challenge myself In systems knowledge and procedures (not particularly looking for catastrophic engine failures or things of that nature, just subtle things like the one you had) but have no idea how to get them to be random or for it to be subtle failures of systems. Im curious to know what do you use to get those failures.

 

thanks!

 

Mark

[Torbinator]

Hi Mark,

Attached is a screenshot of my failures menu. As you'll see I have the time between failure unchecked. I assume this means that random failures will occur if left unchecked, but checking it active gives more specifics? Example: I flew over the summer with the box unchecked about 3 times a week, usually about 2 - 4 hours each time. Some flights in the IXEG, some in the FlyJSim (w/ their maintenance menu off). I had about 4 failures in total, IIRC.

One can also click the box and type in a value, and it will tell you how many systems there are and how many average failures per hour it may create, but I haven't played with that much yet.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Torbinator

[Litjan]

No, to my understanding you will not get ANY random failures if that box is unchecked.

If you check it, you can set the MTBF, which means X-Plane will randomly fail something at an average time as set.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Torbinator]

@Litjan I wonder if something has changed in X-Plane, because I never had the box checked but the situation in the video above occurred anyway. Interesting.

[richjb]

On 8/17/2020 at 11:51 AM, Litjan said:

To confirm speed you can use ATC, the IRS (ground speed), DME and so on - to confirm your altitude you can use GPS altitude (not in the IXEG), use the weather radar (tilt -7 then first ground return in NM = height above terrain in thousand feet) or you could even depressurize the aircraft and use cabin altitude (once you are lower).

Cheers, Jan

 

I have not heard about using the WX radar, and it never occurred to me to de-pressurize the aircraft and use the cabin altitude for aircraft altitude.  I'm going to keep that one in my bag of tricks to freak out the sim instructor at my next proficiency check!   

Thanks!

Rich Boll