On Jan 15, 6:42*am, toad wrote:
On Jan 14, 10:31 pm, "kirk.stant" wrote:





On Jan 14, 4:28 pm, Ian wrote:

On 14 Jan, 21:30, "kirk.stant" wrote:

Huh? Cite please.

Plenty of accounts of WW1 aeial fighting. Hiding in cloud was an
accepted and commonly used tactic.

If you think you can cloud fly using only airspeed, then make sure
your glider has terminal velocity dive brakes - you'll need them!

I have no intention of trying it ... and yes, I have proper air
brakes, thank you!

Or maybe they used the Cat and Dog method...

Cat and duck, surely?

Ian

Ah, yes, Ian, that's the one, thank you!

Getting my pilot aides mixed up. *The dog is required to keep the
pilot from touching the autopilot switches, if I remember correctly.
Much later development than the cat and duck letdown technique.

Anyway - It's just possible, in a plane with strong inherent
stability, to climb or let down hands-off through a cloud deck. *This
may have been what those intrepid WW1 aviators were doing. *But I
wouldn't recommend it in a modern glider (unless you have established
a benign spiral procedure).

From practical experience in instrument conditions - unless the plane
can do it by itself, the pilot WILL only make it worse, if he doesn't
have suitable instrumentation AND training.

So - it sure would be nice to have a simple attitude display on our
fancy PDAs, for those days when the horizon insists on hiding from
view....

Kirk

Get out your checkbook, here it is.

http://www.flynavgps.com/egyro.htm

But a dedicated AI might be cheaper and more reliable :-)

Todd
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Boy! You guys are good! A collection of knowledge very hard to find.
Every post has value. My original point is to find a way to reduce the
errors a pilot might make when too low to recover. My guess is that
AoA is not fully understood before flight as PIC.
Control of an aircraft needs information fed to the brain.
Instrument Indicators, visual pictures remembered and a mind that is
on the job are so important. Believe your indications. Feel can fail
at times. Strings help and they can be installed by all pilots. Get
something better, but don't dismiss the side mounted string and a line
marked on the canopy for a chord line.
I'll go to bed feeling like this discussion will save lives. Fred.