I think it would be difficult to overstate the severity of a total
loss of elevator control. It is possible to damp out the phugoid with
spoiler (and/or flap) but this won't help much close to the ground.
Deploying spoiler on the down part of the phugoid will reduce your
forward speed, but it will increase your vertical speed. The rate of
descent at impact is the real problem. It may be theoretically
possible to do something that could later be classified as a landing,
rather than a crash. But you only have one chance to do this, and the
probability of doing it exactly right on your first try is not very
high.

United 232 did not dig in a wing and cartwheel. The aircraft hit the
ground with a high descent rate (1850 fpm) slightly right wing low.
The right main gear broke through 12" of concrete, and the wing broke
off along with the tail section on impact. The rate of descent, and
loss of the wing, was a direct result of the phugoid mode.

P.S. For a very interesting first hand account of Flight 232 from Capt
Haynes see: http://www.panix.com/~jac/aviation/haynes.html

Andy Blackburn wrote in message ...
Doug overstates the case a bit. Even without elevator
control it is possible to damp out the phugoid mode.
I tried this on a BFR recently and I encourage the
rest of you to give it a try as well. Since the phugoid
is a function of airspeed/pitching moment coupling,
you can damp it out by applying speedbrakes at the
bottom of the cycle. This take a bit of thinking ahead,
but it can be managed with practice.

The United 232 crew was able to control pitch through
pitch/thrust coupling. They applied collective thrust
to adjust pitch and differential thrust for directional
control. It was crude put effective enough to get to
the runway threshold. Unfortunately, the dug s wing
in on landing. It was not directly a result of the
phugoid mode, though I suspect all the different modes
conspired a bit.

At 00:48 01 November 2003, Doug Haluza wrote:
(nowhere) wrote in message
news:...
Yes, according to Peter Garrison's 'Aftermath' column
in the November
issue of 'Flying' you don't need to connect your elevator
control! I
quote: 'the NTSB report does not comment on the fact
that a
disconnected elevator does not make an ASW-20, or
for that matter any
other airplane, unflyable. The situation is aerodynamically
no
different from what occurs when the pilot removes
his hand from the
stick.'

I think I'll start leaving the elevators off my ASW-15
now. Imagine
how the reduction in drag will improve the performance!
Not having to
worry about pitch control will certainly cut down
on the cockpit
workload as well. The benefits are endless!

Well, it may be flyable, but not landable! The stick
free phugoid can
get pretty dramatic, even with the mass and friction
of the stick
attached to provide some damping . If you have not
tried this, you
should. Keep hands completely off and keep the wings
level with
rudder. Let the phugoid fully develop--it's a real
roller coaster
ride. Close to the ground, it's a crap shoot whether
you would land or
crash.

There was an accident a few years back in a DG-800
that had a loose
nut on the elevator control. The pilot hit on the down
part of the
phugoid and crashed wings level. He lived, but never
flew again.

The same thing happened to United Flight 232, the DC-10-10,
that
crashed while attempting an emergency landing at the
Sioux City
Gateway Airport, Iowa, in 1989. After losing all hydraulics,
they had
no movable flight controls. They were able to fly the
aircraft with
differential thrust on the two wing engines, but they
could not
control pitch on final approach.

I have not seen the article, but I'm surprised that
a knowledgable
person would suggest that elevator control is optional.