Origin of the 80kt crosscheck and the Jay Beasley legacy

[Flugelman]

Jay Beasley said so, therefore it is.

/threadjack

Jay Beasley was a phenomenon that won't be seen again. If there was an item about the P-3 that he didn't know, it didn't need to be known. Not only was he the consummate pilot, his knowledge of the aircraft systems was impressive.

Mr Beasley deployed with us in '69 to Iwakuni to provide Lockheed support as we had just transitioned to the P-3B. He not only worked with the pilots and FE's but made himself available to the shops for troubleshooting assistance. I remember his working with us on a particularly thorny APS-80 radar problem. He was a patient teacher that did not just give the answers but taught how to arrive at the correct answer. I have always treasured the fact that I was among those who were lucky enough to get to fly and work with him.

 

[Flash]

Why is it 80...and not 65...or 100. And, why does 80 seem to be used in more than one aircraft from more than one manufacturer and in both civil and military use. There's clearly more than coincidence here.......we're talking several aircraft types that have differing takeoff performance.

From someone who doesn't know any better, maybe it is just a convenient number in general for aircraft of certain types (multi-engine/tactical jets). A high enough speed for discrepancies to be noticed but not too high for it to be all that dangerous or sporty to abort, like HAL said. Instead of trying to come up with an 'exact' number for each aircraft the easy default for those who write the procedures is 80 knots since maybe that is what they learned in previous aircraft and since it works, why not use it? Could be as simple as that.

 

[NavAir42]

Yes, I understand the concept -- I have since the initial post on the last page of this thread. Note in my initial post I'm asking HAL, 'where does the number come from'?

Why is it 80...and not 65...or 100. And, why does 80 seem to be used in more than one aircraft from more than one manufacturer and in both civil and military use. There's clearly more than coincidence here.

If we were talking only one aircraft type, I'd understand the rationale (certainly the explanation on the previous page regarding both the Neptune and Orion makes perfect sense), but we're talking several aircraft types that have differing takeoff performance.

Maybe Beasley is the answer. It's quite possible that the 80 knot checks in the P-2 that subsequently became standard in the P-3 jumped from Lockheed aircraft over to Boeing, etc. It's quite possible the test guys over at Boeing knew Mr. Beasley heard that he was using 80kts and decided that was as good an airspeed as any to do checks at. And when you think about it most larger aircraft are going to rotate somewhere between 120 and 150 so 80 kts is enough speed to get the ASI needle off the peg but slow enough to be able to abort on just about any runway an aircraft of that size is going to be using. It doesn't have to be anything more complicated than that.

 

[scoolbubba]

Was going to mention something about speed schedules and low power takeoffs, but decided I don't want to dig thru the books and make sure I'm right, so instead I'll mention something I learned about Jay Beasley back at 30.

The guy died at the O Club. I'll say that again: Jay Beasley's heart gave out while drinking with other aviators at the Club. If there was ever someone more deserving of the Honorary Naval Aviator award, I don't know who it is.

 

[FlyBoyd]

Maybe Beasley is the answer. It's quite possible that the 80 knot checks in the P-2 that subsequently became standard in the P-3 jumped from Lockheed aircraft over to Boeing, etc. It's quite possible the test guys over at Boeing knew Mr. Beasley heard that he was using 80kts and decided that was as good an airspeed as any to do checks at. And when you think about it most larger aircraft are going to rotate somewhere between 120 and 150 so 80 kts is enough speed to get the ASI needle off the peg but slow enough to be able to abort on just about any runway an aircraft of that size is going to be using. It doesn't have to be anything more complicated than that.

It is more complicated than that...

Sorry to rain on the P-3/Beasley blowjob but I doubt the engineers at Boeing designed the rudder to become effective and the nosewheel steering to become ineffective (60-80 KIAS) just to match up with some dude's callout from another platform. There are resposibilities (other than airspeed crosscheck) IRT the nosewheel steering tiller that occur with that call. Physics is physics and I am pretty sure Beasley, a.k.a. P-3 Jesus, didn't write the laws of physics when it comes to airfoil effectiveness versus tire friction/nosewheel effectiveness on jets that weigh many times more than a bagged out P-3.

Jay Beasleywas a phenomenon that won't be seen again. If there was an item about the P-3 that he didn't know, it didn't need to be known. Not only was he the consummate pilot, his knowledge of the aircraft systems was impressive.

...and so when your P-3 PPC or P-3 ownwing asks you some minutia you can thank this guy. Is this where the P-3 systems mafia began?

 

[Flugelman]

Was going to mention something about speed schedules and low power takeoffs, but decided I don't want to dig thru the books and make sure I'm right, so instead I'll mention something I learned about Jay Beasley back at 30.

The guy died at the O Club. I'll say that again: Jay Beasley's heart gave out while drinking with other aviators at the Club. If there was ever someone more deserving of the Honorary Naval Aviator award, I don't know who it is.

A remembrance posted by CAPT Rick Magilis over at VPNavy website...

"Another tallent that Jay had was his ability to tell great stories. He usually told these at the O club bar where he often demonstrated another talent, his ability to drink a significant number of vodka martinis with no apparent effect. By the way, he preferred them with an olive stirred twenty-six times clockwise. Jay was a great friend who has gone but by no means been forgotten. This outstanding Web site will remain a tribute to Jay and provide us all with many good memories of our time with him. Thanks again..."

 

[Semper Jump Jet]

Does the 80 knot check still work on a treadmill?

Nerds!

 

[scoolbubba]

...and so when your P-3 PPC or P-3 ownwing asks you some minutia you can thank this guy. Is this where the P-3 systems mafia began?

The guy was a test pilot who started flying in 1932 and didn't stop training Naval Aviators until he died. He knew more about his planes probably because without an ejection seat, knowing what the fuck was up kept your ass out of an early grave. Maybe that's what he was getting at, but that's just a guess...most of his papers actually poke fun at the minutia that people in VP come up with as well as the (generally inaccurate) reasons behind them; he gets into the why behind the things we do in plain english and is worth reading, even 30 years later.

 

[exhelodrvr]

We didn't need no stinking 80 knot check!!

 

[PropStop]

Physics is physics and I am pretty sure Beasley, a.k.a. P-3 Jesus, didn't write the laws of physics...

Oh, but he DID! And if Mr. Beasley were still around he could perform a laying of the hands on our fleet and we would no longer have this Red Stripe thing.

...and so when your P-3 PPC or P-3 ownwing asks you some minutia you can thank this guy. Is this where the P-3 systems mafia began?

I think it began with crews having too much time on their hands while standing the ready in Kef in the middle of winter - before internet porn or VHS porn were available to entertain.

 

[Brett327]

Does the 80 knot check still work on a treadmill?

Nerds!

You beat me to it!

Brett

 

[wlawr005]

The speed of light is the velocity of Chuck Norris's roundhouse kick, but since planes can't go the speed of light, engineers had to settle on the rate at which Chuck Norris's fingernails grow...or 80 kts to us mortals.

 

[HackerF15E]

Somehow my post from this afternoon didn't make it over to this split-off thread;

Just spoke to a corporate pilot buddy of mine who relates that the corporate jets he's flown all use 80 knots as the airspeed indicator check speed. Except, he notes, the straight-wing Citation, which apparently uses 70.

So, again...we're talking about something that bridges numerous manufacturers, airframes, military services, and even the civi world. There's got to be a singularity here, and as righteous as Mr Beasley appears to have been at Lockheed, I'm still having trouble believing that the Neptune's speed at the fire house was the origin.

 

[Xtndr50boom]

I doubt Douglas (McD, now Boeing) also decided to write their TOLD using a Lockheed test pilot's safety preferences as the gospel.

^^ DC-10 TOLD is predicated on T/O power being set by the 80 knots call.

My guess is that 80 was a good rule of thumb for safety: Abort for anything less than 80 and you'll be fine. More than 80 you may have hot brakes.

 

[ryan1234]

A failure of either the PF or PNF's ASI is grounds for a RTO. 80kts is below V1... Large difference between ASIs, then RTO... Why can't it just be that simple?