In article ,
Peter Duniho wrote:
Mike's comments have been the most helpful so far, IMHO. In a car, if you
turn a corner quickly, I assume you'd be able to tell with your eyes closed
whether the turn was a right turn or a left, correct? The reason is that
your body is pushed to one side of the car or the other by centrifugal force
(ignore anyone who replies to this telling you or me that there is no such
thing ). If your body tries to slide to the right, it's a left turn and
vice a versa. This corresponds to a skid in an airplane.

I can feel a (sharp) turn in my car, but it seems like the forces
involved in a turn in a car are much greater than the average turn in
an airplane (at least, that what it feels like to me).

Now, to demonstrate this in an airplane, fly a level slip. That is, in
level flight bank to one direction or the other and use the rudder to hold
the heading constant. You'll find your body trying to slide toward the
downhill side of the airplane. This is your "butt" telling you that you are
in uncoordinated flight. You might need a pretty decent bank angle for you
to notice this, but any airplane ought to be able to slip with a large
enough angle that you can feel what we're talking about.

Well, hm ... I don't know what to say. I've certainly done plenty of
slips, with the ball pegged at one end of the tube, but I don't really
recall feeling anything like you describe.

You can also do the same exercise with the skid. In level flight, yaw the
aircraft with the rudder while keeping the wings level with the aileron.
Use a lot of rudder input. Again, your body will try to slide, only this
time it will be toward the outside of the yaw or turn. And again, this is
your "butt" telling you that you are in uncoordinated flight.

Again, I've done these yaws, mostly for my own curiousity; I've
certainly felt a sensation during the yaw motion, but I don't feel
anything once the yaw is stopped.

I simply don't believe that you are incapable of distinguishing coordinated
and uncoordinated flight without the use of the turn coordinator. For minor
deviations, the difference is subtle, to be sure. But with the proper
demonstration, I think you will be well on your way to easy, coordinated
flight without worrying about the instrument.

I'll agree it's probably not impossible for me to learn this; I was just
trying to point out that I don't have this skill, even though my instructor
did try to teach it to me. What I ended up using was using the visual
cues to make sure my turn roll-in and roll-outs were coordinated, and
that worked well enough to pass the checkride. Of course, one shouldn't
use the checkride as the minimum flight proficiency.

I'll also reiterate that even if you don't immediately learn to distinguish
small deviations, you certainly ought to be able to distinguish deviations
large enough to be a safety issue. I suspect you already can, and just
don't know it because no one ever showed you that you can.

Well, whether or not I can sense this is debatable, I suppose. I can only
tell you that I certainly _think_ I can't sense it.

But next time I go up, I will try some of those exercises you mentioned.
Thanks for the suggestions!

--Ken