"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...

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 think it depends on the aircraft. Flying a simple trainer on trends in
the secondary instruments is not too hard. The more slippery the aircraft,
the more difficult it becomes: by the time you've picked up the trend in the
ASI needle, your attitude is already in a mess. I noticed this
transitioning to the Mooney, and I think it's much more marked in faster
aircraft -- one of the reasons why jet pilots don't spend a great deal of
time practising partial panel but rely on multiple AIs for redundancy.

Julian Scarfe