Want to recreate Sukhoi SuperJet crash in A-10C

Basically, SS100 , was struck by lightning on takeoff. Full fuel, full load. I figure in DCS, A-10C is closest. Large aircraft with two non-ab turbofans.

On t/o shut down all electrics, all avionics, all comms, no HUD, no MFDs, including fuel pumps. Leave gear down, do not dump stores. Then try to recover the aircraft to the origin field.

I am curious how many systems need to be on, while engines are already turning, for there to be no control, at all. I suppose we would have go to manual reversion. I don't know if SS100 had that luxury.

Its survivable but worse then I thought.

Here is my track. Worst possible, all out. No electrics, no HUD, no inverter, no battery.

Its worse then I thought in DCS: A-10C, but survivable as long as engines are turning.

So loosing everything electric is worse then I figured but survivable for A-10C.

The engines kept spinning, control is manual reversion, and altitude is ram air revert. Don't overbank.

But its worse because,

-Emergency flap did not deploy flap. But it does say FLAP RETRACT. I suppose I was expecting emer flap full. I could not get flaps down.

-Air brakes were not available. A surprise as aleron, rudder, and elevator remained normal.

-Gear refused to drop. Aux gear and down lock override, also did not drop gear.

-Jettison was unavailable. THat is a nasty surprise. I figure stores dump prior to recovery would be a non brainer.

-A Hollywood option of using gun as a sort of airbrake, taking advantage of GAU-8, also unavailable. Gun could not be armed or fired.

-Used rudder walk (left to right) as makeshift airbrake.

-Forced to make gear up landing.

All in all a disappointment. Even with no electrics at all, flaps, brakes , and gear should be available via emergency controls. I am hoping I forgot something.

A_10C_avionics_OUT.trk

Take off all avionics OUT recovery.

Track attached.

Aside from no flap, or brake, gear steering without e-power, this emergency is fully survivable in A-10C. But with no ability to jettison stores, one engine recovery may be difficult.

A_10C_TO_avionics_OUT.trk

I am curious how many systems need to be on, while engines are already turning, for there to be no control, at all. I suppose we would have go to manual reversion. I don't know if SS100 had that luxury.

The SS100, like most (if not all) modern airliners, has a RAT which provides sufficient electric and hydraulic power to be able to fly the aircraft in the dual engine failure case.

Yet the SS100 crew did not deploy it, and attempted to land the aircraft with dark cockpit and no comms.

I don't recall a RAT in A-10C. is there one?

Yet the SS100 crew did not deploy it, and attempted to land the aircraft with dark cockpit and no comms.

Why should they have deployed the RAT? I'm not aware that they had lost both engines and I assume that at least the backup instruments were working.

The crew had dark cockpit. They engines were turning, but for whatever reason, power from generator was not getting to systems. There was no time to think in that moment. With engines turning, the crew should have leveled off first, and worked the problem. RAT deployment, may or may not have worked, but should have been deployed. SS100 is a regional jet, with limited fuel tanks. Fuel dump, if SS100 even had it and it may not have, would not be a strong consideration. Even with all power out, altitude, speed, and sidelip would have still worked on pneumatic ram air. They obviously had full control of basic flight surfaces. What they lost is comms, nav, and landing aids. Crew botched the approach and allowed sink rate to increase. With engines working, and flight controls on reversion and working, crew should have performed missed approach, and tried another VFR landing. However I was not in the cockpit. Its very possible that crew was task saturated in air traffic avoidance, and working system failures.

Here is my track. Worst possible, all out. No electrics, no HUD, no inverter, no battery.

[...]

-Emergency flap did not deploy flap.

That is correct.

-Air brakes were not available. A surprise as aleron, rudder, and elevator remained normal.

That is correct, and should only come as a surprise if you didn't read the manual.

-Gear refused to drop. Aux gear and down lock override, also did not drop gear.

In your track, I never saw you actuate the Auxiliary Landing Gear Extension Handle.

With both hydraulics system failed, that handle should be the only way to lower the gear, and while I haven't tested it lately, it used to work just fine.

-Jettison was unavailable.

With no electric power, that seems correct.

-A Hollywood option of using gun as a sort of airbrake, taking advantage of GAU-8, also unavailable. Gun could not be armed or fired.

Without electric power, that is most certainly correct.

All in all a disappointment. Even with no electrics at all, flaps, brakes , and gear should be available via emergency controls. I am hoping I forgot something.

Honestly, what are you trying to achieve here? Recreating a crash that happened in an entirely different aircraft, a 2-pilot airliner at that, under completely different circumstances, and then complaining that the A-10 doesn't do what you expect it to do, while clearly not having read the manual in regards to emergency procedures... what exactly is it that you find disappointing?

Apples and oranges, man. Apples and oranges.

Your chances of recreating an airliner crash are probably much better in the civilian themed sims out there.

In any case, you should take a look at the mission editor. It allows you to set up a somewhat probable scenario (one where you don't need to worry about crashing into your wingman on take-off while fiddling with the switches in order to create an emergency (not a mid-air collision emergency, though)), and it allows to set all kinds of systems failures. At least then things would happen without your input. And if it happened after, say, 500 hours of relatively uneventful flights, I'd be quite interested to see if you could correctly identify the root cause of the problem, take the proper corrective actions, and safely land the aircraft.

THe objective for that mission for me to see what is the minimum systems required to fly and recover the aircraft in VMC. How much can I loose, excluding engines, and still be able to keep the aircraft in air and land it. During WWII and during Vietnam, and in GW1, there were cases of damege or failiure where many systems were lost. Wingmen or tanker, then guided the disabled aircraft to IMC CatII landing by having hurt plane follow another one. Right down to minimums. So a wingman can navigate for hurt guy, enter pattern, and fly down to minimums, but wingmen cannot physically fly the plane. For a pilot in hurt plane to fly, a/c needs functional flight control surfaces, and ability to drop gear. That is what I wanted to see for myself. What I absolutely must have in order to fly and land A-10. I figured that anything digital and electric I can do without. Spads and Jennies of WWI and 1920's did not have all these electrics. Just cables and pneumatic steam gage instruments. Turbine engines are more or less self sustaining, as long as there is fuel. In gentle level flight, with gravity and suction doing the work, electric fuel pumps are not an absolute requirement, I had them off. With manual reversion, SAS channels have to turned off, and they kickoff anyway when power is lost.

I did pull the aux handle, but with ALT-G key not mouse click. Gear refused to drop.

How much can I loose, excluding engines, and still be able to keep the aircraft in air and land it.

Okay, I think I understand where you're going with this, and there are several answers.

First of all, what are the essential systems? As far as I know, manual reversion is actually extremely hard to use, because it's wires connecting stick and rudder to the control surfaces. At the speeds the Hog is flying, it takes a lot of muscle/strength in order to deflect the surfaces even a little. This is very hard to simulate on a PC.

Landings in manual reversion are not recommended - there's so many things that could go wrong and kill the pilot that you're better of ejecting. Manual reversion lets you pick a spot for that, so it's like a last ditch flight control system to get to the proper side of the front line. The module manual has its own chapter regaring Manual Reversion Landing.

In DCS, we can land in manual reversion all day long, we're only going to lose a virtual life if things go sideways. If I found myself in a parallel universe flying an actual A-10, and on manual reversion, I'd most likely opt for ejection, unless the circumstances were as ideal as they can get (with an aircraft so badly damaged that I'm already flying on backup flight controls, the term "ideal" might not be the best way to describe anything about the situation after all... :smartass:)

And then, there's the pilot. Is the pilot new or unexperienced? Fresh out of flight school? Or a veteran with thousands of hours in various aircraft? There have been many accidents and incidents where aviators caused harm despite being faced with only very minor problems, and there have been cases where aircraft should have crashed and everyone on board should have died, but people were saved by some of the finest airmanship ever witnessed (US Airways 1549, the Gimli Glider, the DC-10 Sioux City emergency landing, to name just a few).

So, in terms of the A-10C, you can get by flying in manual reversion, and with pretty much everything else off. Would it be advisable to land under these conditions? That's up to the pilot to decide. Having good wingmen and helpful controllers will also have a huge impact.

Interesting idea :)

Don't get me started on civilian aviation safety and emergency features and the problems and solutions ... I would a bit but I'm busy with OB256 bug hunting season now.