Thermal right, land left

"John" wrote in message
om...
If we assume we all fly well (either direction), and we all understand
the importance of controlling airspeed during landing, why is the
number one pilot error that is causing injury the stall/spin while
turning to land?

John is this a troll, or, are you one of those control freaks who wants to
use safety as a means to tell people what direction to turn and how fast to
fly?

I make no assumption that all pilots fly well - too many years as a CFI-G
for that. At the moment a pilot enters a fatal stall/spin, they were
careless, inept, forgetful or just incredibly rusty. The pilot who doesn't
is not lucky, they are flying well and paying attention. Flying is
EXTREMELY unforgiving of any carelessness.

At the end of the day, good pilots fly and live and bad pilots crash. It's
just that simple. Aviation is Darwinian.


Get away from the idea that you can stall all you want safely at
height, while down low, you no longer have that luxury. Get away from
the idea we all are responsible for flying the plane at all times.
The basic fact is we are all trained and should be able to land
safely.....yet, repeatedly, the same errors are being made by stalling
during the landing pattern.

Why? It's the truth. You ARE responsible and WILL be held accountable - if
not by man, by Mother Nature. You'd better hope it's man, Mother Nature is a
bitch - she'll kill you without remorse if you violate Her rules.

All trained to land safely? Probably, but it doesn't matter. What matters
is how well you fly the NEXT pattern and landing. Again, it's not just how
well you were trained, it's how much of that training that you employ in
your NEXT flight.


Is it pilot distraction that creates a laspes in monitoring airspeed?
Or is it habit?

Pilots are (or should be) trained to deal with distraction. Bad habits?
Maybe, but that means that the pilot needs remedial instruction and that
should have been caught at the last flight review.

With any physical activity, people develop habits thru repetion. Turn
right 100 times slowly, then turn right fast...it will feel different.
Will you instinctively slow down the fast turn to match the previous
100 slow turns? I think that is very possible.

Here is a way to check your habits. Next booming day, try 10-20 turns
to right at say 40 knots, then speed up to 65 knots. Can you hold 65
knots in a right turn now? Likely, but I bet you glance at the
airspeed a little more than you did in the previous 10-20 turns.

It just seems logical to me if you spend several hours flying slow,
you will tend to continue flying slow unless you specifically make
yourself fly faster. Get distracted, and you will go right back to
flying slow. Talking habits, here.

Is this habit of flying slow contributing to the stall/spin problem
when landing?

None of the above. If a pilot is doing any of these things, it points
exclusively to poor flying abilities that the pilot should have noted
himself and taken pro-active steps to remedy or should have been noticed by
someone else who takes action.

Safety is the result of just one thing - flying ability - which, among other
things, includes good judgement and the ability to control the aircraft at
all times with the outcome of the flight never in doubt. Without flying
ability there is no hope for any safety at all. With it, there's no need
for artificial rules about turn direction and airspeeds.

Unlike any other segment of aviation, a very large part of gliding activity
takes place in single seat aircraft . This allows a pilots skill levels to
deteriorate and many bad habits to develop out of sight of his peers. We
must compensate either individually by taking responsibility for the
maintenance of our flying skills or collectively through peer review. To do
otherwise is to invite a continuing bad safety record and higher insurance
premiums. To tolerate poor flying ability in ourselves or others, or to
make rules that accommodate it, is to institutionalize the problem.

Spring is less than two weeks away and I expect to read of the usual wave of
accidents as rusty pilots come out of hibernation. Everyone, do yourself,
and the sport, a favor and schedule a flight with your favorite CFI-G.

As you all can tell, I see this issue in black and white - end of sermon.

Bill Daniels