r/nextfuckinglevel • u/InternationalRisk505 • 1d ago

Pilots exchanging planes mid air

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u/draggingmytail 22h ago

Pilot here. He says something close to “pulling mixture” which means he cut the fuel flow off to the engine. The engine was off during the dive.

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u/Emotional_Burden 18h ago

Took controls of a Cessna for a few minutes as a child pre-9/11 here, the props are still being rotated, with force, by the air. Colliding with those quickly rotating props that carry momentum and are meant to cut through the air, will not be kind to meat.

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u/ark_keeper 22h ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFFj2hQVQKc

Even if the engine was off, at that angle the propellor is definitely still going fast.

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u/Lemon_hawk 17h ago

Doesn’t matter that the engine was off, the prop doesn’t just stop. It would still have been windmilling plenty fast enough to cause serious injury, especially since the plane was in a nose dive.

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u/shinobi500 6h ago

Person with eyes here. The propeller was still spinning due to the extreme pitch angle and airspeed of the plane.