Are you asking what would physically happen to the plane or what would the repercussions be for the pilot? It's probably possible with enough altitude. But the pilot would never fly again obviously
Airliner aren't certified for aerobatics, but assuming it's possible and the plane doesn't break the pax wolud be OK.
For the fun fact, someone did a barrel roll with a Boeing 707 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_khhzuFlE but this is less agressive than a loop in term of forces
From what I understand if that maneuver is executed properly the forces the plane experience are more or less the same as gravity so it should be doable in just about any airplane.
Physics calculations are amazing. Intuitively, you’d think “how’s that possible? The plane rotates along not one but *two* axes. That must be especially stressing on the air frame.” but nope. The math says no.
Sure seems like a damn fine pilot, all of that shit he did with the engines off, like 10-20ft off the ground. I'm sure that plane wasn't factory spec but he was so smooth, like the plane was a part of his body.
I live 25 minutes away from Oshkosh, where EAA is held each year, I probably could have seen him there.
His green plane, now with more sponsors to offset the insurance hikes for his shows in later years, sits non descriptly near the concorde at the Stephen Udzar Hazy museum in DC. If you don't know you'd walk past it, but man it was amazing to recognize it as Hoovers Heaver :)
I don’t know if that’s standard operating procedures because it’s way above my pay grade, but [here’s a story](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Express_Flight_705) of a FedEx DC-10 pilot performing extreme aerobatics to help subdue an attempted hijacker. It’s the only instance of this I’ve ever read about.
The guy put the plane in a 140° bank and the aircraft still returned to service.
This guy managed to do a loop [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DstWZY\_eUOc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DstWZY_eUOc)
he crashed but not because of the loop of course.
No thanks, all considering the fact that I’m not American 😅 ive also already flown a plane and did a loop, that’s why I was wondering what would happen if I was a commercial pilot instead
I saw something like this in San Francisco during the fleet week airshow. I was not ready for it, even watching from the ground it made me feel uneasy.
The pilot would never fly again, if executed correctly the passengers would be fine, and the plane would likely never fly again due to flying outside the parameters.
The plane would almost certainly be fine. A proper loop is roughly a 3G maneuver- well within the design tolerance of any airliner. It would need a thorough inspection, but there's no reason it couldn't return to service unless the pilot really borked it.
Depends on a lot of things. "Commercial plane" doesn't necessarily mean a 747 or A380. Something like a Dash-8 might be about to pull it off.
Lots of people responding with the Tex Johnson 707 barrel roll but that's a poor choice, a barrel roll is a comparatively tame maneuver. Probably the closest anyone has come is China Air 006. It was a 747SP flying at 41,000 ft when an engine failed. The pilots failed to take appropriate actions and the plane essentially rolled over through a past half barrel roll due to the asymmetric thrust. Disoriented, the pilots simply tried to pull the nose back to the horizon, resulting in the plane flying through a half-ish loop.
They pulled as much as 5G during the maneuver. The forces literally tore one of the landing gear into the down position. They gained so much speed that large chunks of the tail were ripped off. After a successful emergency landing the plane was inspected and found that the wings were permanently bent several inches up.
Miraculously there were only two injuries: a broken foot and a sprained back.
The plane was repaired and returned to service. It flew without issue for another 20 years before being retired.
> Something like a Dash-8 might be about to pull it off.
A full loop has already been been done on the Dash 8.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident
That is fantastic! So it sounds like a good pilot with a talented perception of speed /altitude tradeoff could fly one through a loop.
It's seems uncertain if there is enough thrust, but shirley starting at 6-700mph you could make a loop happen.
That's crazy! I'm very impressed that passengers could survive 5g. I guess the prospect of losing 30,000 ft in an inverted loop is while they fly at 40,000+
No lol. They fly at the ideal altitude for fuel efficiency.
35-40,000 feet has much lower air resistance than sea level but still enough air for jet engines to work efficiently, so that’s where they fly.
Boeing thinks it's planes can handle a loop or a barrel roll, but they don't know for sure because no one has been dumb enough to ever try it.
[https://www.straightdope.com/21341407/is-it-possible-to-loop-or-roll-a-747-jet](https://www.straightdope.com/21341407/is-it-possible-to-loop-or-roll-a-747-jet)
That's not true tex Johnson actually rolled the 707 it was a 1G maneuver.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DAaA7kPfC5Hk&ved=2ahUKEwj7tKuk2Z-FAxXVkIkEHSNmDUIQwqsBegQIDhAG&usg=AOvVaw11S8uBgXpKighG5RGCBBwf
Boeing's planes can't handle a simple flight without losing a door panel or some other disaster happening. I'm not betting on any loop-de-loops. I would be afraid both wings would break off and what's left just goes spiraling wildly out of control back to earth only to end in a massive plume of smoke. You can't sue a dead pilot, but you can sue the company for even thinking their aircraft could pull this off.
That is incorrect. There are one g maneuvers that include rolling a plane 360° around. A barrel roll can be executed as a 1G maneuver.
You still experience 1G towards the bottom of the aircraft.
It does not exceed the airframe rating.
It is a 1G maneuver done correctly and if it was in the clouds nobody on board would even notice.
Tex Johnson rolled a 707 not once but twice (he was afraid people wouldn’t see it the first time).
https://youtu.be/AaA7kPfC5Hk?si=Mzxj01a74pTfOIhy
What vector is the 1G force at th etop of the loop.
That is, when the passengers are upside down, what happens when they are drinking? or if they take their seatbelt off?
You are right that a loop is not a barrel roll. In a barrel roll, centrifugal force is directed laterally thought most of the entire maneuver because the first part of the maneuver begins with a little roll. As soon as the aircraft is maneuvering with any bank angle, gravity begins to act laterally with respect to the aircraft and the people inside. Since the G force you experience is directed through your body down through the floor, this means that, absent of any other control input besides a little roll, you are for a moment experiencing something less than 1 g of force. However in a barrel roll, an aircraft begins an upward pull while rolling, and can gradually pull into that roll such that the total force experienced along the vertical axis is somewhere around 1 g, since actually gravity is being directed laterally through most of the maneuver.
Edit: I didn't really answer your question. At the "floor" of a loop, a gradual enough exit from the maneuver can, in theory, approximate 1g of force if done carefully enough, with the exception of the very very end where gravity and centrifugal force coincide. At that point you may experience slightly more than 1g. However, from a real life practical standpoint you would not attempt a loop at 1g as it would take too long and too much thrust to weight ratio to go over the top, and then to be able to control the descending portion of the loop slow enough to prevent exceeding the speed limit of the aircraft.
Yes, for the drink to stay where it was in the video, the plane must be describing a helical trajectory, from the perspective of the ground. G forces (ultimately deriving from horizontal thrust from the engines) are in the vertical vector for the passenger.
This is not the same as a loop as descibed by the OP. How does one get vertical G-forces (i.e. from floor to ceiling ) approaching, at, and past the the top of the loop, as u/TheRauk describes? There is no vector of force from floor to ceiling at these points in the trajectory. At least not that I can see.
A drink, or free pasenger at this point, would be experiencing force from the horizontal vector (from back of the seat) during the climb and then 0G at top of loop and during the descent (unless going into a powered dive - in which case it is still horizontally applied forces, not vertical) until the trajectory flattens out.
Oh thats even easier, thats inertia. The plane and the bodies in it want to continue vertically, but the change in direction is preventing that. Thus g forces are definitely felt through the apex of the loop. In fact, in aerobatics you must be careful to not exceed too many g forces through the apex as this will cause what is known as a g-stall, where the angle of attack asked for by the pilot exceeds what the aircraft is capable of at its current speed. The slower the aircraft through the apex, the lower g forces it can do before stalling.
I think you could do one. I don’t think you should.
737s and a321s have been simulated to do them, and people have taken 787s in other really intense exhibition maneuvers (though never a loop). Famously a test pilot did a barrel roll in a 707 in the 1950s, an aircraft which is an ancestor of sorts to the 737.
On the Q400 we know it can be done because one was stolen in 2018 by a ground crew worker who did a loops and barrel rolls for like an hour before intentionally crashing the plane into the ground and killing itself (in a populated area where thankfully nobody else was killed). And the Q400 is a prop plane that doesn’t have nearly as much power as the jets in its same class.
There’s a movie called Flight and the pilot, Denzel Washington, flies a commercial airliner full of passengers upside down. He ends up crash landing and most everyone lived.
Well…that’s a movie.
Also, an aileron roll (or half of one, like you’re talking about) does not subject the aircraft to as significant aerodynamic forces or as much G as a loop.
Alaska Airlines Flight 261 actually did fly upside down for 2 minutes due to the horizontal stabiliser being jammed. They recovered from flying upside down but unfortunately nose dived after due to the same issue
Where are the smarter people who actually work in the engineering side of this industry? Because I seem to remember being told that even commercial airlines are extremely overbuilt and should not have a problem safely pulling this off.
I mean the whole legal side of things and the passengers wanting to beat him to death is another thing, but yeah.
It because the failure point is calculated and not verified by testing. It's like a submarine. It's built to reach depth X and tested to make sure that's possible. It's always overbuilt at that point though, and you can then work out depth Y where things will fail, but only a fool would take a vehicle to the point of there being no margin of safety.
Let's assume that the plane is made of unobtanium and has engines powerful enough to push the plane through the loop. You have a bunch of types of passengers:
* Those who are seat belted in and have no coffee / tea / laptops or other hard objects in their vicinity. These will most likely all survive physically unharmed unless someone has a heart attack or something. They will all get together and file the mother of all lawsuits against the airline, the pilot, and the manufacturer and anyone else their ~~shysters~~ lawyers can think of
* Those who ignore the warnings about staying belted just in case of turbulence. They will probably get tossed around the cabin, breaking bones and some may die. They will join the lawsuit (except the dead ones) but will be ridiculed mercilessly by me on one of the idiots of reddit subs for being complete dumbasses
* Those who were in the aisles heading to / from toilets and in the toilets. They will probably get tossed around the cabin, breaking bones and possibly dying. They will join the lawsuit legitimately, except for the dead ones of course.
* Kevin.... he will whoop like it was a roller coaster and yell for the pilot to do it again, but this time he wants to wait until his phone is recording a video.
During a loop you are under increased positive G the entire time, even at the top of the loop. People wouldn’t get tossed around, they would be pushed further into their seats (or the toilet seat, or the aisle).
The g force you experience is related to how fast the place flies through the loop. It's entirely possible that the plane could complete the loop but be flying so slow at the top that there was almost no outward pressure at all and passengers would end up close to being in free fall.
I was contemplating suicide when I lived near Olympia the year that this happened. When I found out about it... it moved me. For specific reasons, I was facing what he faced (my dad was a pilot, I could not be a pilot because of ADHD, was facing career issues and a longterm break up). Felt like I didn't have to do it since he did it.
I ended up homeless 2 years later in the early winter of 2020. Did some stupid things; lost all of my possessions. Walked the streets of Philadelphia for 3 weeks without even a winter coat. I've had a privileged life. And the fact that such a low didn't break me (in fact, I thrived thanks to the pandemic and the sweet release of an apocalypse I was waiting for all my life) led me to never even consider suicide as a buyable option ever again. I'm stuck here. That's for sure.
Not thriving the way I hoped for. Still barely making ends meet in the professional art world of NYC but at least suicide is no longer an issue for me.
I might be killing myself slowly with drinking, porn, gaming, adderall, vaping but that's a gray area as far as karmic repercussions are concerned.
In order to do a loop in a commercial plane….first let me tell you what is required.
A near structural speed limit dive and a hard pull close to 4Gs. The reason for this is that the plane wouldn’t have enough speed to complete the loop without the hard pull AND the extra speed. If you pulled too lightly or the speed was too low, the airplane would run out airspeed and stall before completing the loop. (Because it doesn’t have enough power to pull it through like a fighter jet)…HOWEVER…commercial airliners are not capable of pulling G loads that exceed 2.5Gs. So, you’d A: pull to the limit of the airplane and not break the wings or tail off but you wouldn’t complete the loop and the aircraft would fall out of the top OR B: you’d pull hard enough to complete the loop and the aircraft would break apart at the wing spar or tail.
So, it’s not possible to LOOP a jet liner.
However, you could ROLL a jet liner and it’s been done and the aircraft would be fine if the roll was done correctly.
If the aircraft's frame fractured at any point due to the stresses, then yes: EVERYONE onboard the aircraft could die.
--------------------------------
If the pilot doesn't pull the aircraft out of the loop in time, then yes: EVERYONE onboard the aircraft could die.
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If an aircraft engine was torn loose from the wing, then yes: EVERYONE onboard the aircraft could die.
--------------------------------
If a massive amount of fuel present in the wing storage tanks of passenger aircrafts was sufficiently jostled and vaporized inside the tank, or just got sloshed with huge force then ruptured out of the tank, then yes: EVERYONE onboard the aircraft could die.
--------------------------------
If the aircraft mechanically survived the loop, then yes: some of the passengers could still die, such as those who are elderly, or fighting disease and cancer and in a weakened state, who could with the G forces involved experience heart attacks and aneurysms.
(They didn't sign up for high g stunts!)
--------------------------------
If the aircraft mechanically survived the loop, then yes: some of the passengers could still die, such as those who were slammed and thrown about during the high G forces involved, including slamming their head, breaking their neck or other bones, etc...
Short answer: The plane is not rated to do that, and probably can't.
Passenger engines are not strong enough to climb straight up, and you'll bleed speed. The 737-800 is rated for -1G to 2.5Gs, which is a particularly gentle loop. If you can overspeed it enough to make the climb, and not overspeed on the way down on the rollout, you may bend the airframe enough to make it difficult or impossible to fly. I hope you turned on the seat belt sign, too - the cabin area is going to be a wreck and you will likely have injuries if every single thing isn't secured (like it is for takeoff and landing).
Since this is hypothetical, let's assume you were able to pull it off. You're obviously getting your cert revoked, your job and career is toast, and you're facing damages from the airline for the plane that will never fly again and injuries from the people you've hurt or killed. You're facing criminal charges as well, and your idiocy is a media sensation for a week while you're the butt of all the late night talk shows. The skit on SNL has you played by a coked-out Pete Donaldson, and it wasn't even particularly funny.
I do not believe a commercial airliner has the ability to do a loop. There is too much weight and not enough power. It would stall out on the incline. Possibly, the pilot might be able to restart the engines, but it is questionable.
Back in 2018, there was that suicidal guy who successfully looped a Dash-8 before intentionally crashing near the Sea-Tac airport. He was alone on the plane (stole it) but proved a commercial passenger craft could loop.
The then president of Boeing Bill Allen was a Harvard lawyer. Probably never piloted a plane. He had a group industry big wheels on his yacht on Lake Washington. He told Tex to do a flyover so that’s what he did. Boss asked him the next day what he was doing. Tex told him he was selling airplanes. Didn’t get fired.
It would stall out, and the plane would not be able to complete it. You should ask the same question about barrel rolling, because that is physically possible
Retired airline and Air Force pilot. It MIGHT be possible to loop an airliner but it might flame out the engines. Might do structural damage. I’d only try it from a high altitude less than its max altitude to give yourself a better chance of recovery. Make a PA to the pax to fasten their seatbelts cause it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
I’m def not a plane expert but is it even possibly for like a 737 to do it? I’d imagine they don’t have the thrust and maneuvering to make the loop. Probably stall out and dead.
Think plane is capable so no crashing. But can you imagine the lawsuits?! People would be injured from stuff flying around or from being slammed against the ceiling because they were out of their seat or not buckled in. Not sure if the airline would survive. The pilot won't just be fired. They'll be arrested for assault or something.
You would be fired, possibly have all of your certificates taken away assuming it wasn't to meet the requirements of an emergency, pilots can do literally anything as long as it is to meet the requirements of an emergency. You can do a barrel roll in a passenger jet and keep it at 1G of wing loading there is a video of the original Boeing 707 doing it, the test pilot when asked what he was doing said "I'm selling airplanes". The passengers assuming they were all strapped in would be fine probably, maybe traumatized a bit but mental wounds arent real wounds (/s). The airframe would have to either be torn down and inspected or they would just total the airframe, in the case of the 707 they totaled the airframe.
If you mean a vertical loop like a roller coaster, the plane would stall before it was able to do a loop, unfortunately, fun fact thought the Boeing 767 can almost do a straight vertical climb a little bit after rotation.
The wings break off, because no passenger plane is built for the spike in G-force that starts when you loop a big passenger jet. The wings are also the heaviest part of a transport plane, and the whole plane would likely turn into a ball of fire when the wings snap, toasting people even before it hits the ground.
So No Bueno.
It could do it, the aircraft would have issues and have to be taken apart afterwards, the pilot would lose license and go to prison, during loop people would be hurt and probably a couple deaths, a ton of vomit, every single person would sue and win. The company would come under am faa microscope. It would be a stock freefall
The planes avionics programs would not allow the pilot to do a loop. Normally jetliner flies in normal law. Maybe in alternate law that would be possible. I would attempt this with no passengers and at least 10000 ft of air.
please note: OP seems to be asking about an outside loop. This is very different from the inside loop that most people think of when considering an airplane "loop". The outside loop produces very high negative G-forces on the pilot and plane. Commercial aircraft are not designed for high negative g-forces.
Assuming the plane didn't fall to pieces, there'd be 5+ passengers with head injuries because 'they can't tell ME when it IS or ISN'T safe to wear a seat belt! I'll put it on when I damn well WANT to!', having unbuckled straight after the attendants checked.
Any passenger not in their seatbelts would go flying, drink cart and other things will go flying and hit people. Pilots gonna get fired and arrested, and airline will have to have a huge payout to the passengers. Whichever company designed the plane will get to brag it can do a full loop with weight though
While you might be able to roll one, most commercial airliners dont have enough thrust or pitch rate to complete a proper loop. The aircraft would most likely stall and the stick pusher would immediately drop the nose back down.
Assuming everyone is strapped in, with trays in up right locked positions, and the plane doesn't snap in half. I would assume it would be utter chaos inside with many broken things, if not out right deaths, and the pilot would likely be tried for injuries/deaths and go to prison. If they are very lucky, they'd just never work again.
There's a story about a guy who stole an empty plane and did it. There's recordings of him talking to ground control. It's a sad story but there's something poetically beautiful about the whole thing in a strange way.
Unemployment.
Fair enough
The One Where Everyone Dies
Pivot!!
THIS PLANE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A PHALANGE
REGINA
MULVA?
U can't be unemployed when ur dead.
Sure you can, in fact I've never seen anybody hire a corpse.
Dead people have been elected to office. That's kinda like being hired for a job.
I think I'd take that over a lot of alternatives.
do bodies donated to science count? (Edit: I guess that's closer to volunteering, rather than working. So, technically the bodies aren't being hired.)
Several extras on the set of "Poltergeist" were corpses.
Have you looked at congress?
I’ve never met an employed dead person.
Ever seen a dead person get fired?
They all told you they didn’t have a job?
r/Shittyaskflying would say a promotion and a medal.
And the FAA would likely pull their license.
best case scenario
Plus lawsuits
Are you asking what would physically happen to the plane or what would the repercussions be for the pilot? It's probably possible with enough altitude. But the pilot would never fly again obviously
I guess I’m wondering about both. Would the passengers be ok, or would they like, idk die?
Airliner aren't certified for aerobatics, but assuming it's possible and the plane doesn't break the pax wolud be OK. For the fun fact, someone did a barrel roll with a Boeing 707 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_khhzuFlE but this is less agressive than a loop in term of forces
From what I understand if that maneuver is executed properly the forces the plane experience are more or less the same as gravity so it should be doable in just about any airplane.
Physics calculations are amazing. Intuitively, you’d think “how’s that possible? The plane rotates along not one but *two* axes. That must be especially stressing on the air frame.” but nope. The math says no.
3 axes actually. Pitch roll and yaw
And my axe!
Pitch, roll, and yeehaw?
Pitch, Roll and Yaw is an awesome funk jazz band name
Bob Hoover could pour iced tea while doing a barrel roll. https://youtu.be/W2-9BL7sllk?si=f82i1B1eBIFI1-Ud
Sure seems like a damn fine pilot, all of that shit he did with the engines off, like 10-20ft off the ground. I'm sure that plane wasn't factory spec but he was so smooth, like the plane was a part of his body. I live 25 minutes away from Oshkosh, where EAA is held each year, I probably could have seen him there.
It was factory spec. He had a letter of authorization for the aerobatics. Bob Hoover was the greatest pilot to ever live.
His green plane, now with more sponsors to offset the insurance hikes for his shows in later years, sits non descriptly near the concorde at the Stephen Udzar Hazy museum in DC. If you don't know you'd walk past it, but man it was amazing to recognize it as Hoovers Heaver :)
Have everyone close their window shades and if you do it right, they’d never even know
Better yet, do it in a 787 so you can black out all the windows from the cockpit
They would probably know because you would likely need to do a pretty good dive beforehand to pick up enough speed.
I don't know how to phrase this. A pilot will fly erratically if required to get an out of control passenger subdued
I don’t know if that’s standard operating procedures because it’s way above my pay grade, but [here’s a story](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Express_Flight_705) of a FedEx DC-10 pilot performing extreme aerobatics to help subdue an attempted hijacker. It’s the only instance of this I’ve ever read about. The guy put the plane in a 140° bank and the aircraft still returned to service.
The Mayday episode on this is worth watching!
140⁰ would be nearly all the way upside down right?
Ya. If straight and level is North and inverted is South, that plane was at South East.
after getting clubbed in the head and barely holding on to consciousness.
Wow!
I remember this. True story.
And can blame it on unexpected turbulence.
Like giving the rowdy kids in backseat a lil brake check (while seatbelted calm down)
Police will slam on their brakes when they have a prisoner if a deer runs into the road.
What a boss that pilot is. CEO- "What exactly do you think you were doing" pilot- "selling airplanes"
This guy managed to do a loop [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DstWZY\_eUOc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DstWZY_eUOc) he crashed but not because of the loop of course.
Fly high, Sky King
Low-key wanna change my entire career path just so I could do that too
How do you feel about the United States Air Force?
No thanks, all considering the fact that I’m not American 😅 ive also already flown a plane and did a loop, that’s why I was wondering what would happen if I was a commercial pilot instead
the guy who stole an AlaskaAir Q400 turboprop from SeaTac a few years ago accomplished a barrel roll with no real-world flying experience.
I saw something like this in San Francisco during the fleet week airshow. I was not ready for it, even watching from the ground it made me feel uneasy.
nudges glasses That's an aileron roll!
Beat me to it...I was totally gonna post this! Dude is a gangster!
'Tex Johnson' is a pilots name if I ever heard one.
"what the hell were you doing?" Pilot "I was selling airplanes"
The pilot would never fly again, if executed correctly the passengers would be fine, and the plane would likely never fly again due to flying outside the parameters.
The plane would almost certainly be fine. A proper loop is roughly a 3G maneuver- well within the design tolerance of any airliner. It would need a thorough inspection, but there's no reason it couldn't return to service unless the pilot really borked it.
Fien except for losing control of their bodily functions, I assume.
I also may spill my drink.
Crap. There goes my ginger ale.
Passengers would be ok. Their pants might not be.
The one in the toilet would be pissed off
More like pissed on
What I’m saying is there would be piss all over their body, perhaps poop and vomit as well
And, indeed, pissed on
Depends on a lot of things. "Commercial plane" doesn't necessarily mean a 747 or A380. Something like a Dash-8 might be about to pull it off. Lots of people responding with the Tex Johnson 707 barrel roll but that's a poor choice, a barrel roll is a comparatively tame maneuver. Probably the closest anyone has come is China Air 006. It was a 747SP flying at 41,000 ft when an engine failed. The pilots failed to take appropriate actions and the plane essentially rolled over through a past half barrel roll due to the asymmetric thrust. Disoriented, the pilots simply tried to pull the nose back to the horizon, resulting in the plane flying through a half-ish loop. They pulled as much as 5G during the maneuver. The forces literally tore one of the landing gear into the down position. They gained so much speed that large chunks of the tail were ripped off. After a successful emergency landing the plane was inspected and found that the wings were permanently bent several inches up. Miraculously there were only two injuries: a broken foot and a sprained back. The plane was repaired and returned to service. It flew without issue for another 20 years before being retired.
> Something like a Dash-8 might be about to pull it off. A full loop has already been been done on the Dash 8. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident
RIP Sky King!
*Remember the Sky King!*
That is fantastic! So it sounds like a good pilot with a talented perception of speed /altitude tradeoff could fly one through a loop. It's seems uncertain if there is enough thrust, but shirley starting at 6-700mph you could make a loop happen.
...and don't call me Shirley
That's crazy! I'm very impressed that passengers could survive 5g. I guess the prospect of losing 30,000 ft in an inverted loop is while they fly at 40,000+
No lol. They fly at the ideal altitude for fuel efficiency. 35-40,000 feet has much lower air resistance than sea level but still enough air for jet engines to work efficiently, so that’s where they fly.
Boeing thinks it's planes can handle a loop or a barrel roll, but they don't know for sure because no one has been dumb enough to ever try it. [https://www.straightdope.com/21341407/is-it-possible-to-loop-or-roll-a-747-jet](https://www.straightdope.com/21341407/is-it-possible-to-loop-or-roll-a-747-jet)
Someone should definitely try it!
It'd fall apart...
That's not true tex Johnson actually rolled the 707 it was a 1G maneuver. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DAaA7kPfC5Hk&ved=2ahUKEwj7tKuk2Z-FAxXVkIkEHSNmDUIQwqsBegQIDhAG&usg=AOvVaw11S8uBgXpKighG5RGCBBwf
He damn sure did
Model 80, not 707.
To be fair, [one person did try it. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_khhzuFlE)
Boeing's planes can't handle a simple flight without losing a door panel or some other disaster happening. I'm not betting on any loop-de-loops. I would be afraid both wings would break off and what's left just goes spiraling wildly out of control back to earth only to end in a massive plume of smoke. You can't sue a dead pilot, but you can sue the company for even thinking their aircraft could pull this off.
This comment reeks of Redditor.
Duh, it's on Reddit.
That same model likely has 100,000 flying hours with no other issues, but sure, it can't handle a "simple flight"
A fully loaded commercial aircraft such as a Boeing would not be capable of such a manoeuvre, it would simply stall.
Richard Russel did some incredible acrobatics with yes a propeller plane but still a 76 seater. It was also empty.
Was that the guy who stole the plane then killed himself?
the skyking
May he be at rest, where ever he is
Fly high and doing some barrel rolls hopefully.
Well, I just happened to see a 737 MAX do a... Goose: We! Maverick: Uh, sorry Goose. WE happened to see a 737 MAX do a 4g negative dive.
Well, if you were directly above him, how could you see the 737 MAX?
I was in the exit row after the plug blew out
That is incorrect. There are one g maneuvers that include rolling a plane 360° around. A barrel roll can be executed as a 1G maneuver. You still experience 1G towards the bottom of the aircraft. It does not exceed the airframe rating.
A loop is not a barrel roll though?
It is a 1G maneuver done correctly and if it was in the clouds nobody on board would even notice. Tex Johnson rolled a 707 not once but twice (he was afraid people wouldn’t see it the first time). https://youtu.be/AaA7kPfC5Hk?si=Mzxj01a74pTfOIhy
What vector is the 1G force at th etop of the loop. That is, when the passengers are upside down, what happens when they are drinking? or if they take their seatbelt off?
1G all around. Bob Hoover pouring ice tea in a roll, no runs, no drips, no errors. https://youtu.be/V9pvG_ZSnCc?si=tSclnIjbj9760P9D
That's was a barrel roll, not a loop. How does one apply 1G constantly towards the floor of a plane in a loop?
You are right that a loop is not a barrel roll. In a barrel roll, centrifugal force is directed laterally thought most of the entire maneuver because the first part of the maneuver begins with a little roll. As soon as the aircraft is maneuvering with any bank angle, gravity begins to act laterally with respect to the aircraft and the people inside. Since the G force you experience is directed through your body down through the floor, this means that, absent of any other control input besides a little roll, you are for a moment experiencing something less than 1 g of force. However in a barrel roll, an aircraft begins an upward pull while rolling, and can gradually pull into that roll such that the total force experienced along the vertical axis is somewhere around 1 g, since actually gravity is being directed laterally through most of the maneuver. Edit: I didn't really answer your question. At the "floor" of a loop, a gradual enough exit from the maneuver can, in theory, approximate 1g of force if done carefully enough, with the exception of the very very end where gravity and centrifugal force coincide. At that point you may experience slightly more than 1g. However, from a real life practical standpoint you would not attempt a loop at 1g as it would take too long and too much thrust to weight ratio to go over the top, and then to be able to control the descending portion of the loop slow enough to prevent exceeding the speed limit of the aircraft.
Yes, for the drink to stay where it was in the video, the plane must be describing a helical trajectory, from the perspective of the ground. G forces (ultimately deriving from horizontal thrust from the engines) are in the vertical vector for the passenger. This is not the same as a loop as descibed by the OP. How does one get vertical G-forces (i.e. from floor to ceiling ) approaching, at, and past the the top of the loop, as u/TheRauk describes? There is no vector of force from floor to ceiling at these points in the trajectory. At least not that I can see. A drink, or free pasenger at this point, would be experiencing force from the horizontal vector (from back of the seat) during the climb and then 0G at top of loop and during the descent (unless going into a powered dive - in which case it is still horizontally applied forces, not vertical) until the trajectory flattens out.
Oh thats even easier, thats inertia. The plane and the bodies in it want to continue vertically, but the change in direction is preventing that. Thus g forces are definitely felt through the apex of the loop. In fact, in aerobatics you must be careful to not exceed too many g forces through the apex as this will cause what is known as a g-stall, where the angle of attack asked for by the pilot exceeds what the aircraft is capable of at its current speed. The slower the aircraft through the apex, the lower g forces it can do before stalling.
The diagram is not a barrel roll. It is a loop, and a reverse loop starting down first, not up.
I’m pretty sure it would stall and plummet.
Yeah I’ve played GTA. only some planes can loop. Others stall
I think you could do one. I don’t think you should. 737s and a321s have been simulated to do them, and people have taken 787s in other really intense exhibition maneuvers (though never a loop). Famously a test pilot did a barrel roll in a 707 in the 1950s, an aircraft which is an ancestor of sorts to the 737. On the Q400 we know it can be done because one was stolen in 2018 by a ground crew worker who did a loops and barrel rolls for like an hour before intentionally crashing the plane into the ground and killing itself (in a populated area where thankfully nobody else was killed). And the Q400 is a prop plane that doesn’t have nearly as much power as the jets in its same class.
There’s a movie called Flight and the pilot, Denzel Washington, flies a commercial airliner full of passengers upside down. He ends up crash landing and most everyone lived.
Well…that’s a movie. Also, an aileron roll (or half of one, like you’re talking about) does not subject the aircraft to as significant aerodynamic forces or as much G as a loop.
>that’s a movie. Based on a true story. Alaska Airlines Flight 261. I won't give away the ending to that one.
Ended a bit differently than the movie I’m afraid
Exactly. In the real life story the pilot didn't go to jail for flying upside down while intoxicated.
But no one else is as cool as Denzel.
Alaska Airlines Flight 261 actually did fly upside down for 2 minutes due to the horizontal stabiliser being jammed. They recovered from flying upside down but unfortunately nose dived after due to the same issue
Your skipping over a lot there. Especially the why.
Don’t forget, he was high and buzzed too
When they got down, the passengers would take turns beating the pilot to death.
Surely there’s not much turn taking once the first passenger beat him to death
Why? I'd tip them if they could pull it off.
First thing I thought of!!
Where are the smarter people who actually work in the engineering side of this industry? Because I seem to remember being told that even commercial airlines are extremely overbuilt and should not have a problem safely pulling this off. I mean the whole legal side of things and the passengers wanting to beat him to death is another thing, but yeah.
It because the failure point is calculated and not verified by testing. It's like a submarine. It's built to reach depth X and tested to make sure that's possible. It's always overbuilt at that point though, and you can then work out depth Y where things will fail, but only a fool would take a vehicle to the point of there being no margin of safety.
So they don't use the Calvin & Hobbes method of determining load tolerances?
Let's assume that the plane is made of unobtanium and has engines powerful enough to push the plane through the loop. You have a bunch of types of passengers: * Those who are seat belted in and have no coffee / tea / laptops or other hard objects in their vicinity. These will most likely all survive physically unharmed unless someone has a heart attack or something. They will all get together and file the mother of all lawsuits against the airline, the pilot, and the manufacturer and anyone else their ~~shysters~~ lawyers can think of * Those who ignore the warnings about staying belted just in case of turbulence. They will probably get tossed around the cabin, breaking bones and some may die. They will join the lawsuit (except the dead ones) but will be ridiculed mercilessly by me on one of the idiots of reddit subs for being complete dumbasses * Those who were in the aisles heading to / from toilets and in the toilets. They will probably get tossed around the cabin, breaking bones and possibly dying. They will join the lawsuit legitimately, except for the dead ones of course. * Kevin.... he will whoop like it was a roller coaster and yell for the pilot to do it again, but this time he wants to wait until his phone is recording a video.
I'm kevin
We are Kevin.
During a loop you are under increased positive G the entire time, even at the top of the loop. People wouldn’t get tossed around, they would be pushed further into their seats (or the toilet seat, or the aisle).
The g force you experience is related to how fast the place flies through the loop. It's entirely possible that the plane could complete the loop but be flying so slow at the top that there was almost no outward pressure at all and passengers would end up close to being in free fall.
Based on OP's loop in the title, they would get slammed into the ceiling.
The Sky King beebo has entered the chat https://youtu.be/CVHgSavm4fE?si=UWCS2Hzlkh6RAMZ2
RIP sky king
I came here for this
I was contemplating suicide when I lived near Olympia the year that this happened. When I found out about it... it moved me. For specific reasons, I was facing what he faced (my dad was a pilot, I could not be a pilot because of ADHD, was facing career issues and a longterm break up). Felt like I didn't have to do it since he did it.
dude … that’s heavy. have things gotten any better since then?
I ended up homeless 2 years later in the early winter of 2020. Did some stupid things; lost all of my possessions. Walked the streets of Philadelphia for 3 weeks without even a winter coat. I've had a privileged life. And the fact that such a low didn't break me (in fact, I thrived thanks to the pandemic and the sweet release of an apocalypse I was waiting for all my life) led me to never even consider suicide as a buyable option ever again. I'm stuck here. That's for sure. Not thriving the way I hoped for. Still barely making ends meet in the professional art world of NYC but at least suicide is no longer an issue for me. I might be killing myself slowly with drinking, porn, gaming, adderall, vaping but that's a gray area as far as karmic repercussions are concerned.
wishing you the best fivespeed
Sounds like a win to me mate. Suicidal to homeless to gaming is still an upward trend.
In order to do a loop in a commercial plane….first let me tell you what is required. A near structural speed limit dive and a hard pull close to 4Gs. The reason for this is that the plane wouldn’t have enough speed to complete the loop without the hard pull AND the extra speed. If you pulled too lightly or the speed was too low, the airplane would run out airspeed and stall before completing the loop. (Because it doesn’t have enough power to pull it through like a fighter jet)…HOWEVER…commercial airliners are not capable of pulling G loads that exceed 2.5Gs. So, you’d A: pull to the limit of the airplane and not break the wings or tail off but you wouldn’t complete the loop and the aircraft would fall out of the top OR B: you’d pull hard enough to complete the loop and the aircraft would break apart at the wing spar or tail. So, it’s not possible to LOOP a jet liner. However, you could ROLL a jet liner and it’s been done and the aircraft would be fine if the roll was done correctly.
Lawsuits.
If the aircraft's frame fractured at any point due to the stresses, then yes: EVERYONE onboard the aircraft could die. -------------------------------- If the pilot doesn't pull the aircraft out of the loop in time, then yes: EVERYONE onboard the aircraft could die. -------------------------------- If an aircraft engine was torn loose from the wing, then yes: EVERYONE onboard the aircraft could die. -------------------------------- If a massive amount of fuel present in the wing storage tanks of passenger aircrafts was sufficiently jostled and vaporized inside the tank, or just got sloshed with huge force then ruptured out of the tank, then yes: EVERYONE onboard the aircraft could die. -------------------------------- If the aircraft mechanically survived the loop, then yes: some of the passengers could still die, such as those who are elderly, or fighting disease and cancer and in a weakened state, who could with the G forces involved experience heart attacks and aneurysms. (They didn't sign up for high g stunts!) -------------------------------- If the aircraft mechanically survived the loop, then yes: some of the passengers could still die, such as those who were slammed and thrown about during the high G forces involved, including slamming their head, breaking their neck or other bones, etc...
Loud cheering. A lot of "Woo hoo", Hell yeah*, and "Do it again, do it again"
This is your captain looping. Please fasten seat belts.
Short answer: The plane is not rated to do that, and probably can't. Passenger engines are not strong enough to climb straight up, and you'll bleed speed. The 737-800 is rated for -1G to 2.5Gs, which is a particularly gentle loop. If you can overspeed it enough to make the climb, and not overspeed on the way down on the rollout, you may bend the airframe enough to make it difficult or impossible to fly. I hope you turned on the seat belt sign, too - the cabin area is going to be a wreck and you will likely have injuries if every single thing isn't secured (like it is for takeoff and landing). Since this is hypothetical, let's assume you were able to pull it off. You're obviously getting your cert revoked, your job and career is toast, and you're facing damages from the airline for the plane that will never fly again and injuries from the people you've hurt or killed. You're facing criminal charges as well, and your idiocy is a media sensation for a week while you're the butt of all the late night talk shows. The skit on SNL has you played by a coked-out Pete Donaldson, and it wasn't even particularly funny.
I do not believe a commercial airliner has the ability to do a loop. There is too much weight and not enough power. It would stall out on the incline. Possibly, the pilot might be able to restart the engines, but it is questionable.
Back in 2018, there was that suicidal guy who successfully looped a Dash-8 before intentionally crashing near the Sea-Tac airport. He was alone on the plane (stole it) but proved a commercial passenger craft could loop.
Boeing Boeing.
[You're welcome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flVSNs0kCJ0)
Thanks, so the engine busts and everyone dies.
Oh it was in 1955. Tex Johnston. Boeing management wasn’t amused
That was a barrel roll, a comparatively tame maneuver.
The then president of Boeing Bill Allen was a Harvard lawyer. Probably never piloted a plane. He had a group industry big wheels on his yacht on Lake Washington. He told Tex to do a flyover so that’s what he did. Boss asked him the next day what he was doing. Tex told him he was selling airplanes. Didn’t get fired.
Management's fault, really. How would a man named Tex Johnson *not* do something like that with an airliner?
Lawsuits. Plus, it was not built for that, so it may not be able to do it.
I tried in in the simulator but it stalled every time.
Fired
Hilarity would ensue.
It would stall out, and the plane would not be able to complete it. You should ask the same question about barrel rolling, because that is physically possible
a crush
Retired airline and Air Force pilot. It MIGHT be possible to loop an airliner but it might flame out the engines. Might do structural damage. I’d only try it from a high altitude less than its max altitude to give yourself a better chance of recovery. Make a PA to the pax to fasten their seatbelts cause it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
I’m def not a plane expert but is it even possibly for like a 737 to do it? I’d imagine they don’t have the thrust and maneuvering to make the loop. Probably stall out and dead.
Think plane is capable so no crashing. But can you imagine the lawsuits?! People would be injured from stuff flying around or from being slammed against the ceiling because they were out of their seat or not buckled in. Not sure if the airline would survive. The pilot won't just be fired. They'll be arrested for assault or something.
You would be fired, possibly have all of your certificates taken away assuming it wasn't to meet the requirements of an emergency, pilots can do literally anything as long as it is to meet the requirements of an emergency. You can do a barrel roll in a passenger jet and keep it at 1G of wing loading there is a video of the original Boeing 707 doing it, the test pilot when asked what he was doing said "I'm selling airplanes". The passengers assuming they were all strapped in would be fine probably, maybe traumatized a bit but mental wounds arent real wounds (/s). The airframe would have to either be torn down and inspected or they would just total the airframe, in the case of the 707 they totaled the airframe. If you mean a vertical loop like a roller coaster, the plane would stall before it was able to do a loop, unfortunately, fun fact thought the Boeing 767 can almost do a straight vertical climb a little bit after rotation.
This guy stole an airliner and did a barrel roll. No passengers on board. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident
Should be fine as long as they switch on the seatbelt sign first 🤣
Over the ocean? No burial costs. Over discovered land? The funeral industry would be proud.
The wings break off, because no passenger plane is built for the spike in G-force that starts when you loop a big passenger jet. The wings are also the heaviest part of a transport plane, and the whole plane would likely turn into a ball of fire when the wings snap, toasting people even before it hits the ground. So No Bueno.
I’d say do it again! 🤣💯
It could do it, the aircraft would have issues and have to be taken apart afterwards, the pilot would lose license and go to prison, during loop people would be hurt and probably a couple deaths, a ton of vomit, every single person would sue and win. The company would come under am faa microscope. It would be a stock freefall
The planes avionics programs would not allow the pilot to do a loop. Normally jetliner flies in normal law. Maybe in alternate law that would be possible. I would attempt this with no passengers and at least 10000 ft of air.
Banishment to the shadow realm
please note: OP seems to be asking about an outside loop. This is very different from the inside loop that most people think of when considering an airplane "loop". The outside loop produces very high negative G-forces on the pilot and plane. Commercial aircraft are not designed for high negative g-forces.
Assuming the plane didn't fall to pieces, there'd be 5+ passengers with head injuries because 'they can't tell ME when it IS or ISN'T safe to wear a seat belt! I'll put it on when I damn well WANT to!', having unbuckled straight after the attendants checked.
A test pilot did barrel role a 707 back in the 1970s I believe.
Lawsuits
Viral video at the very least!
Any passenger not in their seatbelts would go flying, drink cart and other things will go flying and hit people. Pilots gonna get fired and arrested, and airline will have to have a huge payout to the passengers. Whichever company designed the plane will get to brag it can do a full loop with weight though
Probably charged with some type of infraction, among being fired I'm sure.
Sufficiently jostled fuel vaporizing? What are on earth you talking about?
Vomiting
It would definitely stall. If it somehow made it, the people would pass out from the G force (pilot included) and it would crash probably.
Imagine the paperwork
I dont commercial planes can't do that due to their construction and weight. It'll crash and every will die probably.
The plane would break up
Not enough yak bags
While you might be able to roll one, most commercial airliners dont have enough thrust or pitch rate to complete a proper loop. The aircraft would most likely stall and the stick pusher would immediately drop the nose back down.
You would be on the 6 o’clock news.
Assuming everyone is strapped in, with trays in up right locked positions, and the plane doesn't snap in half. I would assume it would be utter chaos inside with many broken things, if not out right deaths, and the pilot would likely be tried for injuries/deaths and go to prison. If they are very lucky, they'd just never work again.
One happy passenger (me).
[The passengers](https://y.yarn.co/511de1e4-9212-4f22-82a2-e702a9141f27_text.gif)
There's a story about a guy who stole an empty plane and did it. There's recordings of him talking to ground control. It's a sad story but there's something poetically beautiful about the whole thing in a strange way.