single pilot ifr trip tonight

(andrew m. boardman) writes:

[...] if you're messing with a chart or plates or anything else, let
go of the yoke.

I gotta read this one to my (Grumman specialist) CFI he'll
get a good belly laugh too.

FWIW, our AA5B does fine hands-off if the pitch trim is OK, even in
bouncy stuff, using one's feet to keep it vaguely straight.

And please remember, my original point was that you should let go of
the yoke in IMC when you are not looking at the attitude instruments,
not that letting go of the yoke was a way for the plane to fly itself
while you fold charts, look up plates, etc.

How long you can go not looking at the attitude instruments may vary
from a fraction of a second to several seconds, depending on the
plane, but however long it is, it's unlikely that you'll do much good
(and very likely that you'll do harm) steering the plane blind. My
problem was that I would involuntarily pull the yoke slightly to the
right every time I leaned over to look at the mag compass straight on
-- the movement takes well under a second, but now I know to release
the yoke before I do it.


All the best,


David

(andrew m. boardman) wrote in message ...
FWIW, our AA5B does fine hands-off if the pitch trim is OK, even in
bouncy stuff, using one's feet to keep it vaguely straight.

I don't know what to say about this.

Do you have aileron trim? Do you have the 100 hr aileron AD
or the terminating condition?

Even if we start out with the trim tabs perfectly adjusted
for the load we have at the moment (very tough, since it
would require test-flying the specific load for each trip
and tweaking the trim tabs -- but we've actually done this
for some long trips), truly full fuel, and change tanks
every half an hour, by the end of that half hour Tigger
will be pulling noticably to the left or right, and if
we take our hand off the yoke, he will immediately start
a bank in one or the other direction.

He becomes noticably left-wing heavy in rain, to the extent
that if I'm flying under the hood I can tell immediately when
I enter and exit IMC just by the feel of the yoke.

The pitch will change depending on what my daughter is doing.
She can start a desire to climb or descend (and the need to
adjust trim) by transitioning from reading a book to playing
with her dolls -- this is when she's strapped into her booster
seat, let's not discuss precise flying if we let her move about.
This is a wonderful tool for a CFI who can make one fight to
stay on glideslope just by subtle shifts in weight distribution
in his seat (just looking for traffic of course). Set the pitch
trim to be stable in bouncy air, isn't going to happen.

Tigger's rigging has been checked and adjusted to within correct
tolerances. I don't think Tigger is unusual -- our CFI is Mike
LeTrello, head of the AYA Pilot Proficiency Program and if anyone
has flown in a lot of different Grummans and would recognize
something unusual, he'd be the guy.

Once upon a time, in very smooth air (11500' over one of the flat
states), self and copilot went for about 20 minutes thinking that the
autopilot was on when it wasn't; the plane was tracking perfectly.

I have flown in smooth air and have never encountered anything
remotely like this. If our autopilot weren't engaged, we'd know
right away.

I was reading the first part and thinking maybe you're just a
stud-muffin ace pilot who doesn't notice the constant slight
adjustments you're making and I'm a putz, but the above is just
totally foreign to our experience.

You're welcome to come fly Tigger and generalize about 4 place
Grummans after you do.

Cheers,
Sydney

David Megginson wrote in message ...
And please remember, my original point was that you should let go of
the yoke in IMC when you are not looking at the attitude instruments

And my original point is that this is not a "one size fits all"
solution to lack of autopilot. There are planes where this will
get you into trouble.

My
problem was that I would involuntarily pull the yoke slightly to the
right every time I leaned over to look at the mag compass straight on
-- the movement takes well under a second, but now I know to release
the yoke before I do it.

If I released the yoke for small tasks like this, Andrew's
disparate AA5B experience notwithstanding, my flying would definately
suffer. In fact it used to suffer and I have the scabs from remedial
CFI beating to prove it *g*.

With practice, one learns to compensate and *not* pull the yoke
while performing other tasks. You move your eyes or position,
scan to be sure you're compensating correctly, then go back to
task.

Cheers,
Sydney

David Megginson wrote in message ...

Right. Personally, I think that safety flying in IMC comes mostly
from the ability to prioritize, defer, and negotiate, not from any
extra equipment in the plane.

At a fundamental level, this is correct. No amount of fancy
gear can compensate for fundamental flying skills (or the lack
thereof) and for pilot judgement.

However, other things being equal, I don't think there can be
any doubt that extra equipment adds to safety. I personally
would not care to argue that a SE plane flown by a proficient
pilot is as safe or safer than a ME plane flown by a proficient
pilot -- how can it be, when the extra engine/alternator/vacuum
pump provide levels of redundancy and additional options after
a failure which most SE planes lack.

You?

The same is fundamentally true of any equipment which adds
redundancy or options.

For example, there is no reason that a complex new routing should
increase your risk of being in an accident with or without an AP or
IFR GPS -- if there is a higher risk, it's because the pilot stops
prioritizing and fixates on the rerouting task.

This is fundamentally false. You appear to be focusing only
on one aspect of the issue.

If there is a higher *immediate* risk, it is because the pilot
stops flying the plane to fixate on the immediate task.

But that's far from the only risk. Rerouting can become part
of an accident chain, if the ramefications of the rerouting aren't
completely understood, including its effect on fuel status, enroute
weather, and destination weather.

I appreciate that there are pilots here who feel that they fly so
well that they have ample excess brain power and time to get
and process wx updates, recalculate their ETAs and fuel, and so
forth and so on. However, I don't think it's arguable that the
same pilots would have MORE brain capacity to devote to these
issues if they were able to enlist "George" while they transcribed
their wx and gave a little extra attention to an enroute chart.
Maybe most of the time, that extra capacity isn't needed, but maybe
sometime the particular parameters and conditions of the flight
will require more.

I feel there is a reason why a number of experienced and skilled
pilots feel an autopilot adds appreciably to the safety of single
pilot IFR ops, and it's not that they're incapable of controlling
the airplane at a near-automatic level whilest talking to ATC.

I suppose it's possible that their cranial capacity is simply more
limited than those who feel to the contrary, but this strikes me
as a hubristic assumption. YMMV.

I'm sure that most pilots
appreciate the reroutings, though, since they have IFR GPS's and the
reroutings might save them five or ten minutes.

We have yet to receive a significant rerouting which *saved* us
appreciable time. FWIW.

Sydney

David Megginson wrote:

The reason I'm skeptical is that the mag compass also works fine for
holding heading in smooth air with very shallow turns: it doesn't go
to hell in a handbasket until the air gets rough, precisely the same
time the update lag in a handheld GPS could potentially also make it
difficult to use. That's why I'm interested in hearing from people
who've used it successfully in rough air, preferably at night (where
there are fewer visual cues like shadows moving over the panel).

And that's why I'm looking for a device that acts - effectively - as a
backup AI.

I saw a couple of devices at the Expo. Both were "boxes" that plugged into
different "computers". One was a large box that plugged into what I think
was and Ipaq, and one was a small box that plugged into a "Cheeta" portable
MFD device.

I really liked the Cheeta, but I think it was the most expensive of the
solutions I saw.

Anyone have other thoughts about this?

What was the price of a panel-mounted electric AI? 4K? I wonder if I could
get the club to consider such an investment on our aircraft.

- Andrew

Roy Smith wrote:

Given that I can buy a Garmin eTrex for $100, I have to assume the basic
GPS sensor engine is pretty cheap. The obvious next step would be a GPS
in each wingtip and one in the tail and trying to derive pitch, bank,
and heading from those three 3D data points.

There are "electronic gyros". I saw at least two examples at the Expo.

- Andrew

"David Megginson" wrote in message
...
(andrew m. boardman) writes:

What's "safe"? I fly a fair amount of IMC in an aircraft with an
old but rock-solid COM/COM/NAV/ADF stack (plus a panel LORAN that
flakes out in precip and a NAV-11 which I'd file under "mostly
adequate"), and it's within *my* level of acceptable risk, but
that's almost completely an individual call under part 91.

Right. Personally, I think that safety flying in IMC comes mostly
from the ability to prioritize, defer, and negotiate, not from any
extra equipment in the plane.

Neither trait can stand on its own as "adequate".

"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...
With practice, one learns to compensate and *not* pull the yoke
while performing other tasks. You move your eyes or position,
scan to be sure you're compensating correctly, then go back to
task.

Also, learn to handle the yoke without using a death grip. It may require a
bit more than fingertip pressure to handle the yoke in turbulence, but
"white knuckles" only makes the sensations worse.

"Snowbird" wrote:
hubristic

Saving that one.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

In article ,
Snowbird wrote:

At a fundamental level, this is correct. No amount of fancy
gear can compensate for fundamental flying skills (or the lack
thereof) and for pilot judgement.

Oh come on, a 777 can do Cat IIIb autoland if I know how to push
the buttons, even if I couldn't maintain heading or altitude without
the autopilot. A GPS with "nearest" has rescued plenty of pilots
from bad judgement or poor pilotage.

This whole thread is nuts. There are many levels of safety, and
people have to choose between them all the time. Why can't people
who have decided not to install an autopilot just admit that they
have chosen a slightly lower level of safety? He I will admit
that I have chosen not to install a GPS and as a result I am less
safe than I would be with a GPS. Go ahead and insult my navigation
skills! It doesn't matter if I could draw a 3-meter resolution map
of the US from memory, however good (or bad) I am, the GPS would
augment that.

If inflating a tire cost $12000 I bet we'd have people here arguing
that they were just as safe with good landing technique on a flat tire.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/