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On Oct 4, 6:39 am, Tina wrote:
Still waiting for the conservation of momentum derivation. My husband, also trained as an engineer, casually remarked he didn't think you could get from Newton's First Law to the that confirms my memory, but we are both willing to have that belief rebutted. My apologies for broaching the subject. Frankly, I would rather save it for the physicists. ![]() He also pointed out that how a CFI might explain how a VOR works would not satisfy an engineer. For that matter, the physics of flight as explained to a student pilot would not satisfy someone who might be interested in designing, as opposed to flying, an airplane, but I don't think the manuals you are looking at are in error. If the manuals are in error, then they are in error. If the manual issues a disclaimer, saying something, like, "this is not really what is happening, but this will suffice for us..." that would be ok. That's not what's happening. The manual mentions things like Bernoulli, Newtons laws of motion. It even uses vector notation for a few of the formula's. When one gets that close to the merchandise, they need to purchase it. I would point out that each field has its own language, and you denying the conventions used in aviation -- drag, lift and so on -- demonstrates an unbecoming trait for a student, and even a worse one for an employee. You may want to rething that attitude if you use it in real life. There is a difference between convention and errononeous information. I never discounted drag, lift, or so on...I discounted the explanations given some of my flight education materials. If it's wrong, it's wrong. If someone reading it gets comfort from thinking they understand, or whatever, that's fine for that person. But the writers of those manuals should know that their audience is broad, and should not publish erroneous information (after they know that it is erroneous). There is gross difference between explaining something in simple terms and being correct, versus explaining something in moderately-difficult terms, and being incorrect. I could probably explain VOR to a 10-year-old, without ever mentioning things like counters, angular frequency, anisotropic radiation, frequency bands, sub-carriers, convolution, etc....and my explanation would still be correct. "When you drink from a straw, there is no suction force." -Le Chaud Lapin- |
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On Oct 4, 10:47 am, Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
I could probably explain VOR to a 10-year-old, without ever mentioning things like counters, angular frequency, anisotropic radiation, frequency bands, sub-carriers, convolution, etc....and my explanation would still be correct. I doubt it. The ten-year-old, and most flight students, have absolutely no frame of reference to understand any of this in any depth. I teach a College course on Aircraft Systems, and I have to keep things really simple so they can grasp a few basics. If you are an electrical engineer, and I've had a few in my classes, we can get more into the workings of the VOR, but we leave all the others yawning and wondering if this is going to be on the final exam. When we come to hydraulics, we talk about pressure, volume and area and relate that to what we experience as kids playing with a garden hose. The same analogy can be used to a limited extent when explaining Ohm's Law. But now I encounter kids who grew up in highrises and never squirted their sisters with a hose, so they have more difficulty. Too much information, not enough relationship to previous bases because there are none. You have no frame of reference yet. When you start getting into violent departure stalls, skidding-turn spins, accelerated stalls, spirals and the like, the sounds and forces start to make the textbook stuff real. Sure, Jeppesen isn't always right. I haven't found a textbook yet that doesn't have some glaring errors, and the one I use in the Systems class has at least four that I have to issue corrections on in the syllabus. And the writers of texts have found that they don't sell the books that go into thousands of pages of detail; the students have neither the inclination for it nor the time. They have careers in other fields. So the textbook authors keep it really simple in the hope that the student will be piqued enough to dig further on his own. Most don't. You an argue this as long as you want, like Mx, but it's all book-learnin' and when the ground starts to come up at you real quick it won't matter one bit. You WILL want to understand AOA and where you went wrong. Dan Flight Instructor Aircraft Maintenance Engineer |
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On Oct 4, 1:51 pm, wrote:
On Oct 4, 10:47 am, Le Chaud Lapin wrote: I could probably explain VOR to a 10-year-old, without ever mentioning things like counters, angular frequency, anisotropic radiation, frequency bands, sub-carriers, convolution, etc....and my explanation would still be correct. I doubt it. The ten-year-old, and most flight students, have absolutely no frame of reference to understand any of this in any depth. I teach a College course on Aircraft Systems, and I have to keep things really simple so they can grasp a few basics. If you are an electrical engineer, and I've had a few in my classes, we can get more into the workings of the VOR, but we leave all the others yawning and wondering if this is going to be on the final exam. When we come to hydraulics, we talk about pressure, volume and area and relate that to what we experience as kids playing with a garden hose. The same analogy can be used to a limited extent when explaining Ohm's Law. But now I encounter kids who grew up in highrises and never squirted their sisters with a hose, so they have more difficulty. Too much information, not enough relationship to previous bases because there are none. You have no frame of reference yet. When you start getting into violent departure stalls, skidding-turn spins, accelerated stalls, spirals and the like, the sounds and forces start to make the textbook stuff real. Sure, Jeppesen isn't always right. I haven't found a textbook yet that doesn't have some glaring errors, and the one I use in the Systems class has at least four that I have to issue corrections on in the syllabus. And the writers of texts have found that they don't sell the books that go into thousands of pages of detail; the students have neither the inclination for it nor the time. They have careers in other fields. So the textbook authors keep it really simple in the hope that the student will be piqued enough to dig further on his own. Most don't. You an argue this as long as you want, like Mx, but it's all book-learnin' and when the ground starts to come up at you real quick it won't matter one bit. You WILL want to understand AOA and where you went wrong. I agree with everything you wrote except this last part and the part about the 10-year-old. I have teaching experience myself in electrical engineering, and mathematics, computer science, ...all, non- trivial. I have found that very many complex things can be taught to people while still remaining honest. Certainly there might not be utlization of Maxwell's equations or partial-differential equations, or red-black trees, but insight can be instilled that will give the student an understanding that is both intutive and accurate. As the student matures, the depth of understanding might increase, but it can at least remain true. Schools try hard to do this, but since there are so many students in class at once, each with different proclivity to learn, the curriculum, by necessity, quickly suffers from rote drill, as you hinted at. I remember being introduced to notion of sqare-root of negative number in elementrary school. Then middle school. Then again in high school. I never really understod them in middle school because the teachers would not allow that. All the students were in monkey mode. I also remember when I first did long division, I and wanted to move on to what was next, and the teachers would not allow it. I was forced to do hundreds of long-division problems, one after the other, like a pencil monkey, even though it was quite apparent what was going on. It was their way of keeping me occupied. This was OK for square-root of -1. I do not think it is OK for flying. I want theory and the practice, because with flying, I think it is more relevant. I don't want to be in the cockpit flying around my friends and their children harboring the secret that regarded the KT as an impediment to me having some fun yankin' and bankin'. It's irresponsible. And if there is a crash due to pilot error because of shallow understanding... ....that's simply unacceptable in my book, especially when I have passengers. -Le Chaud Lapin- |
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Le Chaud Lapin wrote in
ups.com: On Oct 4, 1:51 pm, wrote: On Oct 4, 10:47 am, Le Chaud Lapin wrote: I could probably explain VOR to a 10-year-old, without ever mentioning things like counters, angular frequency, anisotropic radiation, frequency bands, sub-carriers, convolution, etc....and my explanation would still be correct. I doubt it. The ten-year-old, and most flight students, have absolutely no frame of reference to understand any of this in any depth. I teach a College course on Aircraft Systems, and I have to keep things really simple so they can grasp a few basics. If you are an electrical engineer, and I've had a few in my classes, we can get more into the workings of the VOR, but we leave all the others yawning and wondering if this is going to be on the final exam. When we come to hydraulics, we talk about pressure, volume and area and relate that to what we experience as kids playing with a garden hose. The same analogy can be used to a limited extent when explaining Ohm's Law. But now I encounter kids who grew up in highrises and never squirted their sisters with a hose, so they have more difficulty. Too much information, not enough relationship to previous bases because there are none. You have no frame of reference yet. When you start getting into violent departure stalls, skidding-turn spins, accelerated stalls, spirals and the like, the sounds and forces start to make the textbook stuff real. Sure, Jeppesen isn't always right. I haven't found a textbook yet that doesn't have some glaring errors, and the one I use in the Systems class has at least four that I have to issue corrections on in the syllabus. And the writers of texts have found that they don't sell the books that go into thousands of pages of detail; the students have neither the inclination for it nor the time. They have careers in other fields. So the textbook authors keep it really simple in the hope that the student will be piqued enough to dig further on his own. Most don't. You an argue this as long as you want, like Mx, but it's all book-learnin' and when the ground starts to come up at you real quick it won't matter one bit. You WILL want to understand AOA and where you went wrong. I agree with everything you wrote except this last part and the part about the 10-year-old. I have teaching experience myself in electrical engineering, and mathematics, computer science, ...all, non- trivial. Yeah, show all that to yor win, dip****. rash due to pilot error because of shallow understanding... ...that's simply unacceptable in my book, especially when I have passengers. Never going to happen, Anthony Bertie |
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