Time first or Turn First?? (5 T's)

[MikeD]

That's the AF version? Explain True and Token. I'm assuming Tires is gear down (like at the FAF?)

That was just BS I typed up, true and token just babble.

But being serious now, the way the AF teaches it is :

Turn
Time
Throttles
Twist
Track
Talk

As Mark pointed out in an earlier post, you can find a gazillion techniques on this, as well as "T" acronyms ranging from the 5Ts to 20Ts. I'm of the "keep it simple" mindset as many seem to be here, not wanting to overload the brain with tons of acronyms.....just keep whats useful. They're all technique, no real right or wrong way per se.......apart from maybe talk first, or throttles, or stuff that just doesn't seem to follow the aviate/navigate/communicate flow.

"Tires" was just another technique i'd heard added from way back in my cargo days by another pilot, and you're right it was for remembering gear-down around the FAF.

 

[derg]

I never used the method at all. I always figure by the time I remember the acronym, what each character stands for and what to do, I could just do what needed to get done in less time. But that's just me!

 

[aloft]

That was just BS I typed up, true and token just babble.

Bastard.

But being serious now, the way the AF teaches it is :

Turn
Time
Throttles
Twist
Track
Talk

Which, except for Time, follows the aviate/navigate/communicate principle. Nice.

 

[Douglas]

5 T's
Time (time to turn)
Turn
Throttle
Tune
Talk
Time

it is time-to-turn, I think that is why people get confused.
The last time is a verb.

 

[Stomp16]

I've noticed that people seem to forget the time more than the other things. Therefore, I've always went with time as the first T to get myself/others into a habit. Every time I cross a FAF, I hit the timer first thing just out of habit and forgetting to push the button becomes a non-issue.

 

[TGatch]

I never used the method at all. I always figure by the time I remember the acronym, what each character stands for and what to do, I could just do what needed to get done in less time. But that's just me!

:yeahthat: I've never even heard of this before, or maybe I just forgot.

 

[derg]

Probably the only acronyms that I've learned that ever helped me was:

CPDIVTF - control, power, drag, identify, verify, troubleshoot, feather - naturally, haven't used it since my seminole/duchess days.

OHIO - Oil, hydraulic fluid, interconnect (727 thing) and Oxygen before you start preflight. You can get MX right on those issues which take a while to resolve when you first reach the airplane.

FGS - After the before landing checklist is complete, you're dog tired, just to be sure: Flaps, Gear, Spoilers (silently)

 

[MidlifeFlyer]

I've noticed that people seem to forget the time more than the other things. Therefore, I've always went with time as the first T to get myself/others into a habit. Every time I cross a FAF, I hit the timer first thing just out of habit and forgetting to push the button becomes a non-issue.

The other way to establish the habit as a non-issue is to always hit the timer upon starting down, whether glideslope or non precision, whether timing is part of the approach or not.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

I never used the method at all. I always figure by the time I remember the acronym, what each character stands for and what to do, I could just do what needed to get done in less time. But that's just me!

I was just about to post this. I was taught this method, but refuse to teach it, since a lot of the time, most of the T's don't even apply to the situation, and even more so, there is a lot of confusion on what the T's should be, hence, this thread.

 

[shdw]

The other way to establish the habit as a non-issue is to always hit the timer upon starting down, whether glideslope or non precision, whether timing is part of the approach or not.

Ha I do this similarly with carb heat now, anytime my student powers back to descend I say to put it on to make it habitual. Great idea I will certainly use it when I decide to get my II thanks for the tip.

 

[MidlifeFlyer]

Ha I do this similarly with carb heat now, anytime my student powers back to descend I say to put it on to make it habitual. Great idea I will certainly use it when I decide to get my II thanks for the tip.

There was an article in IFR Magazine some months ago called, "Throw away that Checklist." It was a very bad title (probably there to catch attention) but for a very good article. It was not about not using checklists, but to also develop SOPs because they tend to form habits that are more effective than checklists. If you always put the gear down at the same point in the flight, you're less likely to forget it since you associate it with other tasks.

That's pretty much what you're doing with that carb heat. I assume you're teaching in Cessnas where the general recommendation is to put on carb heat any time RPM go below the green. Good habit, but not one as easy to develop in an airplane where carb heat is used if you show signs of ice and not before.

 

[shdw]

That's pretty much what you're doing with that carb heat. I assume you're teaching in Cessnas where the general recommendation is to put on carb heat any time RPM go below the green. Good habit, but not one as easy to develop in an airplane where carb heat is used if you show signs of ice and not before.

No I don't teach 40 year old recommendations. I put the carb heat on in anytime you descend and I teach my students to reduce RPM to 1500/1600 and maintain airspeed. Not every single little descent, but anything 500 feet or more where 500-700 FPM descent will work perfectly. I guess I should say I teach procedure, hold horizon for descent and for landing, reduce rpm to descent then increase it, etc. I also teach the units of power I explained in another article and allow them to use that to plan their descent after the basic concepts become procedural. All for the "habit" reason, and so far it seems to be working nicely.

Edit: Later in cross countries after 30 hours or so with this low power descent method I introduce high power descents and I teach not to use carb heat as all it does is run your engine excessively rich. You won't get Icing with at 1/2 to 3/4 throttle, the surface area is still to large, I suspect that plus different cowling designs/intake placements played a role in the aircrafts that now say "not until icing occurs." Even if you get it at a high power setting it will slowly close and slowly loose RPM, the only time it is extremely dangerous is full idle as even a small amount of ice could kill the engine.

 

[Hacker15e]

It's technique. There's no right or wrong way to apply a technique.

 

[shdw]

It's technique. There's no right or wrong way to apply a technique.

I have a lot of problems with this statement, not for this case, but just in general. I say that because I hear these exact words all the time, in fact I have heard them many times for the reason why a person never puts the MP above the RPM. It just seems as a comment that is thrown around all the time in this business but I have news for people, there are right and wrong techniques.

Just my 2 cents and it isn't meant to be directed at you hacker, just food for thought.

 

[tgrayson]

It just seems as a comment that is thrown around all the time in this business but I have news for people, there are right and wrong techniques.

Agreed that the comment is sometimes used to exempt a belief from any objective evaluation. Some techniques may well be more effective than others in accomplishing a particular goal, and the proper scientific experiments could establish this fact. If we haven't performed these experiments, then the best we can say is that we don't know which technique is more effective, rather than asserting that they are all equally good.

 

[ppragman]

Every thing you do in the airplane is a technique, there is no real "right, or wrong" way to do anything, you can't apply a value judgment to something like flying. Flying doesn't care if you do things the "right way," or not, flying can kill you even when you do everything technically "right." There is no one technique that applies to every circumstance of takeoff, or one technique that can be used in every permutation of the cross-country pilotage, or one technique that can be applied to the myriad of ways to start an approach. Some techniques may result in outcomes that are less than favorable (e.g. stall, spin, crash, burn) others are neutral.

As for the MP over RPM, what does it possibly do to you? It doesn't make the airplane unsafe, and though I personally think there is no merit to "keeping the prop on top" within reasonable limts (e.g. 39"MP at 1700RPM may not be good for it if its not in the book) that "technique" allows someone who is not intimately familiar with the powersettings of the airplane to make a fairly accurate Wild Ass Guess. When I jumped into the Cherokee 6 for the first time, what do you think my powersetting for cruise was? 24 Squared, and guess what, that closely corresponds for book powersettings of 75% power. Nothing wrong with that.

Further, I've had enough with the concept of absolutes here. Under normal circumstances slow flight close to the ground should be avoided, however, when you need to do Aerial Bird Survey in the 172 with 40 degrees of flaps quite close to stall a couple hundred feet agl so that the government bird spotter can look for egrets or some BS, you do what you've got to do. Scud running is bad all the time right? Wrong, how else are you going to get into a place when the ice is too nasty in the clouds and the approaches don't go low enough? Not flying for 3-6 months out of the year isn't really an option. 1.2Vso for an approach speed works great for long runways, however, I wouldn't do that someplace really short. Vy works great for climbing in some SE aircraft, however when engine cooling, and ridiculously bad glide ratios come into play, it might be better to fly faster. Let me put it this way, what worked on monday, may not apply to what worked on tuesday, which in turn may not apply to what works on wednesday. Some standardized practices are great for minimizing safety hazards and promoting a culture of intelligent compliance, however as 91.3 puts it, there are no absolutes, and you can even blatantly break regs to safely get the bird on the ground in one peice, if that doesn't say something about the non-rigid nature of aviation I don't know what will.

/soapbox

 

[Hacker15e]

I have a lot of problems with this statement, not for this case, but just in general. I say that because I hear these exact words all the time, in fact I have heard them many times for the reason why a person never puts the MP above the RPM. It just seems as a comment that is thrown around all the time in this business but I have news for people, there are right and wrong techniques.

Well, the fact of the matter is this:

There are procedures, and there are techniques.

Either something is required -- a.k.a., it's in the CFR and accompanied by the words "must", "shall", or "will", or it is in the aircraft's POH written as such, or perhaps in your organization's regulations -- or it is not.

If it is not something that is a procedure, then it is a technique. There aren't laws or rules about application of technique. There is no such thing as a "correct" or "incorrect" technique so long as it does not violate procedure.

Some techniques are better than others, I'll give you that. There are certainly some techniques that shouldn't be used. There is plenty of merit in discussing what techniques are better, or how to apply a certain technique.

But, you can't attach "correct" or "incorrect", "right" or "wrong", etc, to a technique.

In the case of the topic of this thread -- if you should "time" first or "turn" first when executing a memory aid to assist someone in remembering all the things they should do in an instrument approach -- the use of the memory aid is a technique, and as such the order of application is entirely subjective.

 

[shdw]

But, you can't attach "correct" or "incorrect", "right" or "wrong", etc, to a technique.

No but you can certainly say the technique is friggen stupid; like not going past squared, teaching to wait for an airspeed to rotate as a visual pilot, doing before landing checklist when turning final, flying Va in light chop, refusing to do a steep turn above Va, refusing to lean the engine without a working EGT gauge, etc.

Point is there is technical data that backs many techniques and there are teaching goals for each. If a technique is being followed that isn't supported by technical data and/or doesn't teach for the environment/goals you are going for then it might not be wrong but IMO common sense has to play some role.

I would go on topic, but like I said earlier arguing this is like arguing how you chew gum and walk.

 

[MikeD]

No but you can certainly say the technique is friggen stupid; like not going past squared, teaching to wait for an airspeed to rotate as a visual pilot, doing before landing checklist when turning final, flying Va in light chop, refusing to do a steep turn above Va, refusing to lean the engine without a working EGT gauge, etc.

Point is there is technical data that backs many techniques and there are teaching goals for each. If a technique is being followed that isn't supported by technical data and/or doesn't teach for the environment/goals you are going for then it might not be wrong but IMO common sense has to play some role.

I would go on topic, but like I said earlier arguing this is like arguing how you chew gum and walk.

Now we're comparing techniques to bad WOMs

Similar, yes....but also different. Kind of like chicken/egg, chew gum/walk, etc

 

[mshunter]

My II tought me


Throttle
Turn
Time
Twist
Talk

His reasoning was that if you werent at the proper speed when using the T's, your time woulden't matter because your time is based off of speed. But like C172capt says, none of it really matters if you bust regs and kill someone. As for the track thing, if you don't track something and your an inst. rated pilot, how the heck did you get your rating in the first place? And talking should always come last. Aviate (throttle/turn) navigate (time/twist) communicate (talk). But the turn and time thing should happen at the same time, so IMHO, they should be grouped together as one.