Is it possible to roll a plane

You'd want to increase power if needed, flip, and land quickly; once righted, the airplane would jolt earthward again. The reaction speed required to execute all that makes this a true Hollywood feat.

But airline pilots have a long history of remaining cool under pressure. Consider Sully Sullenberger—or Al Haynes, the captain of United Airlines flight , a DC that crash-landed on July 19, , after the catastrophic failure of its tail-mounted engine led to the loss of all hydraulic flight controls.

Haynes and his flight crew used the power of the wing-mounted engines to guide the airplane's descent. On approach, Haynes stayed calm and collected—he even kept his sense of humor. After air traffic control cleared Flight for an emergency landing at Sioux City, he quipped: "Roger. You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh? No doubt Hollywood wants to craft an exciting visual experience, and Flight definitely achieves that by raising the stakes for Whitaker in more ways than one, as moviegoers will see.

If you'd seen that in a movie, you wouldn't have believed it. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. Rotation around the side-to-side axis is called pitch.

Rotation around the vertical axis is called yaw. Maintaining Control The Ailerons Control Roll On the outer rear edge of each wing, the two ailerons move in opposite directions, up and down, decreasing lift on one wing while increasing it on the other.

This causes the airplane to roll to the left or right. To turn the airplane, the pilot uses the ailerons to tilt the wings in the desired direction.

The Elevator Controls Pitch On the horizontal tail surface, the elevator tilts up or down, decreasing or increasing lift on the tail. This tilts the nose of the airplane up and down. The Rudder Controls Yaw On the vertical tail fin, the rudder swivels from side to side, pushing the tail in a left or right direction.

A pilot usually uses the rudder along with the ailerons to turn the airplane. A spoiler is a plate that is raised between the leading and trailing edges of the wing. The spoiler effectively changes the shape of the airfoil, disrupts the flow over the wing, and causes a section of the wing to decrease its lift.

This produces an unbalanced force with the other wing, which causes the roll. Airliners use spoilers because spoilers can react more quickly than ailerons and require less force to activate, but they always decrease the total amount of lift for the aircraft.

It's an interesting trade! You can tell whether an airliner is using spoilers or ailerons by noticing where the moving part is located.

At the trailing edge, it's an aileron; between the leading and trailing edges, it's a spoiler. Now you can dazzle the person sitting next to you on the plane! A still slide of this animation is also available.

It looks like this:.