Feeling aircraft sensations

Wanted to ask how easy or natural it gets for pilots to perceive
aircraft positions and movements without actually looking at the
respective indicators.

I've been in the flight deck only once, and confess that I had very
little physical sensation to give me an idea of the 0.7 Mach or
whatever that the A320's airspeed indicator was showing. In fact, at
the end of the journey, there was little to suggest the speeds we were
actually traveling at. Also, nearly throughout the 4-hour flight, the
heading was different from the direction of travel, but I didn't feel
that wind correction angle. I'm not sure whether or not the landing was
a x-wind, which tells you that that went imperceived too. The only
thing I could tell at all was the slightly pitch-up nose attitude
throughout, though I couldn't assess the angle.

Was I just me that was dumb or has anyone else not physically felt
these sensations at the first go?

Ramapriya

"Ramapriya" wrote in message
oups.com...
Wanted to ask how easy or natural it gets for pilots to perceive
aircraft positions and movements without actually looking at the
respective indicators.

[...]

Was I just me that was dumb or has anyone else not physically felt
these sensations at the first go?

You cannot fly without your eyes.

Which is not to say there's not useful information coming through your
physical senses. But whether you are looking out the window or at the
instruments on the panel, you need to be able to *see* what is going on,
because kinesthesia isn't a reliable source of aircraft position and
movement. There are too many illusions caused by the characteristics of
flight maneuvering that have no correspondence to movements naturally
experienced by primitive humans.

Now, if you are asking whether it's difficult to fly without instruments,
but with your eyes, no it's not. In something like an Airbus, it might be a
little more complicated but for light planes generally, flights in visual
conditions could all be safely accomplished without any instruments
whatsoever.

Altitude, airspeed, and power settings are the key performance indicators on
the instrument panel. Altitude is the hardest to estimate, but it's not too
hard to tell the difference between "pattern altitude" and "cruise
altitude". The main reason for needing the altimeter is to comply with
various regulatory issues; either to cruise at an appropriate altitude, or
to avoid (or remain inside) particular airspace.

Airspeed is less difficult than altitude. You get plenty of feedback from
the noise the air makes as it goes past the airframe, and from the feel of
the flight controls (they get more difficult to move as airspeed increases).
In addition, as long as you can maintain a specific power setting and can
tell your pitch attitude, you can pretty fairly predict what your actual
airspeed is going to be.

Power settings are the easiest, at least in a fixed-pitch prop airplane.
You just listen to the airplane. Just as you don't need a tachometer in
your car to tell you when to shift, you don't need a tachometer in the
airplane to tell you if you've got the power set in the right ballpark.
Things get more complicated with a constant speed prop, because two
different controls affect the actual power setting, but only one produces a
change in the engine RPM. But even there, a pilot can estimate the throttle
setting just by the position of the throttle control, and then use the RPM
control to ensure the correct power setting.

It's not really clear to me which question you're asking. But instruments
are by no means critical for visual flight. However, one absolute cannot
trust one's non-visual perception for the purpose of controlling an
airplane. Hopefully one of those two answers addresses whatever question
you're actually asking.

Pete

Peter Duniho wrote:

Altitude, airspeed, and power settings are the key performance indicators on
the instrument panel. Altitude is the hardest to estimate, but it's not too
hard to tell the difference between "pattern altitude" and "cruise
altitude". The main reason for needing the altimeter is to comply with
various regulatory issues; either to cruise at an appropriate altitude, or
to avoid (or remain inside) particular airspace.

Airspeed is less difficult than altitude. You get plenty of feedback from
the noise the air makes as it goes past the airframe, and from the feel of
the flight controls (they get more difficult to move as airspeed increases).
In addition, as long as you can maintain a specific power setting and can
tell your pitch attitude, you can pretty fairly predict what your actual
airspeed is going to be.

Thanks, Pete. I wasn't asking any specific questions as such, and only
wanted to know whether you guys can generally tell these parameters
without actually reading them off the instruments.

"Airspeed is less difficult than altitude" gives me a definite complex,
because that was the one thing I just couldn't estimate at all.

And btw, it was only recently that I learnt that an airplane could also
be landed by looking out the window. A good pilot friend told me that
he routinely landed by purely visual references! Until then, I was
under the belief that nobody sensible could afford to take his eyes off
the instruments in a phase of flight as critical as the final. That's
probably because I can't perceive airspeed

Ramapriya

Flying up in the flight levels in a jet there is, as you note, no sensation
of movement from the cockpit, especially when those clouds way off in the
distance don't seem to be getting any closer. I can sense pitch changes like
"We're starting down" from seat A19 or wherever.

Any private pilot worth his or her salt should be able to land a general
aviation airplane without an airspeed indicator. Jets are so numbers-driven
that a pilot can give up a lot of efficiency by not using the airspeed
indicator until on very short final....then the eyeballs take over.

Bob Gardner

"Ramapriya" wrote in message
oups.com...
Peter Duniho wrote:

Altitude, airspeed, and power settings are the key performance indicators
on
the instrument panel. Altitude is the hardest to estimate, but it's not
too
hard to tell the difference between "pattern altitude" and "cruise
altitude". The main reason for needing the altimeter is to comply with
various regulatory issues; either to cruise at an appropriate altitude,
or
to avoid (or remain inside) particular airspace.

Airspeed is less difficult than altitude. You get plenty of feedback
from
the noise the air makes as it goes past the airframe, and from the feel
of
the flight controls (they get more difficult to move as airspeed
increases).
In addition, as long as you can maintain a specific power setting and can
tell your pitch attitude, you can pretty fairly predict what your actual
airspeed is going to be.

Thanks, Pete. I wasn't asking any specific questions as such, and only
wanted to know whether you guys can generally tell these parameters
without actually reading them off the instruments.

"Airspeed is less difficult than altitude" gives me a definite complex,
because that was the one thing I just couldn't estimate at all.

And btw, it was only recently that I learnt that an airplane could also
be landed by looking out the window. A good pilot friend told me that
he routinely landed by purely visual references! Until then, I was
under the belief that nobody sensible could afford to take his eyes off
the instruments in a phase of flight as critical as the final. That's
probably because I can't perceive airspeed

Ramapriya

And btw, it was only recently that I learnt that an airplane could also
be landed by looking out the window. A good pilot friend told me that
he routinely landed by purely visual references! Until then, I was
under the belief that nobody sensible could afford to take his eyes off
the instruments in a phase of flight as critical as the final. That's
probably because I can't perceive airspeed

Percieving airspeed in jets might be harder (never flown one) but it's
generally not too hard in piston singles. Really, as long as you can
see the runway, there's no need to use any instruments. Most people (or
at least the ones I've flown with, myself included) don't look at
anything except the airspeed when in the pattern (and even that is just
checked every few seconds or so as a reference).
Basically, do you need instruments to stay on the road or maneuver the
car while driving? And do you need be constantly looking at the
speedometer? Flying is like driving, in a way, just in three
dimensions. You do it all on outside cues*.

*Obviously, this doesn't include flight in instrument conditions (low
visibility, basically).

Ramapriya wrote:

A good pilot friend told me
that he routinely landed by purely visual references!

It sounds like you need to get this pilot friend to take you for a ride in a
small plane.

--
John T
http://sage1solutions.com/TknoFlyer
Reduce spam. Use Sender Policy Framework: http://spf.pobox.com
____________________

"John T" wrote

Ramapriya wrote:

A good pilot friend told me
that he routinely landed by purely visual references!

It sounds like you need to get this pilot friend to take you for
a ride in a small plane.

That's a real problem, He's in Dubai UAE, and I'm in Tampa, Florida.
:-) I've been trying to get him to go for a short sightseeing flight
for quite a while now. :-)

Bob Moore

Bob Moore wrote:
"John T" wrote

Ramapriya wrote:

A good pilot friend told me
that he routinely landed by purely visual references!

It sounds like you need to get this pilot friend to take you for
a ride in a small plane.

That's a real problem, He's in Dubai UAE, and I'm in Tampa, Florida.
:-) I've been trying to get him to go for a short sightseeing flight
for quite a while now. :-)

Bob Moore


I will, in a few weeks, in that Jet Fox.
Watch this space )

Ramapriya

Yes, you can tell when you are turning, etc to an extent. Part of
training requires that you close your eyes, get disoriented, and then
recover the aircraft. Most of use rarely actually get disoriented in
those tests. However, that is for a short period of time. If you closed
your eyes for several minutes you would certainly lose you ability to
tell if you were turning or not.

-Robert

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
ups.com...
Yes, you can tell when you are turning, etc to an extent. Part of
training requires that you close your eyes, get disoriented, and then
recover the aircraft. Most of use rarely actually get disoriented in
those tests. However, that is for a short period of time. If you closed
your eyes for several minutes you would certainly lose you ability to
tell if you were turning or not.

-Robert


Years ago, 26 to be exact, when I first got my PPL I went to an FAA safety
seminar which are rarely held locally, I'm the youngest person there by at
least 15 years. They have the spinning chair (with a joy stick) where they
sit you down, blind fold you and spin you. Your job is to move the stick
like it is controlling what you are feeling.

The old guys laughed as I was the first and sure enough I steered left when
I was either not spinning at all or was spinning the other way. One of the
old guys who laughed especially hard was next in the chair and when it was
stopped he moved the stick to the right and then the FAA guy said something
to him and he turned his head and then he started pulling back on the stick
like he was climbing. Being a pilot of many 1000 hours he new this could not
be the case so he pushed the stick forward. Laughs were had by all except
for the guy in the chair.