Testing your glide. Are people doing this?

"ShawnD2112" wrote in message
...
| My experience is that most people don't actually know how to fly their
| airplanes.

Really? How do you know that?

As a flight instructor who does a LOT of BFRs I find that the vast majority
of pilots perform emergency procedures, stalls, and other maneuvers quite
well.

Good thing to do after you have verified your glide (I found the book
numbers on my 172 quite close) is to go to your typical altitude and pick
out a landmark and appropriate distance away. Hold your arm out, put the
tip of your thumb on the horizon, and note where the landmark falls. With
some correction for wind, you now know that you can glide to anything within
that radius.

--
Roger Long

"C J Campbell" writes:

Really? How do you know that?

As a flight instructor who does a LOT of BFRs I find that the vast majority
of pilots perform emergency procedures, stalls, and other maneuvers quite
well.

That's good to know. On balance, do you see any difference between
owners and renters? Does the owner's extra familiarity with the plane
make any practical difference?


All the best,


David

In article ,
Really? How do you know that?

As a flight instructor who does a LOT of BFRs I find that the vast majority
of pilots perform emergency procedures, stalls, and other maneuvers quite
well.

That's good to know. On balance, do you see any difference between
owners and renters? Does the owner's extra familiarity with the plane
make any practical difference?

LOL, so you think owners make better pilots than renters just because
they own a plane. A fair number of owners fly very little, these lease
back their planes to FBOs so to keep it in the air.
I know this is semi-OT but renter v owner has nothing to do with being
a safe/good pilot. Most people are most familar with cruise because
that's where they spend most of their time during flights. But I would
say that ~50% of the pilots _I_ know (not a random or presentive sample)
go out and do stalls, T&G, slow flight, etc. And they're all renters

"Montblack"

I wonder how much better (than the made up safety number 5:1) people will
see up at 6,000 ft AGL. Are people getting book numbers, in their planes,
when they go up and practice real world glides - from say 6k down to 3k?


"Real world" is with the engine out. Prop stopped or creating drag by
windmilling. (Little low? Just use a slightly more aggressive engine
warming.)Which makes me wonder: What if someone, trying this (and it
doesn't sound completely crazy), couldn't restart the engine? (And had a
less than perfect landing...) Is it just the same as a glider making an off
field landing accident?

le moo

good number to keep in your head for lower altitudes.

Not sure why you refer to "lower altitudes". The glide angle is
constant with altitude.

One of the big problems confronting a pilot in an actual engine out, is getting
over the shock of the reality of the occurance. Some pilots (people in
general) will "choke" or mentally freeze up and not think constructively about
dealing with the situation. ( 'I can't believe my engine quit!' syndrome)
Constantly training/practicing/"rehearsing" will help a pilot get past this
hurdle. By knowing what the next "planned" move will be. That's part of the
value of regular practice.
VL
(Oh gawd, he's on his soapbox again)

"'Vejita' S. Cousin" wrote in message
...
That's good to know. On balance, do you see any difference between
owners and renters? Does the owner's extra familiarity with the plane
make any practical difference?

LOL, so you think owners make better pilots than renters just because
they own a plane. A fair number of owners fly very little, these lease
back their planes to FBOs so to keep it in the air.

He asked a question. He did NOT make an assertion. He didn't say anything
about what he thinks.

But since you got all hot and bothered, I'll go ahead and point out that
I've learned FAR more about my airplane as an owner than I ever would have
as a renter. Being the person who oversees and pays for the maintenance
provides a MUCH better education with regards to aircraft systems than any
renter would get. That's important information that comes in handy if
anything should go wrong while flying (and before flying, for that matter).

As far as your claim that "a fair number of owners fly very little", I guess
you'll just have to define "a fair number". Certainly some owners do lease
back their aircraft and do not fly any more than the typical renter might.
However, that hardly characterizes the majority of owners. When speaking in
generalities (such as I assume David was), a minority -- even if it's a
large one -- isn't really all that relevant to the question.

Finally, the issue of whether a pilot is more familiar with an airplane is
significant, even for planes that are essentially the same. Over the years,
various controls and capabilities of the C172 (for example) have varied
somewhat. A person flying the same C172 (for example) all the time is going
to be much more familiar with where things are and how to react in a given
situation than someone who flies a variety of C172s and has to adjust for
the subtle differences in each airplane.

I know this is semi-OT but renter v owner has nothing to do with being
a safe/good pilot.

Nobody said it did. I'm guessing you don't own an airplane, but rather rent
one, given how primed you appear to be for inferring offensive where none
was stated or implied. Next time you think someone's pushed one of your hot
buttons, you might take a look around and see if anyone's standing anywhere
near it first, before flying off the handle.

A relative lack of familiarity does not imply that a pilot is neither safe
nor good. It simply is a relative lack of familiarity. It may or may not
translate into better piloting, but one cannot question the presence of that
difference in familiarity.

Pete

"Greg Esres" wrote in message
...
good number to keep in your head for lower altitudes.

Not sure why you refer to "lower altitudes". The glide angle is
constant with altitude.

Because there's "overhead". Gliding from a higher altitude, one normally
will be able to spend a larger proportion of the glide at the optimal best
glide speed. The glide angle is only theoretically constant with altitude.
In reality, no one goes directly to best glide the instant the engine fails
and the glide angle after engine failure varies as the pilot reacts.

Pete

That's good to know. On balance, do you see any difference between
owners and renters? Does the owner's extra familiarity with the plane
make any practical difference?

I don't know about anyone else, but I know that as an owner, spending
several hundred hours in the same aircraft, I become MUCH more proficient
with an airplane than I could when I rented a wide variety of aircraft.

An example: When we had our Warrior, I was able to hit my own wake
turbulence in a 360 degree standard rate turn, without reference to the
altimeter, not varying my altitude plus or minus 50 feet. My CFI was pretty
impressed, but it was just a matter of being intimately familiar with the
nuances of a particular bird, after literally spending *years* in the left
seat.

I sure couldn't do that in our Pathfinder when we first got it -- heck, I
doubt I could do it now, after a couple of hundred hours. It's just a
"feel" thing that aircraft owners develop, and renters can't -- UNLESS they
always rent the same plane. (Which I never was able to do.)

Time in type -- especially if it's the same aircraft -- is valuable.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"