# can a plane fly with spoilers deployed?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-plane-fly-with-spoilers-deployed/845595>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 30, 2019, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-plane-fly-with-spoilers-deployed/845595 "2019-12-30T15:46:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\
**Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-plane-fly-with-spoilers-deployed/845595/21 "2019-12-31T17:51:08Z")

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Ah yeah, me whooshed.

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**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-plane-fly-with-spoilers-deployed/845595/22 "2020-01-02T14:45:43Z")

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> [@Leo\_Bloom](#):
>
> This is the typical, modest remark of a professional pilot. To the rest of this, the correct word would generally have to cover freaking out and trying to repress shrieking terror…

To say nothing of replacing the seat, assuming you live long enough to care about such things.

Quite a few cockpit voice recordings after a crash are something like, “[Bad thing] has happened, trying [Remedy 1]… trying [Remedy 2]… trying [Remedy 3]… ah, shit,” the last being when they ran out of remedies, time, or both.

Note the lack of exclamation points.

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**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-plane-fly-with-spoilers-deployed/845595/23 "2020-01-02T17:28:09Z")

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> [@DesertDog](#):
>
> To say nothing of replacing the seat, assuming you live long enough to care about such things.
> 
> Quite a few cockpit voice recordings after a crash are something like, “[Bad thing] has happened, trying [Remedy 1]… trying [Remedy 2]… trying [Remedy 3]… ah, shit,” the last being when they ran out of remedies, time, or both.
> 
> Note the lack of exclamation points.

That’s nothing compared to the test pilots who have ice in their veins, or some I’m told. One of my instructors was involved in testing as a support team member. He described the lead test pilot thusly:

“If you set this guy’s ear on fire his response would be, ‘My left ear appears to be on fire. I will now seek a means of extinguishing the combustion, possibly through the use of the canister in the aft cabin’. Later, he would write a report on what happened and he’d accurately remember and describe more detail than you.”

His other recall was that the joke around the group was if a wing fell off the plane he was flying, test pilot guy would simply say, “Compensating…”

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