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Help me clear up my brain fart



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 11th 03, 01:25 PM
Ekim
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Default Help me clear up my brain fart

"Never cross control!!!"
"Keep that ball centered!"
"Never use more than 20 degrees bank!"
"Too high on final - go around. Never slip unless its an emergency
landing."

These are things that were hammered in my head by my numerous CFIs
during pattern training as a student pilot. Now that I have my PPL,
you would think I should have this understood. Unfortunately, now this
is really twisted up in my head.

Was all that preaching JUST to reduce the chance of invoking a deadly
spin in case the wings are accidentally stalled? It seems to all
contradict everything about slips on final and the famous
"low-wing-into-the-wind" crosswind landings?

In my mind, as long as I keep my airspeed sufficiently high and keep
the nose pointed down, (ie. keep my AOA under control) things like a
steeper banks and routine slip to landings should be relatively safe.
Right?

Thanks,
Ekim
  #2  
Old November 11th 03, 01:39 PM
mike regish
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Default

I'll bet you had a young, relatively low time instructor.

Slips for landing are common and safe. I use them all the time. Well, not
all the time, but I like to come in high and slip away excess altitude. That
way, I always have the field made no matter what the engine decides to do.

Keep the ball centered in cruise and in turns, unless you're slipping in a
turn. A lot of times I throw in a little top rudder in the base to final
turn to bleed off excess altitude. You don't want to skid in a turn, but
when slipping the tendency when you get slow is for the high wing to drop,
thus bringing you automatically into a wings level attitude. If you're
skidding, the bottom wing can drop out and you can end up upside down in a
hurry. Not fun at 1000' agl. Just watch your speed, don't get too slow and
you'll be fine. And of course the ball will be out of the box when you're
slipping.

And unless you're flying a B52 or an Ercoupe, you'll have to slip with the
ball out of the center to land in a crosswind unless you feel like folding
up your landing gear. Remember, a good laning is any one you can walk away
from. A great landing means you get to use the plane again.

20 degrees of bank is pretty conservative. You'd have to use airliner
patterns with that shallow a turn, which will put you way out of gliding
range to the runway. Not safe at all. As long as you keep your turns
coordinated, maostly being careful not to skid (ball towards the high wing)
30 degrees is common. I often go 45 degrees in the pattern, but I fly the
same plane all the time (mine) and it's more forgiving in the stall than
most.

JMHO, and worth what ou paid for it.

mike regish


"Ekim" wrote in message
om...
"Never cross control!!!"
"Keep that ball centered!"
"Never use more than 20 degrees bank!"
"Too high on final - go around. Never slip unless its an emergency
landing."

These are things that were hammered in my head by my numerous CFIs
during pattern training as a student pilot. Now that I have my PPL,
you would think I should have this understood. Unfortunately, now this
is really twisted up in my head.

Was all that preaching JUST to reduce the chance of invoking a deadly
spin in case the wings are accidentally stalled? It seems to all
contradict everything about slips on final and the famous
"low-wing-into-the-wind" crosswind landings?

In my mind, as long as I keep my airspeed sufficiently high and keep
the nose pointed down, (ie. keep my AOA under control) things like a
steeper banks and routine slip to landings should be relatively safe.
Right?

Thanks,
Ekim



  #3  
Old November 11th 03, 02:43 PM
Roger Long
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I used to keep my pattern turns to 15 degrees and could fly tight, make the
airfield if the engine quits, patterns with no problem. Not all planes will
do this but a 172 and a 152 will. Now that I have more experience, I go up
to 25 but keep to 20 most of the time.

Everything else you wrote, I agree with.

A good rule for the original poster to drill in his head:

If you overshoot the turn to final, take your eyes off the runway, look at
the instruments, nail the 20 degree bank angle, keep the ball centered, and
stabilize the airspeed at the proper number for the plane. Just hold that
until you are almost on the extension line and then turn on to final.
You'll be amazed in most cases how much room there is left to the threshold.
Focusing on the aircraft attitude instead of being late in the turn will
help avoid getting slow and when you overshoot.

If you did make your turn too close, getting back on centerline will get you
set up for a proper go around.

--
Roger Long

mike regish wrote in message
20 degrees of bank is pretty conservative. You'd have to use airliner
patterns with that shallow a turn, which will put you way out of gliding
range to the runway. Not safe at all.



  #4  
Old November 11th 03, 02:43 PM
Roger Tracy
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Default

Whoa. I do all that stuff. It's worked for me for a long time. Use the
controls to make the airplane do what you want it to do. Maybe go
out with an "experienced" CFI and explore some of those things in
more depth so you understand them.


"Ekim" wrote in message
om...
"Never cross control!!!"
"Keep that ball centered!"
"Never use more than 20 degrees bank!"
"Too high on final - go around. Never slip unless its an emergency
landing."

These are things that were hammered in my head by my numerous CFIs
during pattern training as a student pilot. Now that I have my PPL,
you would think I should have this understood. Unfortunately, now this
is really twisted up in my head.

Was all that preaching JUST to reduce the chance of invoking a deadly
spin in case the wings are accidentally stalled? It seems to all
contradict everything about slips on final and the famous
"low-wing-into-the-wind" crosswind landings?

In my mind, as long as I keep my airspeed sufficiently high and keep
the nose pointed down, (ie. keep my AOA under control) things like a
steeper banks and routine slip to landings should be relatively safe.
Right?

Thanks,
Ekim



  #5  
Old November 11th 03, 03:01 PM
Robert Little
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Posts: n/a
Default

One thing is for sure with that kind of training experience, you will never,
ever be able to fly a conventional gear aircraft. It's getting more
unfortunate that CFIs do not have to have a tailwheel check out before
applying the trade. Their lack of experience is robbing the aviation world
of half the fun. Just try a crab landing with the CG behind the main gears
and see what happens. R Little

--


----------------------------------------------------
This mailbox protected from junk email by Matador
from MailFrontier, Inc. http://info.mailfrontier.com

"Ekim" wrote in message
om...
"Never cross control!!!"
"Keep that ball centered!"
"Never use more than 20 degrees bank!"
"Too high on final - go around. Never slip unless its an emergency
landing."

These are things that were hammered in my head by my numerous CFIs
during pattern training as a student pilot. Now that I have my PPL,
you would think I should have this understood. Unfortunately, now this
is really twisted up in my head.

Was all that preaching JUST to reduce the chance of invoking a deadly
spin in case the wings are accidentally stalled? It seems to all
contradict everything about slips on final and the famous
"low-wing-into-the-wind" crosswind landings?

In my mind, as long as I keep my airspeed sufficiently high and keep
the nose pointed down, (ie. keep my AOA under control) things like a
steeper banks and routine slip to landings should be relatively safe.
Right?

Thanks,
Ekim



  #6  
Old November 11th 03, 03:43 PM
Ron Natalie
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Posts: n/a
Default


"Ekim" wrote in message om...

Was all that preaching JUST to reduce the chance of invoking a deadly
spin in case the wings are accidentally stalled?


Yes, by an ignorant flight instructor. While keeping in coordinated flight
will certainly alleviate the chances of spinning, a slip doesn't mean you
necessarily will. Avoiding stalling is really important. You can't spin without
stalling and even stalls without spins on approach aren't a good idea.

It seems to all
contradict everything about slips on final and the famous
"low-wing-into-the-wind" crosswind landings?


You have to slip at some point in a crosswind unless you're going to
touch down in a crab which is bad for most aircraft.

In my mind, as long as I keep my airspeed sufficiently high and keep
the nose pointed down, (ie. keep my AOA under control) things like a
steeper banks and routine slip to landings should be relatively safe.
Right?


Well slips are ok. Steeper banks are still a problem. Remember your
accellerated stall drills.


  #7  
Old November 11th 03, 03:53 PM
Corky Scott
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Default

On 11 Nov 2003 04:25:56 -0800, (Ekim) wrote:

"Never cross control!!!"
"Keep that ball centered!"
"Never use more than 20 degrees bank!"
"Too high on final - go around. Never slip unless its an emergency
landing."

These are things that were hammered in my head by my numerous CFIs
during pattern training as a student pilot. Now that I have my PPL,
you would think I should have this understood. Unfortunately, now this
is really twisted up in my head.

Was all that preaching JUST to reduce the chance of invoking a deadly
spin in case the wings are accidentally stalled? It seems to all
contradict everything about slips on final and the famous
"low-wing-into-the-wind" crosswind landings?

In my mind, as long as I keep my airspeed sufficiently high and keep
the nose pointed down, (ie. keep my AOA under control) things like a
steeper banks and routine slip to landings should be relatively safe.
Right?

Thanks,
Ekim


Ekim, my opinion (being a freshly minted pilot) is that the
information you were given may depend on the size and width of the
runway you train from as well as the attitude of the CFI's.

Where I trained, the runways are long and wide. The instructor was
constanty telling me to keep my speed up on final. All approaches
were made with 1500 rpm on the tachometer. This made for wide
patterns and necessitated the use of flaps on final. Why did he teach
this? Many reasons, but mostly for safety's sake. It's really hard
to stall/spin in the pattern if you keep your speed up. The other
reason involves a bit of conjecture on my part. The FBO is located at
the opposite end of both runnway's that are in most common use. If
you land short, and the C172 can land impressively short, you have a
long taxi back to the ramp. If you land hot and long, the taxi is
that much shorter.

At an airfield that has a short grass runway, the approach might
necessitate a steeper descent using some slipping.

Keeping some power on may be considered a method for preventing shock
cooling the engine, I don't know. But there are many methods for
landing including cutting the throttle completely and turning in
sooner to take advantage of the more rapid rate of descent.

Mike wrote:
Keep the ball centered in cruise and in turns, unless you're slipping in a
turn. A lot of times I throw in a little top rudder in the base to final
turn to bleed off excess altitude.


I used this technique just this weekend. I was on base and realised
that I'd turned in a bit early and was high. So as I turned on final,
I added a lot of top rudder and held the turn and kept the speed up
and spilled off most of the excess altitude in a cross controlled
turn.

I fly a lot with a friend who owns a Waco UPF-7 biplane. Like most
biplanes, it doesn't have flaps, so the approach is controlled by
slipping. Being a biplane and having all that drag, the Waco drops
like a rock once the approach speed is reached and the throttle is
chopped. Without slipping, the rate of descent reaches 2,000 fpm. We
always end up high on final, to make sure the runway can be reached,
whereupon the left wing goes way down and a LOT of right rudder is
applied and we come down like a broken elevator.

I once watched a video of a C-130 approaching to land at an airstrip
under hostile fire in Vietnam. It stayed high until I assumed it
wasn't going to land, then it lifted up a wing and kicked in opposite
rudder and dropped like it had been shot down. If I hadn't been
watching, I would have said it wasn't possible to handle that size an
airplane like that. But it worked.

Corky Scott


  #8  
Old November 11th 03, 05:37 PM
Dale
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In article ,
"Roger Long" om
wrote:

A good rule for the original poster to drill in his head:

If you overshoot the turn to final, take your eyes off the runway, look at
the instruments, nail the 20 degree bank angle, keep the ball centered, and
stabilize the airspeed at the proper number for the plane. Just hold that
until you are almost on the extension line and then turn on to final.
You'll be amazed in most cases how much room there is left to the threshold.
Focusing on the aircraft attitude instead of being late in the turn will
help avoid getting slow and when you overshoot.


While I agree with your intent that you shouldn't tighten the turn
trying to lineup, you should be able to fly a safe, coordinated turn
without "take your eyes off the runway, look at the instruments". On
the base to final turn is not the time to have your head in the cockpit.

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html
  #9  
Old November 11th 03, 06:02 PM
Roger Long
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Default

On
the base to final turn is not the time to have your head in the cockpit.


Sure it is, if you are a low time student pilot trying to salvage an
overshot turn before you have developed a good feel for the plane. Use the
instruments to get your configuration and attitude right, then get your eyes
back outside. You should always be dividing your attention between inside
and outside.

What happens to low hours, and even high hours pilots when they are
stressed, is fixating on the view outside the plane and pushing the plane
into a stall spin trying to turn too tightly back to the runway centerline.
A short period of using the instruments to be sure airspeed, ball, and bank
are not out of safe limits isn't going to significantly increase the chances
of a midair. The final approach should have been cleared before the turn.
By the time an overshoot becomes an issue, the most probable midair will be
someone hitting you from behind and nobody is looking back there anyway.

Pilots, especially students, should be checking airspeed, etc. all through
the pattern. What I'm really saying is that just after you realize that
you've overshot is an important time to do this again. Don't depart from
the airspeed / bank parameters you've established for the pattern in order
to salvage a botched turn. Just stick with the program and you'll probably
find there is still plenty of time to make the runway. If not, a go around
is always a good thing to practice.

--
Roger Long




 




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