Help me clear up my brain fart

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:12:37 +0000 (UTC), (Ken
Hornstein) wrote:

In article ,
Peter Duniho wrote:
A pilot who cannot judge bank angle and coordination without consulting the
turn coordinator and attitude indicator is one who needs to get back to the
basics.

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?

--Ken
If you look straight ahead when you initiate your turn, you can use
your sight over the nose as your "turn and bank" indicator.

Assume you are turning to the right. Here are the three possible
looks you'll see if you 1. don't apply enough rudder. 2. Apply too
much. 3. Apply the right amount.

1. With not enough rudder to counteract differential yaw, you'll see
the nose skid to the left as you bank to the right.

2. With too much rudder, you'll see the nose slip to the right as or
before you bank.

3. With the correct amount of rudder, the nose stays planted straight
ahead as you bank. Once you achieve the sought after bank angle, the
airplane begins turning.

That's right out of the King ground school video and verifiable in
flight. It does work.

Corky Scott

In article ,
Corky Scott wrote:
If you look straight ahead when you initiate your turn, you can use
your sight over the nose as your "turn and bank" indicator.

Assume you are turning to the right. Here are the three possible
looks you'll see if you 1. don't apply enough rudder. 2. Apply too
much. 3. Apply the right amount.
[...]

Okay, I learned that during the coordination exercises; that I got, but
only because it's got an obvious sight picture. But that only helps
during the roll-in and roll-out of the turn, right? In other flight
regimes (e.g., climb-out), I don't seem to have the kinesthetic sense
indicating coordination. Maybe I do, and I'm just not recognizing it,
but that doesn't help me :-/

--Ken

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.

mike regish

"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Corky Scott wrote:
If you look straight ahead when you initiate your turn, you can use
your sight over the nose as your "turn and bank" indicator.

Assume you are turning to the right. Here are the three possible
looks you'll see if you 1. don't apply enough rudder. 2. Apply too
much. 3. Apply the right amount.
[...]

Okay, I learned that during the coordination exercises; that I got, but
only because it's got an obvious sight picture. But that only helps
during the roll-in and roll-out of the turn, right? In other flight
regimes (e.g., climb-out), I don't seem to have the kinesthetic sense
indicating coordination. Maybe I do, and I'm just not recognizing it,
but that doesn't help me :-/

--Ken

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

"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...
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".

IMHO, statements like that are too vague to be really helpful. This is a
common problem with instructors. They only have one way to say something,
and it's often not an informative way. They have a terrible time adjusting
to different students.

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.

Start with the extreme cases and work back from that. Get an instructor to
help.

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.

Likewise, if the car is traveling across a slope (rather than up or down
one), it will be tilted ("banked"). You'd be able to tell which direction
the car is tilted by the direction your body is being pushed. If your body
tries to slide to the right, the car is tilted to the right (it's lower on
the right side) and vice a versa. This corresponds to a slip in an
airplane.

The rudder is used to negate any such "body sliding". If your body is
sliding to the left, you need more left rudder (or less right rudder). If
your body is sliding to the right, you need more right rudder (or less left
rudder).

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.

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.

Especially for the skidding case (but also for the slipping case), you'll
want to make sure you keep your speed up so that you don't stall. Va is
probably a good target. You'll need extra power to keep the speed up as
drag increases during the uncoordinated flight. One reason for bringing an
instructor along is to ensure that you go through the demonstrations safely,
and another reason is to make sure that you actually get a nice, clear
demonstration (by yourself, you might be too hesitant to get enough control
input in for you to really notice what's going on).

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 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.

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

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 at 19:35:28 in message
, Ken Hornstein
wrote:
In article ,
Peter Duniho wrote:
[Snip]

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.

And why should you? If an object is travelling at a steady speed in a
straight line then the only thing you should be able to notice is that
the 1 g of gravity is slightly inclined. You should notice a slip with a
30 degree bank all right but small ones would not be very noticeable.
What we notice is also closely connected to what we expect to notice. So
if you expect a given sensation you may not notice it!

I hesitate to put forward anything from my very limited flying
experience from 60 years ago here with all the experience there is.
However I do recall that my instructor never even drew my attention to
the old 'turn and bank' indicator, nor did I ever look at it. I did
steep turns both dual and solo and a couple of dual spins in a Tiger
Moth. When approaching to land I only looked at the speed to make sure
it was right for the degree of flap and to trim to that speed.
Revcounter, altimeter and airspeed were the important ones. Speed was
important if you did a 'go-around' as the flap trim change was quite
large. Flap was lowered in three steps. Final approach with full flap
showed 45 mph would you believe?

I remember on one occasion the grass field was soggy and we had to land
on the runway ( I was used to looking at the windsock and landing into
wind on the grass). I had had a very little training in cross wind
landing but on this occasion as I approached the runway I think I may
have forgotten about the possibility of a cross wind.

I was nicely lined up when I noticed a peculiar wind roar. I realised
that I must be moving sideways and that air was coming through the
poorly shut window. I detected no corresponding sensation. What I had
done was to line up on the runway with crossed controls without ever
giving it any conscious thought. I undid the control inputs and turned
slightly to crab as I had been taught. Landed with a slight squeal of
tyres as I needed more practice to kick the crab off at the right
moment. The aircraft (British Taylorcraft Auster Autocrat) had such a
short landing roll that I could land slightly diagonal on the runway
with no problem at all. The wind was light and so was the cross wind
otherwise my instructor would not have let me off solo.

That was along time ago.

[Snip]
--
David CL Francis

"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.

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