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Taking a tumble

September 14, 2009 by Warren Morningstar, Executive Producer AOPA ePublishing

You might remember from your training that your attitude indicator can tumble if the aircraft pitch angle exceeds the gyro’s limits. What does that look like and why should you care? We take a look in this video blog.


This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Warren Morningstar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Responses to “Taking a tumble”

  1. Bill Ryan Says:
    September 16th, 2009 at 9:39 am

    Good show! Hope we can cage that poor A.I.

  2. Patrick Flannigan Says:
    September 17th, 2009 at 12:16 am

    Interesting. I’ve never actually seen an attitude indicator tumble. I always imagined it would be “sneaky” like a vacuum failure, but it’s pretty hard to miss a spiralling attitude indicator like the video shows. Is that common for tumbled gyros, or does the indication vary on a case-by-case basis?

    There’s a Decathlon at my local airport, I think I’ll make an appointment with an instructor to do some basic aero just to see this firsthand.

    Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the camera recommendation! I’m actually shopping for a good video-blogging cam now, so good timing!

  3. Warren Morningstar Says:
    September 17th, 2009 at 11:24 am

    Thanks, Patrick. Just to be clear, only the cockpit video was shot with the Contour HD. You might find the audio somewhat lacking for other uses. This camera is best for point-of-view shots — mount it on your helmet, glare shield, wing tip, etc. The extreme wide angle and very limited microphone make it unsuitable for more conventional shots, in my opinion.

  4. Steve Early Says:
    September 18th, 2009 at 8:47 am

    Guess it’s just me but in the video, a shadow completely obscures the AI until after it has already tumbled.

  5. Patrick Flannigan Says:
    September 18th, 2009 at 1:08 pm

    Thanks for the warning on the audio Warren. I’ll keep shopping around then!

  6. Danny Cherry Says:
    September 18th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    Thanks for posting the video. I have a Private certificate and only about 125 hours. I have never seen that, even though, I have heard of it. Verrrrry interesting and informative.

  7. Roger Halstead Says:
    September 18th, 2009 at 10:54 pm

    I’ve seen an AI tumble and appreciate what you are trying to show, but unfortunately on all of my screens the AI is completely covered by the video progress bar except for a couple of seconds. IOW the video didn’t show to me, or any one using the same software anything of importance.

  8. Warren Morningstar Says:
    September 21st, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    Roger,
    Was your cursor resting on the video? The player has a “hover” mode that keeps the video controls on top when the cursor is on the video. Move the mouse pointer off to another part of the page, and the video progress bar should disappear. Let me know if it doesn’t.
    Warren

  9. Hans Plangger Says:
    September 22nd, 2009 at 7:48 am

    Hi,

    I have a back-up electrical AI, that I need to uncage every time I start the plane.
    Will that AI recover or not be affected? If it is affected in the same manner,
    is there a way of “caging” it back, then uncage?

    Thanks.

    Hans.

  10. Dave Hirschman Says:
    September 23rd, 2009 at 8:11 am

    Hans,
    Caging your electric AI will prevent it from tumbling in unusual attutides (as will pulling the circuit breaker). You can uncage it in normal flight without damaging it.

    Dave

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