wrote:
Generally speaking, when you can fly consistently close to the left edge
of the envelope and both anticipate what the airplane will be doing 3
seconds from "now", then either stop or allow whatever that is from
happening as the mood suits you, and recover whatever you allow to
happen with the airplane under your complete control throughout this
procedure, you are THEN allowed to feel you have BEGUN to understand
unusual attitude to the extent where you may BEGIN the process of
feeling "comfortable" while in this area of flight.

I didn't quite get the general connection between slow flight and
unusual attitudes here. Obviously learning to fly on the back side of
the power curve is important to understanding stalls and spin entries
but I thought unusual attitudes can be on either side of the power
curve.

Flight on or near the left side of the envelope as used by a good
unusual attitudes instructor is simply an exercise to make you more
familiar and more competent and confident than ever before whiule
operating in this delicate area. Unusual attitude entered from the left
side of the envelope is by no means the only entry area for an unusual
attitude.
The aircraft you choose for your training and the experience of the
instructor giving you the training will determine the depth and extent
of the unusual attitude entries and recoveries attempted.
For this reason I suggest this training be received from a qualified
aerobatic instructor and in an aircraft certificated for aerobatic use.
The "training" you get in unusual attitude recovery for your PPL is
extremely basic in nature and usually (hopefully anyway :-) performed
within normal or utility category parameters.
Flying an airplane certified for acro allows you a much deeper envelope
from which to operate when dealing with unusual attitude recovery.
Also, it is possible to delve much deeper into the spin scenario with a
proper aircraft for that job.
To answer your question; unusual attitudes can be entered from any
flight attitude and a wide airspeed range.




No doubt high power slow flight with a pronounced nose high
situation is an unusual attitude scenario but I thought it was one of
many.

You are correct. It is one of many, however, it is teaching you to fly
in this area well beyond the proficiency required for your PPL that will
allow you to obtain a confidence level well beyond the average PPL
certificated pilot, and that is one of the goals we seek in teaching
unusual attitudes. Being able to recover from unusual attitudes is only
part of the training goal. Building your confidence to a much higher
level than you had before the training is also a prime goal.


In general I associate unusual attitudes with things like how to
recover from a situation where the airplane has flipped over in
turbulence for example. In general I have never been taught to
consider that only high angle of attack scenarios can be unusual
attitude scenarios.

See above please.


I hope I have made this point clear enough.
Remember the Henriques basic rule of flying 101 :-)
The moment you begin to feel "comfortable" while flying an airplane,
note what you are doing at that instant and practice it for awhile :-))

I agree, I think the Killing Zone book makes this point too. Probably
one of the reasons why the killing zone only begins at 70 hrs or so,
when people start to feel complacent about their abilities.



Complacency and over confidence can kill you in an airplane. On the
other side of this equation, lack of confidence can ALSO kill you in an
airplane. Good pilots know EXACTLY where this line is drawn, and NEVER
allow themselves to cross it.......NEVER!!!



--
Dudley Henriques