Electronic Yaw Alarm?

On Nov 7, 1:41*pm, Tony wrote:
On Nov 7, 3:33*pm, Bill D wrote:









On Nov 7, 12:58*pm, "Matt Herron Jr." wrote:

On Nov 7, 10:42*am, wrote:

On Nov 7, 1:07*pm, "Matt Herron Jr." wrote:

There has been much needed focus on safety in our ranks recently, and
in particular the risk of spinning during the turn to final. *This is
almost always caused by slow, uncoordinated flight. *Many of us go
through the trouble of installing an electronic gear up warning to
prevent a costly, but less dangerous gear-up landing. Wouldn't a "Slip
Alarm" be at least as useful? *Setting aside how it might be
implemented for the moment (and there are many possibilities), *I can
imagine something that was activated when the spoilers were out, and
might or might not take into account IAS. * It would simply give a
distinct tone or alarm with a certain degree of yaw. *Yes, we slip on
final on purpose all the time, but we better not be doing it in the
turn to base or final.

Thoughts?

Matt

I disagree. A slipping turn can be very useful.
They are not inherrently unsafe, unlike a skidding turn which is very
unsafe.
UH

One could argue that coming out of a slipping turn is the same as
skidding momentarily. *The inside wing slows down and runs the risk of
stalling. *But I think we are getting caught up in the nuances. *I
also agree a bit of yarn works, if you are paying attention, but there
are a lot of things that may demand more attention in pattern. *Many
of them quite unpredictable. *People spin in. *That we can all agree
on. *Staying coordinated and fast enough would prevent it. *Hopefully
we can agree on that. *The question is, is there any value in another
indication that we are uncoordinated?

A simple implementation would be just two pressure ports on the sides
of the nose connected together with a reed noisemaker. *In a skid or
slip, the pressure difference would set off the reed reminding the
pilot to pay attention to business.

see youtube for multiple videos of pilots landing apparently
accidentally gear up with gear warning horns blaring...

"what is that noise?????"

Yes, bells and whistles only work if you are suspecting something is
wrong. There is that story of the pilot who just fixed his gear alarm,
and when the gear alarm went on the next time he flew, he noted to
himself 'great, the gear alarm is finally working' and proceeded to
land gear up...
Yaw alarm can only be useful if it will be triggered only when
skidding, not slipping, otherwise it will be ignored quickly due to
false alarms.

Ramy

pilot skids a turn in the pattern - skid alarm goes off and they'll
raise the gear.

On 11/7/2011 10:07 AM, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
There has been much needed focus on safety in our ranks recently, and
in particular the risk of spinning during the turn to final. This is
almost always caused by slow, uncoordinated flight. Many of us go
through the trouble of installing an electronic gear up warning to
prevent a costly, but less dangerous gear-up landing. Wouldn't a "Slip
Alarm" be at least as useful? Setting aside how it might be
implemented for the moment (and there are many possibilities), I can
imagine something that was activated when the spoilers were out, and
might or might not take into account IAS. It would simply give a
distinct tone or alarm with a certain degree of yaw. Yes, we slip on
final on purpose all the time, but we better not be doing it in the
turn to base or final.

I'm thinking going too slow is the bigger problem than slipping or
skidding in the pattern. I know I can make a slow, coordinated turn that
very quickly turns into a spin or spiral dive (it has to be a shallow
turn, the kind we worry about). How about a horizon sensor that
proclaims "nose down, nose down, ..." They make sensors like that for
R/C models.

http://www.futaba-rc.com/accessories/futm0999.html

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

I've often thought an audio yaw string would be a great idea.
Especially while instructing. Maybe instead of a noise, a shot of
electricity to the ass would be better? I am always amazed at how
many pilots are perfectly happy to fly along in a slight slip all
day...

Boggs

On Nov 8, 9:44*am, GARY BOGGS wrote:
I've often thought an audio yaw string would be a great idea.
Especially while instructing. *Maybe instead of a noise, a shot of
electricity to the ass would be better? *I am always amazed at how
many pilots are perfectly happy to fly along in a slight slip all
day...

Boggs

Part of me wonders just how much value it would add to have an alarm
go off just when someone is under stress turning to final at low
altitude where it's causing them to try to skid the ship around.

I'd be stating the obvious that pilots should be better trained to not
get themselves into such situations to begin with.

At 15:44 08 November 2011, GARY BOGGS wrote:
I've often thought an audio yaw string would be a great idea.
Especially while instructing. Maybe instead of a noise, a shot of
electricity to the ass would be better? I am always amazed at how
many pilots are perfectly happy to fly along in a slight slip all
day...

Boggs


There are those who think the string should be slightly off center in a
thermal turn I have heard the phrasae" get the string pointing up"from an
old bold pilot who was flying with me.

On Nov 8, 11:00*am, Jonathon May wrote:
At 15:44 08 November 2011, GARY BOGGS wrote:

I've often thought an audio yaw string would be a great idea.
Especially while instructing. *Maybe instead of a noise, a shot of
electricity to the ass would be better? *I am always amazed at how
many pilots are perfectly happy to fly along in a slight slip all
day...

Boggs

There are those who think the string should be slightly off center in a
thermal turn I have heard the phrasae" get the string pointing up"from an
old bold pilot who was flying with me.

Geez, how about a box that starts yelling (think schrewish obnoxious
voice here) DON'T SKID!, SPEED UP!, BANK STEEPER!, WHAT ARE YOU
DOING!!!! when you get below 500'...

Seriously, it's really all about angle of attack (again). Repeating
myself, I loved the aural AOA tones in the old F-4; you could fly the
whole pattern to touchdown without ever looking at airspeed just by
listening to the varying AOA tone (and pretty much had to from the
back seat due to the abysmal visibilty and placement of the
intruments). We are used to listening to tones when thermalling -
hook up an AOA sensor to a tone generator, active only with the gear
down and/or spoilers open, and vary the tone based on AOA - lift tones
for too fast, no tone for on speed (with a deadband), sink tones
(LOUD) when too slow. Since it would be based on AOA, it would
automatically adjust for varying gross weight. If you want to be
really exotic, enable a manual wind input to move the on-speed
deadband faster so you can set you pattern speed for winds and
gusts...

Or, JUST FLY THE STUPID GLIDER and let Darwin sort it out!

Kirk
66

PS: I'm one of those who thermal with a bit of a slip. Dick Johnson
did too. Works for me in my LS6.

On Nov 7, 10:07*am, "Matt Herron Jr." wrote:
There has been much needed focus on safety in our ranks recently, and
in particular the risk of spinning during the turn to final. *This is
almost always caused by slow, uncoordinated flight. *Many of us go
through the trouble of installing an electronic gear up warning to
prevent a costly, but less dangerous gear-up landing. Wouldn't a "Slip
Alarm" be at least as useful? *Setting aside how it might be
implemented for the moment (and there are many possibilities), *I can
imagine something that was activated when the spoilers were out, and
might or might not take into account IAS. * It would simply give a
distinct tone or alarm with a certain degree of yaw. *Yes, we slip on
final on purpose all the time, but we better not be doing it in the
turn to base or final.

Thoughts?

Matt

How about a sticky note on the instrument panel that
say's.............Hey You, don't make any slow uncoordinated turns
from base to final...........OK?

Brad

On 11-8-2011 16:45, Westbender wrote:


Part of me wonders just how much value it would add to have an alarm
go off just when someone is under stress turning to final at low
altitude where it's causing them to try to skid the ship around.

I'd be stating the obvious that pilots should be better trained to not
get themselves into such situations to begin with.

Well, us powered jockies have an advantage over glider jockies...if the
approach is crappy, add power and go around and give it another go (as
many times as necessary to get it right. Until we ourselves become
glider pilots after too many go arounds!)

On 11-8-2011 17:00, Jonathon May wrote:


There are those who think the string should be slightly off center in a
thermal turn I have heard the phrasae" get the string pointing up"from an
old bold pilot who was flying with me.


I was taught there weren't any of those guys around