Help me clear up my brain fart

"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...
In article rxdsb.127082$9E1.626279@attbi_s52,
mike regish wrote:
Good article in one of my mags (Plane and pilot maybe?) about seat of the
pants flying. It's called that for a reason. Cause the butt knows.

Listen to your butt, grasshopper.

I tried ... my butt's stupid, I guess. Unfortunately, I always run into
problems like this ... common explanations are "you should feel it in
your butt/seat of the pants/take your pick". Well, I _don't_. No one
can really explain to me what I'm supposed to feel. I suspect there are
a bunch of cues that contribute to this feeling, and I'm just not
putting them all together. Other than flying a lot, I'm not sure how
I'm supposed to train for this.

--Ken

Your butt will be doing exactly what the ball in the T&B does in the same
situation.

Well, now you're doing it. I never said 50%. Dividing time properly could
be 5% / 95% or even 1% / 99%

Anyway, we've had fun. I think we all know where we stand.

Excuse me, gotta go check my airspeed

--
Roger Long

Peter Duniho wrote in message
...
"Roger Long" om wrote
in
message ...
[...] I asked the question in the Pilot
Techniques Forum at Cessna Pilots Association where I spend a lot of
time
and the unanimous position there backed up my view point. Interesting
cultural difference. A fellow who teaches seminars for advanced pilots
said, "Relying on the sight picture ONLY and not glancing at the
airspeed
has resulted in many a flatlander stalling on final at a high altitude
airport. Airspeed, airspeed, airspeed."

No one here is proposing one rely ONLY on the sight picture. I made it
very
clear that one needs to pay attention to the other sensory input. In
particular, engine and airstream noise along with control feel are very
important and clear indications of airspeed. If all else fails, you have
a
stall warning indicator (on any reasonably "modern" airplane), but it
really
shouldn't get that far.

The sight picture is useful only for airplane attitude information and for
that, is only completely accurate in unaccelerated flight (though it's
still
useful in accelerated flight).

I am always amused when someone takes a debate from one forum, claims to
have posed it in another forum and then comes back and says "well, at
least
*those* guys agree 100% with me". It is almost never the case that a) the
nature of the debate was actually conveyed accurately, and b) that the
support in the other forum is as unanimous as claimed (unless the
information posed in the other forum was SO skewed as to be absurdly and
obviously wrong).

Steve's post also demonstrates a sad misinterpretation of the debate at
hand. He's obviously a bit touchy about the subject and is taking things
personally. No one is claiming that he isn't a good pilot just because he
wants to use "new-fangled" inventions, nor is this debate anything like
the
"tricycle vs conventional" stuffed-shirt crap. He's getting his ego bent
out of shape for no reason at all.

No one is suggesting that aircraft instruments should be ignored. But to
claim that during VFR flight, the aircraft's instruments deserve anywhere
close to 50% of your attention is just plain absurd. Yes, pilots need to
"divide their time properly to looking at the panel and out the window".
But "divide their time properly" means the vast majority of time is spent
looking OUTSIDE. And those instruments are NOT the primary reference for
maneuvering, not even close.

Pete

In article ,
Peter Duniho wrote:
Mike's comments have been the most helpful so far, IMHO. In a car, if you
turn a corner quickly, I assume you'd be able to tell with your eyes closed
whether the turn was a right turn or a left, correct? The reason is that
your body is pushed to one side of the car or the other by centrifugal force
(ignore anyone who replies to this telling you or me that there is no such
thing ). If your body tries to slide to the right, it's a left turn and
vice a versa. This corresponds to a skid in an airplane.

I can feel a (sharp) turn in my car, but it seems like the forces
involved in a turn in a car are much greater than the average turn in
an airplane (at least, that what it feels like to me).

Now, to demonstrate this in an airplane, fly a level slip. That is, in
level flight bank to one direction or the other and use the rudder to hold
the heading constant. You'll find your body trying to slide toward the
downhill side of the airplane. This is your "butt" telling you that you are
in uncoordinated flight. You might need a pretty decent bank angle for you
to notice this, but any airplane ought to be able to slip with a large
enough angle that you can feel what we're talking about.

Well, hm ... I don't know what to say. I've certainly done plenty of
slips, with the ball pegged at one end of the tube, but I don't really
recall feeling anything like you describe.

You can also do the same exercise with the skid. In level flight, yaw the
aircraft with the rudder while keeping the wings level with the aileron.
Use a lot of rudder input. Again, your body will try to slide, only this
time it will be toward the outside of the yaw or turn. And again, this is
your "butt" telling you that you are in uncoordinated flight.

Again, I've done these yaws, mostly for my own curiousity; I've
certainly felt a sensation during the yaw motion, but I don't feel
anything once the yaw is stopped.

I simply don't believe that you are incapable of distinguishing coordinated
and uncoordinated flight without the use of the turn coordinator. For minor
deviations, the difference is subtle, to be sure. But with the proper
demonstration, I think you will be well on your way to easy, coordinated
flight without worrying about the instrument.

I'll agree it's probably not impossible for me to learn this; I was just
trying to point out that I don't have this skill, even though my instructor
did try to teach it to me. What I ended up using was using the visual
cues to make sure my turn roll-in and roll-outs were coordinated, and
that worked well enough to pass the checkride. Of course, one shouldn't
use the checkride as the minimum flight proficiency.

I'll also reiterate that even if you don't immediately learn to distinguish
small deviations, you certainly ought to be able to distinguish deviations
large enough to be a safety issue. I suspect you already can, and just
don't know it because no one ever showed you that you can.

Well, whether or not I can sense this is debatable, I suppose. I can only
tell you that I certainly _think_ I can't sense it.

But next time I go up, I will try some of those exercises you mentioned.
Thanks for the suggestions!

--Ken

In article ,
Gig Giacona wrote:
Your butt will be doing exactly what the ball in the T&B does in the same
situation.

You mean my butt will be rolling back and forth in a tube filled with
kerosene? Man, there's more involved to this flying thing than I
thought.

--Ken

In article gEhsb.177262$e01.632969@attbi_s02,
Newps wrote:
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 couldn't either for a while, but now I never have to look inside the
plane to land. How many hours do you have?

Ummm ... I'd have to look at my log book, but call it around 85.

--Ken

Huh?

mike regish

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
. ..

"Don Tuite" wrote in message
...

We ought to be mentioning that the danger in crossing controls is
skids, not slips.

And skidding is not normally CROSS controlled.

"Roger Long" om wrote in
message .. .
Well, now you're doing it. I never said 50%. Dividing time properly
could
be 5% / 95% or even 1% / 99%

You're right. That figure was simply an example, my interpretation of more
general and vague comments.

But the actual figure doesn't matter that much. IMHO, any non-zero amount
of time spent watching the instruments while making a downwind-to-base or
base-to-final turn while in the pattern is too much time. That's for any
kind of turn, but becomes especially true in the overshoot case.
Transitioning to instrument flight (as your original post suggested) while
attempting to reintercept final approach in a VFR pattern is just plain
wrong.

Pete

"mike regish" wrote in message
news:IBxsb.184901$e01.665122@attbi_s02...
And skidding is not normally CROSS controlled.

Huh?

I think he means that skidding usually doesn't happen in the presence of
opposite aileron input.

"Cross-controlled" is not exactly the same as "uncoordinated".

Pete

I think Ron means I was so terse I uttered nonsense. For what I was
trying to say, see:

http://www.faatest.com/books/FLT/Cha...ntrolStall.htm

Don

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 21:28:08 GMT, "mike regish"
wrote:

Huh?

mike regish

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
...

"Don Tuite" wrote in message
.. .

We ought to be mentioning that the danger in crossing controls is
skids, not slips.

And skidding is not normally CROSS controlled.

"mike regish" wrote in message news:IBxsb.184901$e01.665122@attbi_s02...
Huh?

Just what I said. Skid is usually caused by the same direction
control rudder input as the stick, just too much. Slips are usually
indicated by crosscontrolled inputs. Of course there are exceptions
to both.