Taking newbies flying...

Morgans writes:

Perhaps that is the problem. People are so stuck on the
fact that flying is for supermen, and themselves, and nobody else deserves the
chance to prove themselves.

I've noticed that.

I think your reaction is way, way over the top, on this one.

I've seen reactions like that quite frequently, too. People don't
like to admit that they may not be special.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 07:08:36 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote:

I've seen reactions like that quite frequently, too. People don't like to
admit that they may not be special.

We are special. It's not for what we can do, but what we choose to do.
Anyone is free to make the same choice. What makes us special is that we
choose properly.

(not that I'm biased or anything {8^)

- Andrew

Morgans schrieb:

What is the big F'en problem, here?

Yes, it ended well. But not everything's well that ends well. The
accident database is full of things which happened to end well 999 times
and ended as a statistic the 1000th.

There are several problems.

First problem, it's just plain illegal. Agreed, this isn't much of an
issue to me, either. I've been doing many illegal things myself. Still,
it is illegal.

Second problem, and this *is* an issue: He let the passenger handle the
controls right at the first take off. I have let passengers handle the
controls myself (yes, illegally), but always at altitude and when
workload was low. Still illegal, but no big problem. But right at the
start, it *is* an issue. This is one of the most dangerous moments of a
flight, workload is extremely high, and if the passenger screws up,
there is very little time to react. I doubt a non-instructor would be
able to save the day if the passenger just pulled back the yoke with
force, for example, or if a strong crosswind gust hits the plane at the
moment of rotation, as a second example. I can think of ten other
possibilities which overtax a non-instructor. BTW, no instructor I know
would let a student fly a take off without first having checked at safe
altitude how he handles the controls.

And third problem, there was a third party involved. I have no problem
with two guys who agree to try something stupid. If the two talk it
over, if both are aware of the risk and if both, fully informed, agree
to take that risk together, then I have no problem with it. I've been
doing this myself. But no way to involve other persons!

Stefan

Stefan,

First problem, it's just plain illegal.


Uhm, I'm afraid you are wrong. This is not illegal in the US. The word
"command" in PIC is taken seriously in the US - the PIC can decide what
happens onboard, including who is manipulating the controls. A PIC in
the US could sit in the baggage compartment.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Thomas Borchert schrieb:

Uhm, I'm afraid you are wrong. This is not illegal in the US. The word
"command" in PIC is taken seriously in the US - the PIC can decide what
happens onboard, including who is manipulating the controls. A PIC in
the US could sit in the baggage compartment.

I'm not sure he may hand over the controls to an unqualified person,
except if needed, of course. But always eager to learn something.

(Actually, I thought it to be legal myself earlier, deducing from the
sea laws. Then I've learnt that in aircraft, it is not, at least not
over here.)

Stefan

Stefan writes:

First problem, it's just plain illegal.

It's not illegal in the U.S. As long as you have a pilot in command
who is licensed to fly, he can allow other people (including
non-pilots) to control the aircraft.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Stefan wrote:
Have I got this right? You are not a flight instructor. (If you are,
please correct me.) Despite this, you hand over the controls to a
stranger.

First - if you had bothered to read and comprehend his post, you would
know this is someone who had been hinting at wanting a ride for a long
time - thus by definition not a stranger but someone he has known for
years.

Second - having a flight instructor ticket is nothing special, and
unfortunately the CFI PTS does little (more like nothing) to
effectively test the ability to monitor an untrained person's flight
and recover from upsets, so the average CFI curriculum does little
(more like nothing) to teach this. This is a skill best learned
incrementally. There is no reason that any reasonably experienced
pilot shouldn't do what Dan did. In fact, that's how good flight
instructors are made - by allowing passengers to take progressively
more action on a flight. It starts with straight and level at
altitude, and eventually progresses to maneuvers, takeoffs, even
landings. That way, when you have that first paying student in the
plane who reasonably expects you to be comfortable with allowing him to
fly, you're not trying to learn it all at once.

And all this *with a passenger in the back*!

Yeah, he really should have briefed the passenger better and let her
know what to expect. He knows that. Other than that, why not with a
passenger in the back? The incremental risk is really minimal, and
intro lessons are routinely done with passengers in the back - by
pilots with way less experience than Dan.

Michael
CFI - ASME, IA, G - as if it matters

Sometimes, you just can't tell...

I have always prided myself on flying as gently and conservatively with all
my passengers, especially my kids. My older boy has always been a little
queasy while I was flying. I tried all the usual tricks- ginger, dramamine,
electronic wrist band, and nothing really took care of the problem. I let
him fly straight and level, and he was okay with that, but flying was too
uncomfortable for him to be fun.

So today I took him up. It was an unusual day in the East, no turbulence and
excellent visibility. He asked if we could do some "high G" stuff. I said
okay, let's try some steep turns. He had been following alone on the
controls all along, but I took over and cranked it into a 45 degree turn (I
was pleasantly surprised as the altimeter stayed pegged, since it's been
awhile) and then rolled into a similar turn in the other direction. He
loved it! I said, okay, see that long straight road, let's drop down a
little and we'll do some S turns. Then we climbed up and did some stalls,
and then some steep turns around a point.

So, we went through some basic but vigorous airwork, and he enjoyed every
minute, much more than when I was trying to act line an airline pilot. In
some rare cases, there is such a thing as being too gentle. I guess the
real trick is knowing when those are.

I have a similar thing with my two kids. My daughter can handle a steep
turn, anything positive G's but push over the top and get her light in
the seat and she doesn't like it. My son however is the opposite, he
loves doing negative G things including making a notepad float off his
lap. He tries to get me to do that with mom in the plane but I'm
smarter than that.

I guess it depends on what the person expects, and what they enjoy.

LWG wrote:
Sometimes, you just can't tell...

I have always prided myself on flying as gently and conservatively with all
my passengers, especially my kids. My older boy has always been a little
queasy while I was flying. I tried all the usual tricks- ginger, dramamine,
electronic wrist band, and nothing really took care of the problem. I let
him fly straight and level, and he was okay with that, but flying was too
uncomfortable for him to be fun.

So today I took him up. It was an unusual day in the East, no turbulence and
excellent visibility. He asked if we could do some "high G" stuff. I said
okay, let's try some steep turns. He had been following alone on the
controls all along, but I took over and cranked it into a 45 degree turn (I
was pleasantly surprised as the altimeter stayed pegged, since it's been
awhile) and then rolled into a similar turn in the other direction. He
loved it! I said, okay, see that long straight road, let's drop down a
little and we'll do some S turns. Then we climbed up and did some stalls,
and then some steep turns around a point.

So, we went through some basic but vigorous airwork, and he enjoyed every
minute, much more than when I was trying to act line an airline pilot. In
some rare cases, there is such a thing as being too gentle. I guess the
real trick is knowing when those are.

I got used to negative G's in my five years of skydiving.
They were the final part of every climb to altitude, prior to jump run.

Robert Chambers wrote:

I have a similar thing with my two kids. My daughter can handle a
steep turn, anything positive G's but push over the top and get her
light in the seat and she doesn't like it. My son however is the
opposite, he loves doing negative G things including making a notepad
float off his lap. He tries to get me to do that with mom in the
plane but I'm smarter than that.

I guess it depends on what the person expects, and what they enjoy.

LWG wrote:

Sometimes, you just can't tell...

I have always prided myself on flying as gently and conservatively
with all my passengers, especially my kids. My older boy has always
been a little queasy while I was flying. I tried all the usual
tricks- ginger, dramamine, electronic wrist band, and nothing really
took care of the problem. I let him fly straight and level, and he
was okay with that, but flying was too uncomfortable for him to be fun.

So today I took him up. It was an unusual day in the East, no
turbulence and excellent visibility. He asked if we could do some
"high G" stuff. I said okay, let's try some steep turns. He had
been following alone on the controls all along, but I took over and
cranked it into a 45 degree turn (I was pleasantly surprised as the
altimeter stayed pegged, since it's been awhile) and then rolled into
a similar turn in the other direction. He loved it! I said, okay,
see that long straight road, let's drop down a little and we'll do
some S turns. Then we climbed up and did some stalls, and then some
steep turns around a point.

So, we went through some basic but vigorous airwork, and he enjoyed
every minute, much more than when I was trying to act line an airline
pilot. In some rare cases, there is such a thing as being too
gentle. I guess the real trick is knowing when those are.