Talk:1946 Australian National Airways DC-3 crash

Title
Wikipedia's guidelines on the title for articles about accidents involving an aircraft operated by an airline indicate the title should be based on the name of the airline, followed by the Flight number. In this case, even though the aircraft was operated by Australian National Airways, none of the sources indicate a Flight number for the aircraft on its final flight, or on any other flight. Consequently I have chosen to use a name based on the best-known identifier of the accident - the location from which the wreckage and the bodies were recovered - Seven-Mile Beach. The Flight number is also not used in the Wikipedia article about another accident involving an aircraft operated by Australian National Airways - ANA Skymaster Amana crash.

I have spelled the name with a hyphen because most of the best sources spell Seven-Mile Beach with a hyphen - for example: SEARCH FOR PLANE WRECKAGE AT SEVEN-MILE BEACH Dolphin  ( t ) 05:23, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * On 3 October Petebutt changed the title from Australian National Airways Seven-Mile Beach crash to 1946 Australian National Airways DC-3 crash. Dolphin  ( t ) 06:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Autopilot
The investigation panel considered inadvertent engagement of the automatic pilot to be the most likely explanation of the accident

The point here is that in the older type of autopilot it was possible to engage the system before the gyroscopes had had time to spin-up. This resulted in unusual manoeuvres by the aircraft and could, if not noticed quickly, have caused the aircraft to descend into the sea. The fact that the gyros were 'caged' (meaning that they were secured and not free to rotate) suggest that the autopilot may have been inadvertently engaged without the gyros spinning. This leads to the behaviour described above. In these types of autopilot it was necessary to turn on the system and allow the gyros to reach their operating speed before then engaging the autopilot.

I remember this behaviour being described by a Lancaster pilot, and the aeroplane wallowed all over the place and entered tight turns and steep dives until he realised what he had done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 10:27, 13 October 2011 (UTC)