What might work in a 172 will likely not be appropriate in a complex high performance aircarft for multiple reasons. For example, turbocharged high performance aircraft is subject to a turbo failure that can lead to an inflight fire emergency due when hot exhaust gasses ignite oil leaking from the turbo. Since the turbo aircraft can fly quite high into the flight levels and since an inflight fire can render the aircraft uncontrollable in a manner of couple of minutes (especially if a hot fire enables the engine to become separated from it engine mounts the change in cg will be fatal) the pilot may only have a couple of minutes to get the aircraft to the ground from 18K or higher. A more drastic descent rate of several thousand feet is possible and required for survivability in a high performance aircraft. Deploying flaps up high could be problematic since high air speeds could damage them in a unsymmetrical way adding to control problems. Probably better to wait till very close to the ground to slow to flare speed for landing - if you still have an electrical system to do so.
Anyway things to consider. The original post may not have provided the proper conext but the emergency descent procedure was intended to provide a fast enough descent to survive perhaps one of the most time critical emergencies we can be confronted with - an inflight fire at altitude.
Paul
Last edited on Wed Jul 18th, 2007 03:17 am by Kortopates
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