Jeremy,

Chalk it up to typical Usenet hyperbole. I like to write with a little zip
which sometimes interferes with the message. I agree that used as a
cross-check the groundspeed can be useful, and you obviously understand what
it's really telling you. As usual I suspected you and I were pretty much on
the same page but the debate club geek inside of me got out and argued the
point for the sake of it. As someone who's still quite green I remember all
too well the temptation to get lost staring at the instruments. I had this
picture in my head of this new pilot watching the GPS groundspeed and not
fully comprehending what it meant. A new pilot should focus on learning to
fly the plane by feel and become comfortable with high-performance takeoffs
and landings, crosswinds, and cross-country navigation. Unfortunately, this
is typically the last thing that happens once you get out of the structured
training environment, especially if like me you are located at a big field
where the crosswind runway is 5000' long.

One of the best things I did as a new pilot was to get my floatplane rating
up in Alaska (I live in Boston). It wasn't meant to happen the way it did,
but I literally left to go there two days after I passed my checkride. They
(Alaska Float Ratings, highly recommended) gave instruction in a Super Cub
which was quite a different critter than the Warriors I got my ticket in.
The instructors were working 135 pilots and knew how to wring every drop of
performance out of the plane. Plus, flying patterns at 400AGL and being
surrounded by the Chugach mountains was a whole new experience for this
flatlander. Being as green as I was (am) I think my bad habits were a little
less ingrained and I was able to absorb things better than I would a few
hundred hours later.

It's actually getting to be time to do another check on my slow
flight/crosswind skills. I try to do a ride every six months or so to keep
me on my toes. I think what I really need to do is take some trips to some
smaller fields where I *have* to land in a thousand feet or so. I've been
busy starting a new business lately so it's getting real sloppy and all of
my practice has focused on instrument approaches.

Been fun chatting,
-cwk.

"Jeremy Lew" wrote in message
...
There's nothing wrong with your reasoning in general, but it *was* your
original assertion that the groundspeed is "useless for flying the plane."
Again, in my case, I had no ASI, VSI or altimeter to work with, so how am
I
supposed to trim to hold a 500fpm descent? What if the pitch indication
was slightly off? I set it up by sight and feel as best I could and used
the groundspeed as a crosscheck, which I maintain was useful for flying
the
plane. You're right about takeoff, I don't see the value there.

BTW, I'm only 3 months less green than you chronologically, and probably
greener in flight-hours


Jeremy
"Colin W Kingsbury" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Jeremy Lew" wrote in message
...
Colin, you adopt quite the air of authority for someone who has had
their
ASEL for less than 2.5 years. In this case I wanted to come in at
about
80kts and one notch because of the wind shear, which is not a normal
approach speed or flap configuration for me. Are you telling me you
have
memorized every permutation of pitch/power/flaps/airspeed for all
possible
gust conditions on approach?

Depending on how and what you fly, 1 notch and 80 kts sounds awfully
close
to approach configuration in either level flight or descending on the
ILS.
Some people fly a little slower, others a little faster, but it's in the
ballpark. If you told me to climb at 100FPM and 90 knots, no, I have no
idea
what the setting for that is off the top of my head. But that's not the
situation.

If my normal approach speed is 65 knots, and I want to fly 75 for gusty
conditions, I'm not using the GPS groundspeed to do it. It's too coarse
a
measure to be used with real precision. I'm setting up for an ILS-type
configuration which normally settles right in at 72 knots, and adding
another 50-100rpm and trim to hold the descent rate around 500rpm. I bet
that'll get me pretty darn close, at least on the right side of things.
I
contend that you're better off setting pre-determined power/pitch
settings
and understanding control feel than looking at the GPS groundspeed
expecting
to learn too much from it.

This all got started because someone who sounded even greener than me
said
they were going to keep an eye on their GPS groundspeed during takeoff,
and
it didn't strike me as such a great idea, for all the reasons I've laid
out.
A reasonable (i.e. can be formed in one good lesson) understanding of
pitch/power settings will allow you to fly the plane safely all day long
without an ASI, in any kind of conditions. I don't think this is
particularly controversial and it's the way I was taught when I got my
private, instrument, and seaplane ratings.

Of course we all use everything available to us to form the most
complete
picture possible, and GPS groundspeed can be included in that, so long
as
we
account for its limitations. It can tell you magnitude of change (i.e. a
change in groundspeed of 10kts at constant power/pitch means the wind
has
changed 10kts) for instance and that is useful. More importantly, it can
tell us how much longer we have to go before we can empty our tanks, or
fill
our plane's.

Forget my authority or lack thereof. What is wrong with my reasoning
here?

best,
-cwk.