Help me clear up my brain fart

"Roger Long" om wrote in
message ...
[...] You should always be dividing your attention between inside
and outside.

IMHO, not even close. Not for VFR flight.

The airplane is perfectly flyable without ANY reference to the instruments,
or anything inside the airplane. Turning base to final is no time to be
wasting ANY effort looking at instruments, and is certainly no time to be
attempting to use the instruments as feedback for control inputs.

A pilot who cannot judge bank angle and coordination without consulting the
turn coordinator and attitude indicator is one who needs to get back to the
basics.

What happens to low hours, and even high hours pilots when they are
stressed, is fixating on the view outside the plane and pushing the plane
into a stall spin trying to turn too tightly back to the runway
centerline.

They only do that if they fail to keep the airplane coordinated. One does
not need to consult the instrument panel in order to keep the airplane
coordinated.

[...] Pilots, especially students, should be checking airspeed, etc. all
through
the pattern.

Again, not necessary at all. It's all well and good to keep an eye on
things, of course. But any pilot should be able to go extended periods of
time in the pattern without looking at the ASI or any other instrument.
Airspeed in particular should be second-nature. Pitch and power will result
in the desired airspeed, and a pilot familiar with the airplane knows what
pitch and power to set in the pattern. Additionally, aircraft noise and
control feel gives you reasonably good information about airspeed (within
five knots or so).

I check my airspeed indicator maybe a couple of times before turning final,
and then maybe two or three more times while flying final, assuming
everything else is going fine. It's certainly not a significant part of my
visual scan. The vast majority of my visual scan is devoted to looking
outside the airplane.

Pete

You've been flying a long, long time and I'm sure you've forgotten a lot
about being low hours

I think we're talking about learning here, getting TO the basics; not
getting back to them. How do you learn to fly using only the windshield and
the seat of your pants except by looking at the instruments? How can you
learn the proper feel of 75 knots unless you know it is 75 knots?

Sure, a better way of teaching flying would be to cover up the instruments
and have the CFI go, "A little faster, you're skidding a bit, less
bank....". But, they don't do that. They teach you a little bit and then
send you up there on your own.

Like most pilots, I look at the instruments less and less in the pattern as
I gain experience. I look at airspeed and RPM a lot in pattern work to be
sure I'm remaining consistent. A lot means a quick glance at midfield,
base, and final. If you don't check, what feels like 75 knots could easily
drift up or down. Like you, I hardly look below the glareshield on most
regular landings unless I haven't flown in a while.

It's different when too when you fly a lot. Many pilots can only fly 2 - 3
times a month. It's easy to argue that they should leave the air to pros
like yourself but GA wouldn't exist as we know it if they did. There is
also the issue of flying different aircraft. One 172 will feel and sound
very different at a certain speed than another. The low time pilot who
forgets to adjust his seat may not allow for a different sight picture.
Flying a 152 one day and a 172 a few days later as often happens in some
training situations can get the student who ignores the panel in trouble.

Telling students and low frequency fliers that they should not include the
instruments in their scan is actually dangerous advice.

--
Roger Long


The airplane is perfectly flyable without ANY reference to the
instruments,
or anything inside the airplane. Turning base to final is no time to be
wasting ANY effort looking at instruments, and is certainly no time to be
attempting to use the instruments as feedback for control inputs.

A pilot who cannot judge bank angle and coordination without consulting
the
turn coordinator and attitude indicator is one who needs to get back to
the
basics.

"Roger Long" wrote

How do you learn to fly using only the windshield and the seat
of your pants......

Real easy, it's called attitude flying.

Sure, a better way of teaching flying would be to cover up the
instruments and have the CFI go, "A little faster,

No...I said "lower the nose a little...now fix that picture in
your mind".


They teach you a little bit and then send you up there on your
own.

No student of mine solo'ed without one whole period in the pattern
with the entire instrument panel covered.
It's called "flying the airplane", not "video gamming".

Bob Moore
ATP CFI

"Roger Long" om wrote in
message ...
You've been flying a long, long time and I'm sure you've forgotten a lot
about being low hours
[...]
Telling students and low frequency fliers that they should not include the
instruments in their scan is actually dangerous advice.

When I was a student, with relatively few hours, during my night training,
we flew approaches without any interior lights at all, to simulate an
electrical failure. Even at that point, I was able to fly the airplane
without reference to the ASI, turn coordinator, and attitude indicator.

I don't feel that I was an unusually talented student. I had all the same
hurdles to cross as any student, with all the usual learning plateaus.
IMHO, if a private pilot cannot fly the airplane without reference to the
instruments, it is not because they are inherently not able to. It's
because no instructor ever bothered to give them appropriate training.

Pete

But look what you turned into. You are obviously an ubermench.

--
Roger Long

Peter Duniho wrote in message
...
"Roger Long" om wrote
in
message ...
You've been flying a long, long time and I'm sure you've forgotten a lot
about being low hours
[...]
Telling students and low frequency fliers that they should not include
the
instruments in their scan is actually dangerous advice.

When I was a student, with relatively few hours, during my night training,
we flew approaches without any interior lights at all, to simulate an
electrical failure. Even at that point, I was able to fly the airplane
without reference to the ASI, turn coordinator, and attitude indicator.

I don't feel that I was an unusually talented student. I had all the same
hurdles to cross as any student, with all the usual learning plateaus.
IMHO, if a private pilot cannot fly the airplane without reference to the
instruments, it is not because they are inherently not able to. It's
because no instructor ever bothered to give them appropriate training.

Pete

"Roger Long" om wrote in
message ...
But look what you turned into. You are obviously an ubermench.

I appreciate the compliment, but I don't see what it has to do with the
question at hand.

In article ,
Peter Duniho wrote:
A pilot who cannot judge bank angle and coordination without consulting the
turn coordinator and attitude indicator is one who needs to get back to the
basics.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I've never been able to judge turn
coordination without the use of the ball (bank angle, I'm "ok" on). If
I don't look at the ball, I have no idea if I'm coordinated or not.
My instructor tried very hard to get me to judge coordination "naturally",
but I just never got it. How do you teach something like that?

--Ken

"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've never been able to judge turn
coordination without the use of the ball (bank angle, I'm "ok" on). If
I don't look at the ball, I have no idea if I'm coordinated or not.
My instructor tried very hard to get me to judge coordination "naturally",
but I just never got it. How do you teach something like that?

I will bet that you can at least judge coordination well enough to avoid
serious problems.

Keeping the ball smack in the middle is a lot harder than making sure the
airplane isn't skidding dangerously. In fact, I suspect most people who
claim that they need the turn coordinator are simply underestimating the
sensitivity of that instrument. You can keep your flying pretty good and
still have the ball slip out of center a little bit.

Pete

In article ,
Peter Duniho wrote:
"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've never been able to judge turn
coordination without the use of the ball (bank angle, I'm "ok" on). If
I don't look at the ball, I have no idea if I'm coordinated or not.
My instructor tried very hard to get me to judge coordination "naturally",
but I just never got it. How do you teach something like that?

I will bet that you can at least judge coordination well enough to avoid
serious problems.

Well, shoot .... how do I tell? I mean, I have _no_ sense of coordination.
If you were to put me in a skid, I have no idea how that feels. During
climbout, I always have to cross-check with the ball to make sure I'm
coordinated; I can never do that on feel. I'm better with that now, but
that's because I know the right amount of control pressure to use on
the rudder, not because I know what coordinated flight feels like.
During slips, the only thing that tells me I'm in a slip is the ball.

--Ken

You'll feel like you're sliding across the seat one way or the other. Or
like you're going around a curve in a car instead of just being pushed
straight down in the seat.

mike regish

"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Peter Duniho wrote:
"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've never been able to judge turn
coordination without the use of the ball (bank angle, I'm "ok" on). If
I don't look at the ball, I have no idea if I'm coordinated or not.
My instructor tried very hard to get me to judge coordination
"naturally",
but I just never got it. How do you teach something like that?

I will bet that you can at least judge coordination well enough to avoid
serious problems.

Well, shoot .... how do I tell? I mean, I have _no_ sense of
coordination.
If you were to put me in a skid, I have no idea how that feels. During
climbout, I always have to cross-check with the ball to make sure I'm
coordinated; I can never do that on feel. I'm better with that now, but
that's because I know the right amount of control pressure to use on
the rudder, not because I know what coordinated flight feels like.
During slips, the only thing that tells me I'm in a slip is the ball.

--Ken