Cessna414JJB
Unknown Member
I don't know if I like your future.anic:
Ahh, gotcha, replace 'hearing voices' with remembering good instructors statements and you should be allset.
My future looks just fine.
Aerobatics in Training Aircraft
- Thread starter CoffeeIcePapers
- Start date
Ahh, gotcha, replace 'hearing voices' with remembering good instructors statements and you should be allset.
My future looks just fine.:yeahthat:. What happens when they are turning from base to final, and hit the wake of a bigger airplane, and it rolls their piston single on it's side or upside down, and all they can think to do is pull. If you are afriad of stalls, you have no buisness being a pilot. And I tell my students that are afriad of stalls exactly that. At that point, they have a choice, either doing so many stalls in various attitudes that they are no longer afriad, or throwing in the towel. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I am trying to save their lives.
Douglas
Old School KSUX
Yes, it would be 100% natural to be "freaked out", blood pumping scared if you find yourself spacial disoriented in IMC in an unusual attitude. Do you have to panic?
I think you over estimate the number of people who have been in an airplane that has been upside down.
The truth is that there just are not that many airplanes that are capable of doing so starting from training all the way to the end of the airline career...and you won't fly with them.
Douglas
Old School KSUX
How do you properly prepare them then? They are in the sky, a place where they have rarely been, thousands of feet up. They are trying to control this new type of vehicle with rudders while the controls are mushy, horns going off, airplane buffets, nose drops to see nothing but dirt and we start to roll.
How do you properly plan to prepare them?
The best thing you can do is talk the whole time to them and demonstrate the softest break you can manage. That is how you retain students.
[/QUOTE]
You probably didn't mean to be insulting here.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Which part?
I didn't see anything that was remotely fighter pilot-like in that accident report. Fighter pilots have flight discipline -- e.g., know what the rules are and aircraft limits are and abide by them. They are also aware of how to perform maneuvers correctly because their life depends on it.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Bring it. That's less serious than the lawsuit brought on my flight school by the family of the student that guy killed with his reckless behavior. That's why companies keep lawyers on retainer.
I can defend myself in a courtroom for grounding a CFI who broke the rules. I can't defend my company that allowed a CFI to practice reckless behavior that led to the death of another person.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
I think that's the crux of my -- and others' -- beliefs on the issue. This is the problem.
GA has tried to breed the 3rd dimension out of flying to make it less scary to people. The result is that we have people who are totally thrown off when they have to deal with that 3rd dimension.
THAT is where I believe we as an aviation community have gone wrong.
My argument is that we re-think what is required to be a general aviation pilot. That part of the price of admission is seeing and doing unusual attitudes and baby acro. You don't have to like it...you just have to do it.
Let me put it another way...several CFIs have mentioned the apprehension that some students have toward stalls. Do you let them go through training without doing it? Do you give them a PPL without them doing it because they are frightened of it? No...you do it anyway. And, strangely enough, none of them die of fear after they do it. In fact, doing stalls and teaching the recovery is as much about the confidence of knowing they can recover as it is knowing the mechanics of actually recovering.
So, the argument is if students are apprehensive about baby acro, so be it. Demonstrate it, show them that it is no big deal, and it will raise their confidence level or at least reduce their apprehension about it.
Wolfy
Well-Known Member
I've done them and wouldn't go so far as to say it has no purpose.
Douglas
Old School KSUX
I honestly do not see GA pilots spending their flying lives right side up as a downfall to GA. I also don't see it as a hardship for them to keep it right side up, either.
Stall recovery, unusual attitude recovery is enough in my mind that needs to be regulated. (I personally would like to see spins reenter the equation)
I believe the student can control the airplane on all three axis without giving us more things to squeeze into 35 hours. If they want acro, they can get it after they are pilots. Why after? Acro is not critical to learning how to fly an airplane and that is my job.
I have lost sight, what is the problem? I don't see a glaring problem.
A relatively few number of pilots do aerobatics in non-aerobatic aircraft and that makes the system broken?
----
You are right, they would get more comfortable upside down the more they do it, just like stalls. I just don't see a need.
About the stall and unusual attitude comment: We have to practice those even though some don't like them, not because the student is going to purposely put himself in a stall but instead he would be distracted and find himself in one of each. It is about safety we do that, because when things go bad they are more than likely not going to roll uncontrollable but stall and spin. I have never heard a hangar story about a guy who dropped his pencil and when he looked up he was half way through an aileron roll, so he decided to finish it.
That would make for a good story though. "No @@@@ there I was, on climb out and half way through a good looking aileron roll. Found my pencil though, it was on the ceiling." :laff::cwm27:
LoadMasterC141
Well-Known Member
Mojo:
Thank you very much for posting this. It was very informative to me. Ironically, when this happened, I was just climbing into my schools 1968 Arrow. I had this fear of in-flight breakups after that accident because I simply could not believe someone would hotdog an Arrow. Seriously, if anyone wants to go hotdog an Arrow, pull the tailcone off and have a look at what is holding the stabilator on.
Those arguing with a fighter pilot:
Seriously? I mean it blows my mind that you are arguing with a fighter pilot. This is not pointed at those discussing the topic of whether to have aerobatics in initial training or not.
I did my spin training in a Super Decathlon. It was the only hour of aerobatics I have gotten so far. To really go out there and put a plane through all sorts of maneuvers, all the while watching a G-Meter...well it really helped me understand upset conditions, aerodynamics, and most importantly feel more comfortable in the plane. I am truly bitten by that bug now and cannot wait for the day when I can afford to do more....
However.....
I would never consider doing anything aerobatic in a training aircraft; Certainly not when I have other peoples lives entrusted to me. I feel sorry for the passengers, perhaps a little for the pilot in that I hate to see anyone die. I also feel alot of anger because he essentially murdered two other people.
Thank you very much for posting this. It was very informative to me. Ironically, when this happened, I was just climbing into my schools 1968 Arrow. I had this fear of in-flight breakups after that accident because I simply could not believe someone would hotdog an Arrow. Seriously, if anyone wants to go hotdog an Arrow, pull the tailcone off and have a look at what is holding the stabilator on.
Those arguing with a fighter pilot:
Seriously? I mean it blows my mind that you are arguing with a fighter pilot. This is not pointed at those discussing the topic of whether to have aerobatics in initial training or not.
I did my spin training in a Super Decathlon. It was the only hour of aerobatics I have gotten so far. To really go out there and put a plane through all sorts of maneuvers, all the while watching a G-Meter...well it really helped me understand upset conditions, aerodynamics, and most importantly feel more comfortable in the plane. I am truly bitten by that bug now and cannot wait for the day when I can afford to do more....
However.....
I would never consider doing anything aerobatic in a training aircraft; Certainly not when I have other peoples lives entrusted to me. I feel sorry for the passengers, perhaps a little for the pilot in that I hate to see anyone die. I also feel alot of anger because he essentially murdered two other people.
Am with Hacker. Acro is a confidence maneuver. IMO, for those in GA worrying how to squeeze this into the already-busy 40 or so hours, it'd simply be part of 2 flights in, of course, a proper aircraft.....C-150 Aerobat would be great for this. Unusual attitudes won't always be the benign 20 degrees up/down with 20 degrees left/right bank, and recover.
Douglas said:
Wait for that first good wake turbulance encounter on takeoff. An informed student (one that's at least seen something more than the benign unusual attitudes normally taught) will have a better thaneven chance at recovery....far better than one who hasn't. Again, not looking to make Thunderbirds out of anyone, just looking to give the exposure as a confidence builder and make that much more of safe pilot. Not asking for much.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Well, I even disagree with you here. There's nothing about a person who happens to fly a fighter in the military that magically endows them with omniscience.
What you have, though, are people who have generally excelled at rigorous military training, and are proficient and experienced at many different types of high performance flying.
There are plenty of fighter pilots who are total idiots -- they might have great skills in the cockpit, but are poor leaders or might have bad attitudes or the like. It's probably similar demographically to any other set of professionals in or out of aviation. There are doctors, lawyers, etc who are also whack jobs when they start speaking about something outside their direct area of expertise.
I certainly don't consider myself anything more than good at what I do. That doesn't mean I have any particular skills or insight into topics outside that knowledge and experience. In fact, one of the reasons I am on this forum is to continue to learn about civil recreational and professional aviation.
Cessna414JJB
Unknown Member
If you knew me, that question would not cross your mind. Insults are only possible with people who love to take offense. I try to stay away from such people. Let me know, and I'll add you to my list
Could someone point out to me when exactly it became wrong to argue or converse with Fighter Pilots? Thank You!
Hacker, allow me to point out again that I believe we are in agreement. 100% sure it is easier to defend oneself after being prudent and playing by the rules, than it is to defend being ignorant.
Nowhere did I say aerobatics should be trained in the usual fleet of training aircraft. There are aircrafts available, build for that purpose.
Im glad I had my stroll into aerobatics early, I am equally grateful for having flown gliders and having been challenged beyond the PTS.
Heck I was even allowed to fly steep turns during my instrument training.
Pilotforhire587
Lycra Man
haha I agree man, I think it is funny how we all dogpile on these things. I see a lot of jumping on the band wagon and expressing opinions about something that really doesn't affect any of us
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
I don't think this was people piling on anything. So far, despite some people thinking other people were taking offense about things, it's been a very civilized discussion about flight discipline vs. modern teaching techniques.
My personal thoughts are the current set up of teaching maneuvers is sufficient for a private pilot. I had spins demonstrated to me (my very first lesson actually) and because of that the "fear" of doing stalls was greatly decreased. Other than that and some control lock up scenario work I did in an Extra I've had absolutely no aero/acro (what ever you want to call it) work. And I really have no desire to do any. Like the control lockup training, I would really like to do some jet upset training, not because I enjoy bouncing around upside down but rather I think it will make me a better pilot and could save my ass one day.
Where I DO think the PPL training could be changed is with more ground time dedicated to teaching flight disicpline and good judgment. I know the name has been thrown out there before, but I think every student pilot should have to read Tony Kern's books, or at least have their CFI talk to them (in depth, for more than 10 minutes) about what Flight Disicpline really means.
Looking at GA NTSB reports you will see that the majority of fatal accidents that involve inflight structural failures come about because of situations presented at the begining of this thread. Sure there are the rare wake turbulance encounters and VMC to IMC spacial disorientation reports, but the vast majority involve somebody playing around in the airplane when they either weren't trained for it or the plane wasn't designed for it (or often times both). That's not a failure in training. It's a failure in disicpline and judgment.
whichwayisup
New Member
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Discussion about Kern could be a thread all unto itself. A very divisive individual, to say the least. Some sing his praises, and some curse his name.