Help me clear up my brain fart

"Roger Long" om wrote in
message ...
You've been flying a long, long time and I'm sure you've forgotten a lot
about being low hours
[...]
Telling students and low frequency fliers that they should not include the
instruments in their scan is actually dangerous advice.

When I was a student, with relatively few hours, during my night training,
we flew approaches without any interior lights at all, to simulate an
electrical failure. Even at that point, I was able to fly the airplane
without reference to the ASI, turn coordinator, and attitude indicator.

I don't feel that I was an unusually talented student. I had all the same
hurdles to cross as any student, with all the usual learning plateaus.
IMHO, if a private pilot cannot fly the airplane without reference to the
instruments, it is not because they are inherently not able to. It's
because no instructor ever bothered to give them appropriate training.

Pete

Roger

EKM listed what he was told as a student. Those figures are of course
very conservative but used to get an individual up and flying in a
safe manner. As one get more time in the air and more experience, he
can adjust them quite a bit and still survive.

All in all I agree with what you said so put me on the plus side :O)

Tail wind on base.
Overshooting final.
Slow in final turn or on final are things to be avoided or you under
stand how to handle them.

Slip, airspeed and G's are all interrelated to safe flying especially
in the pattern.

Big John


On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 13:43:27 GMT, "Roger Long"
om wrote:

I used to keep my pattern turns to 15 degrees and could fly tight, make the
airfield if the engine quits, patterns with no problem. Not all planes will
do this but a 172 and a 152 will. Now that I have more experience, I go up
to 25 but keep to 20 most of the time.

Everything else you wrote, I agree with.

A good rule for the original poster to drill in his head:

If you overshoot the turn to final, take your eyes off the runway, look at
the instruments, nail the 20 degree bank angle, keep the ball centered, and
stabilize the airspeed at the proper number for the plane. Just hold that
until you are almost on the extension line and then turn on to final.
You'll be amazed in most cases how much room there is left to the threshold.
Focusing on the aircraft attitude instead of being late in the turn will
help avoid getting slow and when you overshoot.

If you did make your turn too close, getting back on centerline will get you
set up for a proper go around.

Guilty as charged of poor word choice. The key point is that an overshot
turn, in most cases, doesn't have to even be salvaged. Just hold normal
pattern turn attitude and you'll come back to centerline in time to get down
on most runways used by anything larger than trainers. Holding attitude
instead of trying to increase the turn with bank and or rudder is the core
message. Even if you are going around, you want to get back to the
centerline in case someone is flying a real tight downwind. Holding that 20
degree bank until you get there will make it easier to look for them.

I got us off on instrument use which is really a separate discussion that
applies to all pattern flying; not just an overshot turn. If I were a CFI
and my student got into that position, I would sure want to think he would
take a quick check at the gauges to be sure he hadn't strayed too far out of
the envelope instead of thinking he wasn't supposed to do that and trying to
feel his way out.

Learning to rely less on the instruments, attitude flying, and all that is
an important part of training and an objective for proficiency. However,
"Don't look at the panel!", is not a dogma that should be handed out to
blindly apply to all landing situations. Learning to fly without reference
to the instruments is something the student should be initially doing with a
CFI in the right seat. Most students will be overshooting a number of final
turns before they are ready to judge RPM, airspeed, and coordination
without instruments.

Being able to get a plane landed with out looking at the instruments is one
thing. Flying a precise pattern, landing in the minimum distance, at the
lowest touchdown speed is another. Most pilots are not going to be able to
maintain the level of proficiency where they can do those things safely
without a glance at the panel at certain points in the pattern. Flying like
it was flight simulator is a different issue which should be addressed.

Pilots should practice patterns without looking at gauges. They should also
do patterns with gauge checks to be sure that they really are flying the
flight profile they are practicing.

A sad but true thing is that the kind of training most students are going to
get will require that they use the instruments as checks while they teach
themselves how to fly the pattern properly. Having CFI's who teach attitude
flying properly telling them in a forum like this that looking at the panel
is a bad thing is, in my view, a bad thing.

--
Roger Long

A Lieberman wrote in message
...
Roger Long wrote:

Sure it is, if you are a low time student pilot trying to salvage an
overshot turn before you have developed a good feel for the plane.

Hi Roger,

Just "my opinion". but salvage and student in the same sentence is a bad
choice of words.

If the low time student overshot the turn to the point where the word
salvage comes into play, I would suggest just going around and trying
again.....

Allen
(who is not a CFI).

"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've never been able to judge turn
coordination without the use of the ball (bank angle, I'm "ok" on). If
I don't look at the ball, I have no idea if I'm coordinated or not.
My instructor tried very hard to get me to judge coordination "naturally",
but I just never got it. How do you teach something like that?

I will bet that you can at least judge coordination well enough to avoid
serious problems.

Keeping the ball smack in the middle is a lot harder than making sure the
airplane isn't skidding dangerously. In fact, I suspect most people who
claim that they need the turn coordinator are simply underestimating the
sensitivity of that instrument. You can keep your flying pretty good and
still have the ball slip out of center a little bit.

Pete

(Ekim) wrote
"Never cross control!!!"
"Keep that ball centered!"
"Never use more than 20 degrees bank!"
"Too high on final - go around. Never slip unless its an emergency
landing."

These are things that were hammered in my head by my numerous CFIs
during pattern training as a student pilot.

Too bad. They're mostly poor procedure.

Don't cross control in climb and cruise - it's inefficient. Keep the
ball centered. Same while practicing stalls and slow flight - you're
pretty likely to drop a wing, or even spin, if you stall
uncoordinated. You can't slip without cross controlling, and you
can't make decent crosswind landings without slipping.

20 degrees of bank is ridiculous. ANY amount of bank is OK, as long
as you keep some things in mind. Stall speed goes up in a banked turn
- so make sure you maintain enough airspeed for a safe margin. At 45
degrees of bank, stall speed goes up about 20%, so 1.2 Vso isn't
really safe anymore. Keep the speed up at 1.4 Vso, and banking 45
degrees in the pattern is no problem. You can always slow to 1.2 Vso
on final.

Slipping on final is a normal way to control glideslope in a light
single engine airplane. Some airplanes, lacking flaps, allow no other
way unless you want to bet it all on the engine.

Was all that preaching JUST to reduce the chance of invoking a deadly
spin in case the wings are accidentally stalled? It seems to all
contradict everything about slips on final and the famous
"low-wing-into-the-wind" crosswind landings?

Actually, all that preaching was to reduce your CFI's level of
discomfort. I bet the CFI's who told you this stuff were all airline
pilot wannabes, building hours until they could get hired by the
commuters. These guys are often taught flight procedures that are
appropriate for heavy, multiengine airplanes from day one, because
that's what they're going to be flying. The problem is that it's all
they know AND they are inexperienced, so anything else scares them.
Thus they teach you to do it the only way they know. It would be OK
if you were also going on to the airlines, but if that's not your goal
they've done you a great disservice. As another poster mentioned,
flying this way means you will never be able to fly a taildragger.
You will also never be able to operate from the really interesting -
meaning short, rough, and obstructed - strips. But as long as you
stick to flying simple non-demanding airplanes from long smooth
runways you will be fine.

In my mind, as long as I keep my airspeed sufficiently high and keep
the nose pointed down, (ie. keep my AOA under control) things like a
steeper banks and routine slip to landings should be relatively safe.
Right?

Yes, absolutely.

However, you may find getting a taildragger endorsement to be a
worthwhile investment in your flying skills. It will give you an
opportunity to unlearn the bad habits you've been taught.

Michael

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
. ..

"Malcolm Teas" wrote in message
om...

At my school we were told "not more than 30 degrees of bank in the
pattern". I personally heard from my instructors to keep the ball
centered unless you were slipping.

All good advice.

We did practice slipping, it was
regarded as something you needed to know and show you could do it, but
not normal procedure.

It's essential to crosswind landings.

I also heard a lot of "more right rudder", but that was just me...

Standard flight instructor mantra.

Okay...flame war time!

OWT: Power determines pitch, and pitch determines speed.

Roger Long wrote:

Sure it is, if you are a low time student pilot trying to salvage an
overshot turn before you have developed a good feel for the plane.

Hi Roger,

Just "my opinion". but salvage and student in the same sentence is a bad
choice of words.

If the low time student overshot the turn to the point where the word
salvage comes into play, I would suggest just going around and trying
again.....

Allen
(who is not a CFI).

power plus pitch equals performance

mike regish

"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
. ..

"Malcolm Teas" wrote in message
om...

At my school we were told "not more than 30 degrees of bank in the
pattern". I personally heard from my instructors to keep the ball
centered unless you were slipping.

All good advice.

We did practice slipping, it was
regarded as something you needed to know and show you could do it, but
not normal procedure.

It's essential to crosswind landings.

I also heard a lot of "more right rudder", but that was just me...

Standard flight instructor mantra.

Okay...flame war time!

OWT: Power determines pitch, and pitch determines speed.

But look what you turned into. You are obviously an ubermench.

--
Roger Long

Peter Duniho wrote in message
...
"Roger Long" om wrote
in
message ...
You've been flying a long, long time and I'm sure you've forgotten a lot
about being low hours
[...]
Telling students and low frequency fliers that they should not include
the
instruments in their scan is actually dangerous advice.

When I was a student, with relatively few hours, during my night training,
we flew approaches without any interior lights at all, to simulate an
electrical failure. Even at that point, I was able to fly the airplane
without reference to the ASI, turn coordinator, and attitude indicator.

I don't feel that I was an unusually talented student. I had all the same
hurdles to cross as any student, with all the usual learning plateaus.
IMHO, if a private pilot cannot fly the airplane without reference to the
instruments, it is not because they are inherently not able to. It's
because no instructor ever bothered to give them appropriate training.

Pete

In article ,
Peter Duniho wrote:
"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've never been able to judge turn
coordination without the use of the ball (bank angle, I'm "ok" on). If
I don't look at the ball, I have no idea if I'm coordinated or not.
My instructor tried very hard to get me to judge coordination "naturally",
but I just never got it. How do you teach something like that?

I will bet that you can at least judge coordination well enough to avoid
serious problems.

Well, shoot .... how do I tell? I mean, I have _no_ sense of coordination.
If you were to put me in a skid, I have no idea how that feels. During
climbout, I always have to cross-check with the ball to make sure I'm
coordinated; I can never do that on feel. I'm better with that now, but
that's because I know the right amount of control pressure to use on
the rudder, not because I know what coordinated flight feels like.
During slips, the only thing that tells me I'm in a slip is the ball.

--Ken