Simple string used as artificial horizon?

I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with a very
experienced pilot (older) who has spent a lot of time in some amazing
aircraft starting with the P51 Mustang and going up to jets including
the SR-71 blackbird and as we were looking over my glider we started
talking about the yaw string on the canopy.

He then mentioned that way back in the early days of flying they would
simply tape a string hanging from the ceiling to act as an artificial
horizon. I've never heard this one before! Next person who reads
this who goes up tape a string hanging from the inside of the canopy
and tell us how it works. Now you have another reason to take off
work and go soaring.

Bruno -B4
http://www.youtube.com/user/bviv

On Dec 29, 6:55*am, Bruno wrote:
I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with *a very
experienced pilot (older) who has spent a lot of time in some amazing
aircraft starting with the P51 Mustang and going up to jets including
the SR-71 blackbird and as we were looking over my glider we started
talking about the yaw string on the canopy.

He then mentioned that way back in the early days of flying they would
simply tape a string hanging from the ceiling to act as an artificial
horizon. *I've never heard this one before! *Next person who reads
this who goes up tape a string hanging from the inside of the canopy
and tell us how it works. *Now you have another reason to take off
work and go soaring.

Bruno -B4http://www.youtube.com/user/bviv


It's not April 1 already is it?

On Dec 29, 9:24*am, Andy wrote:
On Dec 29, 6:55*am, Bruno wrote:

I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with *a very
experienced pilot (older) who has spent a lot of time in some amazing
aircraft starting with the P51 Mustang and going up to jets including
the SR-71 blackbird and as we were looking over my glider we started
talking about the yaw string on the canopy.

He then mentioned that way back in the early days of flying they would
simply tape a string hanging from the ceiling to act as an artificial
horizon. *I've never heard this one before! *Next person who reads
this who goes up tape a string hanging from the inside of the canopy
and tell us how it works. *Now you have another reason to take off
work and go soaring.

Bruno -B4http://www.youtube.com/user/bviv

It's not April 1 already is it?

Just put a mark on your canopy and spit at it. If spit flies left of
target, you are turning right and vice versa.

-T8

T8 wrote:
On Dec 29, 9:24*am, Andy wrote:
On Dec 29, 6:55*am, Bruno wrote:

I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with *a very
experienced pilot (older) who has spent a lot of time in some amazing
aircraft starting with the P51 Mustang and going up to jets including
the SR-71 blackbird and as we were looking over my glider we started
talking about the yaw string on the canopy.

He then mentioned that way back in the early days of flying they would
simply tape a string hanging from the ceiling to act as an artificial
horizon. *I've never heard this one before! *Next person who reads
this who goes up tape a string hanging from the inside of the canopy
and tell us how it works. *Now you have another reason to take off
work and go soaring.

Bruno -B4http://www.youtube.com/user/bviv

It's not April 1 already is it?

Just put a mark on your canopy and spit at it. If spit flies left of
target, you are turning right and vice versa.

-T8

Just slighly more accurate than spit, Bruce Miller taught me as a 13
year old at Black Forest to tie a string to the release knob (or
anywhere in your field of vision) with a light little weight on the
end)

Looks stupid and mainly created questions till one day I was stupid
enough to allow myself to be towed up through a hole in the stratus
layer by a dumber tow pilot.

You already guessed it. Released, climbed through 14K in wave @ 500
fpm. Hole in the layer quickly closed. Trapped VFR on top.

The tow pilot had flown far upwind in strong winds to get down. I
couldn't fly that far and stay out of the soup. The peak of 9,000 foot
Mount Stuart had now disappeared below and the and the airport down
there somewhere was reporting only 1,1000 foot cealings.

Within ten minutes, I did not know where I was. I think perhaps wo
things saved me.

Cindy Brickner's practice lesson a decade before returning from FL250.
Trim for a speed. Take your hands off the controls and let the
aircraft find a benign spiral down observing what the turbulence does
and how the glider always finds its left decending turn again.

The other reassuring thing was that stupid little string hanging there
told me what was straight up and down, when my senses said we were
banked and slipping or skidding. At higher speeds it was all over the
place. A breath above a stall, it was quite telling.

Happy ending that time. Broke through the bottom, way, way down wind
from where I had thought I was, a river to cross and lots of headwind
to barely make it back to the field without a pattern.

Went out the next day and bought a GPS. The string is still there. New
personal rule about cloud proximity.

Bruce and Cindy are two of my heros.

Michael

I am amazed that anyone with a pilots certificate would actually think
anything hanging in the cockpit would tell you anything about the
horizon!!!! Please tell me these aren't certified pilots!

Gary

On Dec 29, 11:25*am, GARY BOGGS wrote:
I am amazed that anyone with a pilots certificate would actually think
anything hanging in the cockpit would tell you anything about the
horizon!!!! *Please tell me these aren't certified pilots!

Gary

I'm with you there, Gary.

The spit bit, I may need to clarify, was intended as wry humor.

-T8

On Dec 29, 11:45*am, T8 wrote:
On Dec 29, 11:25*am, GARY BOGGS wrote:

I am amazed that anyone with a pilots certificate would actually think
anything hanging in the cockpit would tell you anything about the
horizon!!!! *Please tell me these aren't certified pilots!

Gary

I'm with you there, Gary.

The spit bit, I may need to clarify, was intended as wry humor.

-T8

A number of years ago an article in The Atlantic magazine by William
Langewieche (son of
S&R author and current Vanity Fair chief editor) described an old
story that an airline pilot
had used a pocket watch as a turn indicator when his gyros failed. WL
tried it by flying out
over the open ocean, where the horizon disappears. He hung a pocket
watch from the ceiling
of the cockpit and used it as a pendulum. The pendulum DID work as a
crude turn indicator
but it tended to dampen out after a few swings. Nonetheless, if/when
ever stuck in the soup the
correct approach is the benign spiral. It does pay to try that
whenever you get checked out
in a new plane so you have confidence it will save your butt.

-- Matt

(Someone) wrote:
T8 wrote:
On Dec 29, 9:24 am, Andy wrote:
On Dec 29, 6:55 am, Bruno wrote:

I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with a very
experienced pilot (older) who has spent a lot of time in some amazing
aircraft starting with the P51 Mustang and going up to jets including
the SR-71 blackbird and as we were looking over my glider we started
talking about the yaw string on the canopy.
He then mentioned that way back in the early days of flying they would
simply tape a string hanging from the ceiling to act as an artificial
horizon. I've never heard this one before! Next person who reads
this who goes up tape a string hanging from the inside of the canopy
and tell us how it works. Now you have another reason to take off
work and go soaring.
Bruno -B4http://www.youtube.com/user/bviv
It's not April 1 already is it?
Just put a mark on your canopy and spit at it. If spit flies left of
target, you are turning right and vice versa.

-T8

Just slighly more accurate than spit, Bruce Miller taught me as a 13
year old at Black Forest to tie a string to the release knob (or
anywhere in your field of vision) with a light little weight on the
end)

Looks stupid and mainly created questions till one day I was stupid
enough to allow myself to be towed up through a hole in the stratus
layer by a dumber tow pilot.

Snip...

Went out the next day and bought a GPS. The string is still there. New
personal rule about cloud proximity.

Bruce and Cindy are two of my heros.

Michael

Thanks for sharing that...but be prepared to be flayed by others in
hobnailed boots (rightly) pointing out a bob-weight in the cockpit
doesn't 'merely' react only to gravitational forces. IMVHO, the
'takeaway' point I suspect you're hoping others extract from your
sharing is that it was Cindy's and Bruce's *combined* tips that gave you
a fighting chance once above your sucker hole.

For those unfamiliar w. the general geography near Black Forest (in the
western/'pretty dry' U.S.), the 'real hills' (i.e. the wave-generating
ones) begin some miles west/upwind of the gliderport, so if a person can
descend while remaining below wing-pulling-off speeds to cloud base,
s/he's unlikely to die by hitting the ground beforehand. Youthful
ignorance aside, everybody raise their hands who'd rather have been
VFR-on-top in the above-mentioned conditions withOUT the two pieces of
information that worked in this instance...let's talk afterwards!

Bob - forces matter - W.

On Dec 29, 8:02*am, karen wrote:

The other reassuring thing was that stupid little string hanging there
told me what was straight up and down, when my senses said we were
banked and slipping or skidding. At higher speeds it was all over the
place. A breath above a stall, it was quite telling.

This is important as one's life potentially is a stake (unless you are
joking, in which case it's a dangerous joke to post).

Anything hanging in the cockpit like a pendulum (or any instruments
working on the same principle) DOES NOT tell you which way is up. At
best it tells you something about whether you are coordinated. All
aircraft fly in an accelerated reference frame - that is, the apparent
gravity vector is the sum of the earth's gravity vector and all the
other accelerations the glider is experiencing. The pendulum will
confirm all the incorrect senses you body is telling you - very
dangerous. To demonstrate this for yourself try a couple of
experiments:

- Hang a pendulum in the cockpit and do a straight-ahead negative-G
pushover. The pendulum will point straight up, apparently telling you
you are inverted when you are not.

- Look at the pendulum when you are in a 45-degree coordinated turn -
it will be pointing 45-degrees off vertical, right through the belly
of the glider, not straight down to the ground.

In the case you describe the real danger is getting into an
accelerated spiral dive where the speed and Gs build up until
something breaks. Through that entire process your little string will
point happily straight through the belly of the glider until the wings
come off. That's why the hands-free benign spiral is preferred - the
natural stability of the aircraft will keep you out of trouble far
better than your internal senses of up and down.

Stay safe out there.

9B

It is snowing here in Utah, soaring weather is a ways off and I was
thinking about an episode of Mythbusters: "airplane on a treadmill"
that created lots of interesting conversation over the internet. It
was amazing how many pilots got it wrong.

Obviously in a turn the centrifugal forces should pull a string to the
point that it would not be usable to help keeping things upright.
Just trying to start a fun discussion but now I am realizing that if
someone doesn't read far enough down the threads that they might not
see it doesn't work and might actually rely on it. Don't worry Gary.
Didn't think it would work.

Bruno


On Dec 29, 10:56*am, Andy wrote:
On Dec 29, 8:02*am, karen wrote:



The other reassuring thing was that stupid little string hanging there
told me what was straight up and down, when my senses said we were
banked and slipping or skidding. At higher speeds it was all over the
place. A breath above a stall, it was quite telling.

This is important as one's life potentially is a stake (unless you are
joking, in which case it's a dangerous joke to post).

Anything hanging in the cockpit like a pendulum (or any instruments
working on the same principle) DOES NOT tell you which way is up. *At
best it tells you something about whether you are coordinated. *All
aircraft fly in an accelerated reference frame - that is, the apparent
gravity vector is the sum of the earth's gravity vector and all the
other accelerations the glider is experiencing. The pendulum will
confirm all the incorrect senses you body is telling you - very
dangerous. To demonstrate this for yourself try a couple of
experiments:

- Hang a pendulum in the cockpit and do a straight-ahead negative-G
pushover. *The pendulum will point straight up, apparently telling you
you are inverted when you are not.

- Look at the pendulum when you are in a 45-degree coordinated turn -
it will be pointing 45-degrees off vertical, right through the belly
of the glider, not straight down to the ground.

In the case you describe the real danger is getting into an
accelerated spiral dive where the speed and Gs build up until
something breaks. Through that entire process your little string will
point happily straight through the belly of the glider until the wings
come off. That's why the hands-free benign spiral is preferred - the
natural stability of the aircraft will keep you out of trouble far
better than your internal senses of up and down.

Stay safe out there.

9B