On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 22:10:08 -0400, Roy Smith wrote:

David Megginson wrote:

Roy Smith writes:

The downside, is that I suspect I don't use the information the AI gives
me as much as I should. I tend to fly pitch by airspeed, not by the
AI.

Are you sure that using the ASI for pitch doesn't make you smoother?

Well, for example, on my initial climb, I'm looking for Vy on the ASI.
Since I'm approaching Vy from below, it means I have to just sort of
guess at the right pitch and watch the ASI to see what the airspeed
does. The "right" way is to know what pitch attitude I want, peg the AI
there, and then watch the ASI to confirm I'm getting the performance I
expected.

I guess I don't agree with the "right" way then. The pitch attitude for Vy
(or any other airspeed) will be somewhat dependent on aircraft weight,
density altitude, etc. I do exactly what you do, use the ASI as my climb
attitude reference, not the AI. Same for descents -- I peg whatever
airspeed i want, keeping the rpm's where I want them, and then make sure
that I have a reasonable descent rate using the VSI. Adust pitch as
necessary to keep everything where it should be.


I know I do it wrong, and I make a concious effort to retrain my scan,
but it's very difficult to unlearn the way you first learned to do it.