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Comment by umvi | Hacker News Reader

Not as scary as flying upside down which is what I originally thought based on title alone. Most people are familiar with "barrel roll" but by comparison this just looks like wiggling.

Counterintuitively though my understanding is that barrel rolls are generally safe even for large planes since it's a stable 1G maneuver (some jock irresponsible air force pilot used to regularly barrel roll B-52s until he did one too low and killed himself and the crew)...

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I'm not aware of a B-52 being crashed in a barrel roll, but this did make me think of the 1994 Fairchild crash[0] that was caused by a pilot who was known as dangerous due to excessive self confidence. In this case he banked too tightly at low level causing a stall into the ground. The whole crash was caught on camera[1], which is indelibly burnt into my memory.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Fairchild_Air_Force_Base_...

[1] - https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-of-bud-holland-the...

Man, that is just one big ass airplane to even consider wanting to do any kind of maneuvering without threat indicators blinking/buzzing/beeping/toning that your death is imminent without doing some of that "pilot shit".

The story from your [0] about one of the crew's last flight with his family on the ground waiting for the post-flight rituals where his wife and 2 kids watching is just horrific. What a fucking asshat of a person.

I'm pretty sure that's the crash GP was referring to. It sort of looks like he could have been going into a barrel roll.

The last 3 seconds of your life as the copilot must have been some revolting emotion knowing that the overconfident asshole in the seat next to you just killed you.

Dutch roll, Bud Holland... Netherlands trifecta is in play.

Thanks, my mistake, this is what I was referring to. Apparently "Bud" would brag about "rolling" B-52s (https://www.historylink.org/File/8716), but the fatal crash was actually just a low-altitude stall as you pointed out. It's now a textbook case study for systemic leadership failure.

AFAIK only one Boeing passenger jet ever performed a barrel roll (without passengers on board): https://simpleflying.com/boeing-707-barrel-roll-seattle/

> it's a stable 1G maneuver

It’s positive G, but 0.5 up to 2G (otherwise, given that lift is “towards the ceiling of the plane”, so not always straight up during the manoeuvre, you’d accelerate downward, and arresting the fall requires >1G).

> barrel rolls are generally safe even for large planes since it's a stable 1G maneuver

Maybe "safe" here means that merely the stress of the maneuver itself wouldn't destroy the craft? But surely the loss of lift is likely to put it at significant risk, as in your example.

You dont lose lift in a barrel roll, you merely change the direction that lift is being generated.

When the threat is the ground, maybe that's what's worrying anyway.

Ah, good point ;)

Probably wasn't a B52. Tex Johnston was reknowned for barrel rolling a 707 during a demo back in the day - there's grainy video of it on youtube. Apparently the Boing execs at the demo didn't know it was going to happen and nearly had heart attacks when he did.

Video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz1Eze3QrDU

Tex Johnson

Thanks, corrected.

Bob Hoover rolled a plane while pouring a tea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9pvG_ZSnCc

Tex flew in cowboy boots and, well, was named Tex. I don’t know what they thought would happen.

That depends on what you mean by “generally safe”. Airline jets are not made to withstand the forces of an aerobatic maneuver and while they can do it in test flight conditions, each time requires pulling the jet out of service afterwards for a full structural inspection.

A barrel roll is a 1-G maneuver and will not overstress an aircraft unless done improperly.

Up to 2 or 3G, but most aircraft should withstand that, even gliders.

The Fairchild AFB crash was not a barrel roll.

A barrel roll or an aileron roll? Most people call an aileron roll a barrel roll (no thanks to Star Fox)

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