Leading Turns With Rudder

"sisu1a" wrote in message
...
On Jul 22, 4:44 am, wrote:
On Jul 21, 9:08 pm, sisu1a wrote:



I feel compelled at this point to add that this guy does not promote
stomping the rudder or other outwardly unsafe flying habits and is
absolutely fanatical about keeping the string straight, to the point
of obnoxiousness. He would not accept my explanation of mildly
slipping during thermaling ala' Holighaus/Johnson on a flight last
year, outright rejecting it on principal (he was sure I read the
article wrong or remembered it incorrectly).

I also want to add that my concern is geared toward what ab-initio
students should or should not be taught, as it is very hard to unlearn
something, no matter how wrong. As far as I understand the human
brain, it will most likely revert to these early lessons when/if a
'situation' arises and stress levels are very high.

I certainly don't think he should have his ticket yanked by any means,
I just have my own reservations about the soundness of *possibly*
instilling reflexes into people that can potentially be dangerous if
reverted to at an inopportune moment. This forum seems like a good
place for this discussion, to see how others more qualified than I
weigh in on the subject before making it a campaign and I thank
everyone thus far for their thoughtful responses.

-Paul

Paul -- I can't reconcile these statements and your OP. How does one
teach applying rudder "first, as it's own control movement" and yet be
absolutely fanatical about keeping the yaw string centered?


Well, it makes instruction with him about as much fun as it sounds
(assuming your not a hapless student that doesn't know better and
would never stand up to his authority which BTW is very authoritative,
complete w/yelling tendencies but I digress...). It should be noted
that he is using a 2-33 (our other trainer is an L-13 Blanik, which he
is convinced it is awful for instruction compared to the wonderful
2-33...) to push this technique, which is not exactly snappy in ANY
responses so I doubt the string is getting too far in most of the
time. 95% of the instruction he does is with newbies who won't talk
back, so your point is probably never brought up (the rest of the
folks just grit their teeth, bite their tongue and finish their BFR
ASAP).
Recapping, my real concern of this does not come from how the 2-33
specifically likes/dislikes it. My concern comes from building this
technique by rote as a reflex in students because it translates poorly
to most other gliders, and seems like it could potentially lead to
disaster down the road, from my limited perspective. Honest, this
stuff actually gets written on a board and drilled into students
heads, I'm not making this up.

-Paul
(trying to keep descriptions as generic as possible because I DON'T
want to call him out)


Well, Paul---
Have you personally been trained by this instructor, or is this second hand
"distilled" information.
Perhaps the full instruction is more complete---or maybe not.

The art of instruction is in learning the essence of the thing to be
taught, then breaking it down into steps so it can be taught. What is
actually being taught is (or should be), coordinated turns. This does not
mean apply the same rudder and aileron movement at the same time, or the
same control pressures at the same time. It means do what it takes to get
the effect desired-i.e. crisp, string centered, constant airspeed turn. How
that is to be done varies from aircraft to aircraft and from airspeed to
other airspeed. If the student learns first what a coordinated turn is and
is not, then everything else falls into place, and the law of primacy will
prevail in a pinch.

Hartley Falbaum USA

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:53:24 -0700, sisu1a wrote:

I'm not an instructor, but here's my take.

For my taste the earlier G103s, the Acro II and Twin Astir flavours are
rather under ruddered. I find that, when flying these, my turn entries and
exits are cleaner if I very slightly lead with the rudder. This is a
matter of just a few milliseconds: a tenth of a second at most.

Those are the only gliders where I think its needed. The G103C Acro III,
the version with Schuemann wing planform, handles a lot better than the
earlier ones and doesn't need this treatment.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. |
org | Zappa fan & glider pilot

Those are the only gliders where I think its needed.


Never flown a Jantar-1?

Horribly under-ruddered, as I recall, needing lots of boot to
coordinate a turn and preferring it applied a tad before aileron.

Mike

On Jul 22, 6:55*am, Mike the Strike wrote:
Those are the only gliders where I think its needed.

Never flown a Jantar-1?

Horribly under-ruddered, as I recall, needing lots of boot to
coordinate a turn and preferring it applied a tad before aileron.

Mike

ASH-25, and I'd assume a Nimbus, etc. (yes not much training done in
those).

Darryl

On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:52:43 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:

On Jul 22, 6:55*am, Mike the Strike wrote:
Those are the only gliders where I think its needed.

Never flown a Jantar-1?

Horribly under-ruddered, as I recall, needing lots of boot to
coordinate a turn and preferring it applied a tad before aileron.

Mike

ASH-25, and I'd assume a Nimbus, etc. (yes not much training done in
those).

The only one of those I've handled was a Nimbus 3, which seemed to
handle OK apart from the rudder forces and the (to me anyway) large
amounts of inertia about all three axes. Mind you, that was on a really
difficult day - little drift but solid overcast at 3000 ft and only wide
diameter, weak lift under it, so anything other than gentle turns would
have lost more than they gained. We stayed up 3 hours to get some value
from the tow and never got higher than 2800 ft or more than 10 miles from
home.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. |
org | Zappa fan & glider pilot

sisu1a wrote:

An SSA 'Master' CFIG I know is perpetually hammering it into his
students that to initiate a turn in a glider, the FIRST thing you do
is feed in rudder.
-Paul

I fly mostly Std. class 15m glass planes (sometimes Duo Discus) and I've
found that I feel it is the rate of rudder application that differs to make a
coodinated turn. I tend to move my hands and feet simulaneously but find how
quickly I get the rudder out to an optimum deflection for a turn is the
difference in the planes I fly.

Thats my sense of things.

--
Message posted via AviationKB.com
http://www.aviationkb.com/Uwe/Forums...aring/200807/1

Bad habits don't discriminate based on titles. Sadly, titles can more easily
pass on those bad habits as best practices. The rudder first approach is
something gleaned by many pilots from the stories about a few marginally
controllable "super gliders" from a previous generation of the sport. Its
reapplication to certain "underruddered" two-place training gliders shows a
remarkable lack of understanding of coordination.

Here's the crux of the problem... the rudder first approach is most
effective at low speed, when the ailerons produce the greatest adverse yaw
and the vertical stabilizer has less righting force. When is coordination
most important?

To make your argument I'd focus on the following:

Lack of coordination is universally discouraged. Any training regimen which
promotes lack of coordination needs to justify it based on both increased
controllability AND uncompromised safety.

Generally, all sailplanes require more rudder with less aileron at low speed
to remain coordinated. Shouldn't pilots be taught to discern the difference
in control effectiveness throughout the speed range rather than to simply
using an expedient that "works" in one case?

If you teach someone from the outset to lead with rudder, isn't it likely he
will continue this practice for ALL aircraft and in all conditions?

Modern aircraft are built to standards of controllability. Does your model's
operator's manual suggest leading with the rudder? If not, why not?

And finally, from an aesthetic point of view, it's just plain sloppy. As a
CFI, I'd question the abilities of a pilot who couldn't make a coordinated
turn in a modern glider (SGS 2-33 included) all the way down to MCA. Slewing
the nose before banking... every time you turn? My comment to the pilot
would be to fly the glider you're in, not the one you're fantasizing about.

;-)


"sisu1a" wrote in message
...
Hi All,

An SSA 'Master' CFIG I know is perpetually hammering it into his
students that to initiate a turn in a glider, the FIRST thing you do
is feed in rudder. On his 1-5 list of making a turn in a glider, #1 is
rudder (as it's own separate input). While this may be aerodynamically
acceptable practice for a 2-33, it seems a recipie for disaster in
other ships to begin a turn by intentionally skidding. Since in a
pinch, one has a tendency to revert to instincts that were first
learned/practiced (right OR wrong), I see this as a setup for possible
future problems.
Since I have issues with this, I want to gather some other opinions
(particularly those of other CFI's) to help present a case to
possibly get this corrected. He holds little value of MYopinion, so I
was hoping to get some 'name brand' opinions to help my case. And if I
am just putting to much into this, I would rather hear it from this
group.

-Paul

I'd say this post provides an excellent summary.

There are gliders where, to obtain improved performance, it is sometimes
helpful to fly uncoordinated. For example, to persuade my Open Cirrus
(1967 design, 17.7m span) to turn into a strong thermal, it's sometimes
most effective to yaw it towards the thermal enough to induce the
beginning of a wing drop - then catch it and continue into the turn.

BUT, this is deliberate uncoordinated flying. If you haven't been taught
to fly coordinated, you won't be able to recognise when and where it's
safe to do the opposite.

In the circuit, or thermalling low down, I work really hard to keep my
turns coordinated. Attempting to turn in the way I described above would
be a recipe for disaster. I only do it in the circumstances I described
because I was TAUGHT to fly coordinated, and now have enough experience
(I hope) to recognise when it's safe to do something else. The default
should always be coordinated flying.

user wrote:
Bad habits don't discriminate based on titles. Sadly, titles can more easily
pass on those bad habits as best practices. The rudder first approach is
something gleaned by many pilots from the stories about a few marginally
controllable "super gliders" from a previous generation of the sport. Its
reapplication to certain "underruddered" two-place training gliders shows a
remarkable lack of understanding of coordination.

Here's the crux of the problem... the rudder first approach is most
effective at low speed, when the ailerons produce the greatest adverse yaw
and the vertical stabilizer has less righting force. When is coordination
most important?

To make your argument I'd focus on the following:

Lack of coordination is universally discouraged. Any training regimen which
promotes lack of coordination needs to justify it based on both increased
controllability AND uncompromised safety.

Generally, all sailplanes require more rudder with less aileron at low speed
to remain coordinated. Shouldn't pilots be taught to discern the difference
in control effectiveness throughout the speed range rather than to simply
using an expedient that "works" in one case?

If you teach someone from the outset to lead with rudder, isn't it likely he
will continue this practice for ALL aircraft and in all conditions?

Modern aircraft are built to standards of controllability. Does your model's
operator's manual suggest leading with the rudder? If not, why not?

And finally, from an aesthetic point of view, it's just plain sloppy. As a
CFI, I'd question the abilities of a pilot who couldn't make a coordinated
turn in a modern glider (SGS 2-33 included) all the way down to MCA. Slewing
the nose before banking... every time you turn? My comment to the pilot
would be to fly the glider you're in, not the one you're fantasizing about.

;-)

Chris Reed wrote:
I'd say this post provides an excellent summary.

There are gliders where, to obtain improved performance, it is sometimes
helpful to fly uncoordinated. For example, to persuade my Open Cirrus
(1967 design, 17.7m span) to turn into a strong thermal, it's sometimes
most effective to yaw it towards the thermal enough to induce the
beginning of a wing drop - then catch it and continue into the turn.

In the (most excellent) video "A Fine Week of Soaring", George Moffat
says that the handling of some first generation glass ships was so poor
that you could initiate a turn substantially faster by first moving the
stick in the opposite direction. Once the adverse yaw (in the desired
direction)had kicked in, THEN you'd move the ailerons into the turn.

Tony V

Tony Verhulst wrote:
Chris Reed wrote:
I'd say this post provides an excellent summary.

There are gliders where, to obtain improved performance, it is
sometimes helpful to fly uncoordinated. For example, to persuade my
Open Cirrus (1967 design, 17.7m span) to turn into a strong thermal,
it's sometimes most effective to yaw it towards the thermal enough to
induce the beginning of a wing drop - then catch it and continue into
the turn.

In the (most excellent) video "A Fine Week of Soaring", George Moffat
says that the handling of some first generation glass ships was so poor
that you could initiate a turn substantially faster by first moving the
stick in the opposite direction. Once the adverse yaw (in the desired
direction)had kicked in, THEN you'd move the ailerons into the turn.

Tony V
Sounds like a Nimbus 2 specific quote....