Plane damaged in cloud turbulences

[jeyperman]

Hi,

I'm a VFR pilot so far, so not used to fly high and cross clouds.

I'm having problems with autopilot/yd when the plane is inside a turbulence area or crossing clouds when descending to approach the airport, with the terrible result of two King Air destroyed by overstress!!

Let's see, the autopilot seems to auto disconnect (red and blinking) in such situations, but not the YD. Is that what causes the structural damage? I need to manually disconnect also YD?

... or independently of the AP/YD disconnection, there are other reasons: descending speed? (what's the maximum speed in turbulent area?) or just a software question related to my settings in Active Sky P3dv4?

Please help!!!

PD.- Thanks for the KING AIR

[Taguilo]

Hi,

You have different options:

- Select "Ignore crashes and damages" in P3D Realism menu.
- Reduce Turbulence effects for winds/clouds in ActiveSky options.
- Avoid flying into severe turbulence layers. Use the Wx Radar in TURB mode to detect turbulence (pink areas).


Tomas

[jeyperman]

Thanks for your quick response.

SInce I want to keep realism up, i will follow your advise about using the WX radar

Anyway , in case of unexpected turbulence, ¿is it convenient to disconnect AP and YD, or it doesn't make difference?

Regards.

[Taguilo]

When dealing with moderate/severe turbulence encounters the first thing to do is comply with turbulence speed operations.
I don't have the numbers right now, will try to get them asap.

You can leave AP and YD on, eventually AP will disconnect so you must be prepared for that. Do not try to fight against altitude control in strong up/down wind drafts; let the aircraft ride the bumps.


Tomas

[jeyperman]

Thanks again!

[azflyboy]

I can't speak to the King Air specifically, but on the Q400 I fly for my day job, the procedure for turbulence is to leave the AP and Y/D on, slow to the recommended turbulence speed (which I think is 170kt for the King Air), and see how bad the turbulence is.

If the turbulence is strong enough, the autopilot will probably disconnect itself (or you can manually disconnect it if the AP is making radical attitude changes to try and stay on altitude) , and at that point you'd set power to maintain something close to the turbulence speed, and just aim to maintain a wings-level attitude, without worrying about altitude.

[Victory103]

When in it, try to get out of it, but first slow down to below Va and try to get to Vb( 170kts @ 15k lbs). Turn Auto-Ignition to ARM. The AP will do a better job of flying than you, but it may kick off as you have noticed.

[jeyperman]

Hi,

Your information is much appreciated.

Indeed, everything points to excessive speed. I jumped into severe turbulence layer while descending fast (autopilot set to vs -1800/min), and couldn't slow down fast enough to avoid the disaster.

Thanks!