(Michael) wrote in message . com...

It's very frustrating as an instructor not to be able to give your
student solid estimates on which risks are truly significant, but the
alternative (reaching firm conclusions from nonexistent numbers) is
far worse.

I agree about the frustration. I disagree that I was in any way trying
to reach firm conclusions; just trying to offer some sense of the
scope of the potential problem, be it engine failures or stall/spins.

And I do think it is fair in the case of the stall/spin, for example,
to say that the last maneuver performed by nearly one out of four
pilots who's aviation career has ended in death and who also ended up
in the NTSB database was a stall/spin. This does provide some context
about the stall/spin risk, especially in the accident process leading
to generation of an NTSB report.


As a flight instructor charged with the task of educating pilots and
(hopefully) offering them guidance in terms of how often to practice
certain procedures/maneuvers on their own, what frequency do you
recommend in this regard, and on what is that recommendation based?

Whatever is required to maintain proficiency. If during your
recurrent training cycle you handle the engine failure competently
(meaning accomplish the task smoothly and with the successful outcome
never seriously in doubt) then you are maintaining proficiency.
Otherwise you are not.


But what about in between the recurrent training cycle? Do you make
any recommendations to your students at all in this regard? What to
work on, how to work on it, what frequency to practice? And in terms
of "smoothly with the successful outcome never seriously in doubt" --
do you apply Practical Test Standards to the tasks -- which are
minimum acceptable standards, i.e.: training to the lowest common
denominator -- or do you challenge your students to be better than the
average, the minimum standard? And if you challenge them to take their
flying to the next level, I would assume that would be based on your
own experience, both personally and as an instructor dealing with the
problems, errors, and misunderstandings your students commonly have
when they fly with you, no?

And I would bet that sans any hard scientific data to support your
anecdotal experience, you could tell me with reasonable certainty
where the problem areas will be, specifically what the errors will be,
etc. that you will encounter with the majority of your students under
certain tasks.


Specific numbers are very much a function of the airplane and pilot
proficiency, and one size does not fit all.

For the majority of GA pilots flying GA airplanes, I have not found
that to be the case at all. The problems I deal with with my students
all fall within a pretty well-defined envelope across the board,
across light, single-engine, GA airplanes. In fact, I would say I've
found it much more difficult for higher time pilots to break their bad
habits simply because the habits have been ingrained for far too long.
The typical profile of the pilot I fly with is a pilot who is active
in general aviation, active in the ratings process, active in the
pursuit of knowledge, experience, safety, and who has 100 to 600 hours
total time. These pilots come from all over the U.S., from all kinds
of flight schools, flying all kinds of light, single-engine airplanes.
And I often fly with them in the equipment they are used to flying.
Anything from the Cirrus SR20/22, to the J-3 Cub, to the C-206 Amphib,
to the Pitts, Pipers, Cessnas, RV's, Zlins, even rarer airplanes like
the Aero Subaru and the FAA Bravo.

In that sense, the pilots I deal with are likely above the average in
terms of their approach to flying and flight safety -- that's why they
are training with me. That and the realization that the primary flight
training process often leaves a lot to be desired in terms of dealing
with many different safety issues, not to mention the pure art of
flying the airplane.



In fact, typical pilots under duress will invariably only be able to
perform as well as their most basic skill set allows.

Define most basic skill set. Keep in mind that for some, this will
include night partial panel flying. For others, it may be
substantially more limited.

And those skills
that are the most practiced, the most familiar, the most "natural" to
the pilot are the ones that will largely determine the outcome. Again,
this is based on my anecdotal experience instructing 1,000's of pilots
while they are placed under duress during emergency maneuver training
-- typical pilots from across the country who are representative
"products" of our national flight training system.

I'm not convinced that's true. I suspect that the pilots who
voluntarily get emergency maneuvers training are the same pilots who
doubt their ability to handle emergencies. Such doubts are usually
justified.

See above about the typical pilot profile of those I fly with -- they
are likely above average and at least recognize and deal with any
issues they may have. But for each one of the pilots who takes spin,
EMT, or aerobatic training for safety reasons, there may be scores of
others who have no clue, or who have simply given up and left aviation
altogether because of unaddresses issues/fears that could have been
dealt with.


I don't believe a stall-spin involves a typical pilot at all.

The numbers and the anecdotal experience of professional
spin/aerobatic flight instructors are totally at odds with your
belief.

So how many inadvertent stall-spins do they get to see under normal
conditions?

I'm not sure I understand the question...


The typical pilot is trained by the typical flight instructor,
who himself/herself has a marginal understanding of, and marginal
practical experience with, anything related to stalls and spins and
therefore, is incapable of adequately providing stall/spin awareness
training to their students.

That's probably true, but on the other hand most modern airplanes have
to be pretty severely mishandled to cause an inadvertent spin.


Not true -- I routinely demonstrate one variant of the classic skidded
turn base-to-final at altitude with students, and in every single
spins-approved airplane I've ever tried this in, I've been successful
entering a spin from a left turn, with 1200-1800 rpm, without any
aileron, with less than full rudder and elevator inputs, and with the
ball less than 1/2 ball width out of center. This has been true even
in spins-approved airplanes that either would not, or were very
reluctant to, perform a left spin entered normally.

See also "Rudder and Elevator Effects on the Incipient Spin
Characteristics of a Typical General Aviation Training Aircraft." AIAA
Paper 93-0016. Reno, NV: January, 1993, by Patrick Veillette.



And pilots with fewer than either 500 hours total time, or 100
hours in type, are more likely to encounter an inadvertent stall/spin
than to have a genuine engine failure.

Why do you keep going back to the patently unprovable? All we know is
that they are more likely to have an accident caused by stall-spin
rather than engine failure. This tells us nothing about the
likelihood of encountering either hazard.

Thos enumbers are from an NTSB study. I'm notmaking them up. Perhaps
you'd be happier if I prefaced with "Pilots who make it into the NTSB
database share these characteristics..."


Now let's consider something else. A pilot who flies 200 hours a year
is 10 times more likely to have an engine failure than one who flies
20 hours a year, since engine failure is not under his control. Are
you seriously suggesting that a pilot who flies 200 hours a year is 10
times more likely to inadvertently spin than one who flies 20 hours a
year? I would argue that he is LESS likely to inadvertently spin,
since the higher level of proficiency that is a nearly inevitable
result of flying a lot and often will make him less likely to miss the
rather obvious clues.


You admitted yourself, all flight time is not equal. In that regard, I
would say the pilot who flies 200 hours a year of white-knuckled
X-country, averaging one power-on landing every 2 hours, who is
deathly afraid of stalls to begin with and has never spun, and flies
by the adage "maintain lots of extra flying speed just in case" is far
more likely to encounter an inadvertent stall/spin in a stall/spin
critical situation than a pilot who flies 20 hours a year in his
Pitts, 30 minutes at a shot, performing advanced aerobatic maneuvers
and averaging 4 gliding landings per hour (my former Pitts partner did
just this last year). I'd bet on the survival of this Pitts pilot over
the other one in a similar stall/spin critical scenario.

Perhaps a better gage of a pilot's ability to deal with stall/spin
critical operations is not flight time, but rather the number of
landings per hour. After all, one trip around the pattern exercises
many, many critical piloting skills. It would be interesting perhaps
to do a study with this as the hypothesis -- would this interest
you???

Rich
http://www.richstowell.com