AviationBanter - View Single Post - Mxsmanic , IFR sensations, and some other stuff

**Mxsmanic** · May 19th 08, 03:55 AM posted to rec.aviation.piloting,rec.aviation.student

writes:

As I keep stressing, the absence of a feeling is equally as important
as looking at an erroneous AI that is saying I have a 20 to 30 degree
pitch up.

Except that it's not. The absence of a feeling tells you nothing, just as a
feeling tells you nothing. If you could trust feelings, you wouldn't have to
rely on instruments, and all the effort that goes into obtaining an instrument
rating would be unnecessary.

Denying or ignoring that feeling and listening to a
defective instrument does toss the above text book out the window in a
trouble shooting stage..

Well, yes, it does.

If you have a backup AI, you should periodically look at it to see if it
agrees with your primary AI. You should also correlate instruments to each
other. If your AI says you're in a 45-degree bank, you should see a change in
heading on the DG, the turn coordinator should show a bank, and the magnetic
compass should be moving. If you see only the bank indication on the AI,
without the other indications, the AI might have a problem, and then you look
at the backup AI. If it shows no bank, and no other instrument shows what it
should show for a turn, the primary AI is malfunctioning. No physical
sensations required.

Conversely, if the seat of your pants tells you that you are climbing, but the
altimeter is not changing and the VSI is zeroed, you are not climbing, no
matter what your rear end says. Your instrument scan might tell you that you
are turning instead. Or your airspeed indicator might tell you that you are
changing speed. In any case, your instruments are right, and the seat of your
pants is wrong.

It was that feeling that helped me identify a problem quicker then
just "trust the instrument indications" I didn't oscillate in my
altitude which would have been a potential result had I trusted the
AI. It was when I didn't feel what the AI was telling me, then I
went to my secondary instrumentation to indeed confirm and verify that
my AI was amiss.

Why weren't you scanning all your instruments? If you were, you'd notice
something wrong without any need for physical sensation.

Had I trusted the instruments and pushed the nose over, I would have
put myself in a more dangerous position.

The instruments? How many were failing? How many did you check? The AI was
failing ... what else was failing? If the other instruments were working,
your instrument scan would tell you that something was wrong. If you weren't
scanning your instruments, you had already put yourself in a dangerous
position.

In all of the above, I am not saying don't fly by instruments, but use
what you feel and what you know IN ADDITION to what sits in front of
you.

No. In IFR flight, use the instruments only, and ignore what you feel.

When you are standing on the ground, or walking down a sidewalk, your senses
are doing what they are designed to do, and they work quite well. When you
are flying in IMC, your senses are being used for something for which they
were not intended, and they become notoriously unreliable.

Not sure if you are familiar with Martial arts, but to win a battle,
you use the opponents weakness for your strength, and I apply this to
my IFR flying. Our weakness is inner ear balance, and I do disregard
any "head feelings" I get, but I do use my rear end to assist me on
what I feel, and SHOULD be feeling based on POWER INPUTS.

That's a mistake.