Question of terminology for a novel I'm writing.

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LindaHawley

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LindaHawley
I'm the author of The Prophecies book series. There is a near-crash of a jet in one of the books, and I have a term I need to clarify, so I came to the pilots to ask the question. :wink2:

Description of the scene:
The passenger jet is coming in for a landing during a bad storm. They are rolling and pitching all over the place as they descend. On approach, the plane is lurching up and down, and just before the wheels touch down, the jet suddenly pitches, starting to turn sideways, one wing up and one wing down, and it begins to twist as though it was going to cartwheel.

Is it a "cartwheel" or a "corkscrew" or is it called something else entirely?

Thank you,
Linda Hawley
 
To me, if the wing strikes the ground first, causing the nose, then other wheel, then tail section to strike in turn, you're talking about a cartwheel.

A corkscrew is actually what an aicraft is doing as it performs a barrel roll.

"The jet suddenly pitches..." You might want to include pitches up or pitches down. What happens next aerodynamically has some bearing on if the nose is lifting or not.
 
Oh, and on your website, the link that covers the image of book one is broken.
 
Of the two terms, "cartwheel" would be the more correct. "Corckscrewing" normally refers to rotation only about the longitudinal axis.
 
you could say "as if it was going to roll inverted" instead of "as if it was going to cartwheel"
 
It hurts me to see the public's irrational fear of flying further propagated in this way.
 
Welcome to POA Linda H.

I would call the action of the plane you describe as "high fictional". ;) Professional commercial pilots are not going to continue into such a storm.

May I suggest another term pilots would use? " Divert " to another airport due to weather, or "Missed approach" or "Go around" until conditions improved.

Good luck with the novel! I mean that, I would rather it not end up in the "Airplane fiction section" if you catch my drift. ;)

JMHO
 
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LindaHawley said:
The passenger jet is coming in for a landing during a bad storm.
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Getting the terminology right isn't going to help if you don't provide a good justification for why the jet doesn't divert to an alternate airport - or simply wait till the worst of the storm passes.

An airline pilot would have to have some pretty strong motivation (like crashing for some other reason) to attempt to land in the kind of conditions you describe.
 
I appreciate the honesty, your perspective, and your guidance. I haven't included the actual text of the scene from my manuscript; instead, I've only summarized it here. That's why you don't have more detail.

With regard to why a pilot wouldn't divert from an airport in these conditions, I want to share this:
This scene is based upon an experience I had three years ago, flying from Dallas to Seattle. I have described it very like it occurred. After our near-crash on approach, the pilot pulled out (with the jet groaning from the stress), aborting the landing, and we headed to Portland airport, only to turn around and come back and land in Seattle (in a near perfect landing, I might add).

That night on the news, someone at the airport had filmed a plane (just before ours) having a similar experience (yet not as severe). After our plane's near-crash, Seattle airport didn't let any other planes land until the storm had passed.

Again, I thank you for being so helpful.

Warm regards,
Linda Hawley

P.S. If you read eBooks and want a free copy of my first book in this series, just pop me an email at Linda@LindaHawley.com and I'll send one your way, as a thank you for your help.
 
LindaHawley said:
With regard to why a pilot wouldn't divert from an airport in these conditions, I want to share this:
This scene is based upon an experience I had three years ago, flying from Dallas to Seattle. I have described it very like it occurred. After our near-crash on approach, the pilot pulled out (with the jet groaning from the stress), aborting the landing, and we headed to Portland airport, only to turn around and come back and land in Seattle (in a near perfect landing, I might add).

That night on the news, someone at the airport had filmed a plane (just before ours) having a similar experience (yet not as severe). After our plane's near-crash, Seattle airport didn't let any other planes land until the storm had passed.
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I see - thanks for the diplomatic correction. Still, the pilots safely aborted the landings. If the pilots were fatigued their reaction time and judgement would be impaired, which could result in the accident you plan to write. The other posts addressed the terminology, so hopefully you've got what you needed (feel free to stick around, though!)

(With regard to a jet fully "cartwheeling" - I personally doubt the wings would have any strength to support any rotation as such. If you are inclined to research a more probable outcome, you could search for "B-52 crash" on Youtube. A bit grisly, but you'll find videos of a B-52 crashing in 1994 pretty much knife-edge into the ground. It simply disintegrated.)
 
LindaHawley said:
I appreciate the honesty, your perspective, and your guidance. I haven't included the actual text of the scene from my manuscript; instead, I've only summarized it here. That's why you don't have more detail.

With regard to why a pilot wouldn't divert from an airport in these conditions, I want to share this:
This scene is based upon an experience I had three years ago, flying from Dallas to Seattle. I have described it very like it occurred. After our near-crash on approach, the pilot pulled out (with the jet groaning from the stress), aborting the landing, and we headed to Portland airport, only to turn around and come back and land in Seattle (in a near perfect landing, I might add).

That night on the news, someone at the airport had filmed a plane (just before ours) having a similar experience (yet not as severe). After our plane's near-crash, Seattle airport didn't let any other planes land until the storm had passed.

Again, I thank you for being so helpful.

Warm regards,
Linda Hawley

P.S. If you read eBooks and want a free copy of my first book in this series, just pop me an email at Linda@LindaHawley.com and I'll send one your way, as a thank you for your help.
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Linda,

First of all, it's great that you're asking on a pilot forum! So many books (and movies) are written by people who haven't bothered checking their facts.

About what happened on your flight: I would be very surprised if things actually happened the way you perceived them because non-pilots will almost always misunderstand what is happening on a plane. I don't know the circumstances surrounding your particular flight, but it's extremely unlikely that the plane was actually close to crashing (again, maybe it was in this one case, but it would be _highly_ unusual). Also, the airplane wouldn't 'groan' from the stress. A go-around is not a stressful maneuver. Seattle airport also generally doesn't have the authority to deny planes landing clearances based on weather. Even if it did, pilots could simply overrule them anyways.

My point is: Good for you for asking questions! Don't assume anything when it comes to aviation. It's very complicated. If you have the time, I would encourage you to keep asking questions. I'm sure people here would love to write the aviation sections themselves :D

PS: A favorite example of mine - last year, the news media in Europe kept talking about how the airspace was "closed" because of the volcano eruption. This of course wasn't at all true. Some IFR clearances were withheld I believe (which doesn't mean the planes couldn't still have decided to fly), and some commercial operators decided that the legal exposure was to great too keep flying. But lots of flights were still conducted, and the airspace certainly wasn't "closed" (not even considering uncontrolled airspace, of which there is a lot, especially for example in the US).
 
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dell30rb said:
you could say "as if it was going to roll inverted" instead of "as if it was going to cartwheel"
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You could, but it probably wouldn't be accurate in the described situation where the airplane was about to catch a wingtip on the runway.

As for the rest -- it's a work of fiction. For those of us in the business at the time, "Top Gun" was a comedy, not a drama, no matter what the general public thought (as my wife, who should know, said, "The only scene with any truth to it was the bar scene"). So back off and allow the author her dramatic license.
 
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Ron Levy said:
For those of us in the business at the time, "Top Gun" was a comedy, not a drama, no matter what the general public thought (as my wife, who should know, said, "The only scene with any truth to it was the bar scene"). So back off and allow the author her dramatic license.
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Actually when TG came out I used to think it was all BS.....then I went to my first command with brown shoes and realized that it was the most accurate documentary of the behavior of Naval Aviators ever made!:D
 
Personally, I think our author should make up a word that sounds good instead of using "cartwheel" which doesn't sound very good to me at all. If you are going to describe an utterly fictitious event you should feel free to use whatever verbiage you like.

To the OP, you weren't ever in any danger at all. The US has a record of commercial aviation safety that is utterly astounding. You really are in more danger driving to the airport than flying in the airplane.

If you really want to have a dangerous aviation experience, just come fly with me in my Cherokee.
 
Thank you for your candor. Yes--my book series is a work of fiction--but I do my best to make scenes believable (which is why I came here to ask questions).

You can judge for yourself if I have done my job well as an author. As a thank you for your help, please use this ‎100% off coupon for the eBook Dreams Unleashed (2nd Ed), 1st book in The Prophecies book series. It was published today.

COUPON: WJ25R
Link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98527

Warm regards,
Linda Hawley
http://LindaHawley.com

http://www.facebook.com/ThePropheciesSeries
 
You could change the description some and then be able to use the term "ground loop".
 
I would describe one wing up and one wing down as "rolling to vertical" as if it was going to roll over. The lifting motion of one wing up and one wing down is a movement in the roll axis, much the same as nose up and nose down is a movement in the pitch axis, and the tail wagging side to side is a movement in the yaw axis...

Sounds like some nasty turbulence...

Just my two pennies of course.

Jim G
 
LindaHawley said:
Thank you for your candor. Yes--my book series is a work of fiction--but I do my best to make scenes believable (which is why I came here to ask questions).

You can judge for yourself if I have done my job well as an author. As a thank you for your help, please use this ‎100% off coupon for the eBook Dreams Unleashed (2nd Ed), 1st book in The Prophecies book series. It was published today.

COUPON: WJ25R
Link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98527

Warm regards,
Linda Hawley
http://LindaHawley.com

http://www.facebook.com/ThePropheciesSeries
Click to expand...

Lucky you. I'm still waiting on my publisher for book number 2.
 
I've been saying that for awhile. I should have had some sort of temporal stipulations with financial penalties in the contract, but I didn't. Can't complain too loudly, just got a nice royalty check the other day. Pays for a lot of flying.
 
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