Straight-ins at uncontrolled airports?

On Feb 12, 6:41 am, Mxsmanic wrote:
chris writes:
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but the common theory here is
that for an average private pilot to keep current with his IFR rating
he or she would have to do every flight IFR, and maybe that would be
good, I just dunno..

I don't know if anyone is advocating that, but it does seem that there's a
strong tendency to get rusty if one doesn't practice IFR regularly, and there
are even some statutory requirements to this effect.


Apparently in this country, to stay current, in the previous 3 months
you need to have completed 3 hours of instrument time and carried out
at least 3 instrument approaches. That's not as bad as I thought, but
you still need to fly IFR often to keep current..



It surprised me to read in another post that it's possible to get an
instrument rating without ever actually flying in IMC. If this is true, then
what separates me, in a simulator, flying by instruments, from an
instrument-rated pilot? It sounds like neither of us has necessarily flown in
IMC. And IMC is the only part I haven't experienced. Maybe I should ask for
a free instrument rating.

I would think there's more to it than that.. Just curious, what
exactly do you consider instrument flying?? I wonder if there may be
a whole lot of stuff you maybe aren't aware of because you are self-
taught.. If so, you would need to learn that stuff first...


The sensation of moment sucks when you're on instruments.

So I've heard.

An open question is whether previous experience with aircraft motion is
preferable to no experience with aircraft motion when learning to fly on
instruments. In instrument flight, you have to ignore motion, because your
sensations are not at all reliable if you cannot correlate them with visual
information. So, is it harder to unlearn the dependence on physical
sensations that you've acquired while flying VFR in a moving aircraft, or is
it harder to ignore unreliable sensations when you simply have never depended
on them at all for flying (as in simulation).

My guess is that they are about equal, and if anything, the simulator pilot is
slightly favored, as he has no bad habits to unlearn.

You still need to get off the ground, and to get the basic license to
let you do that you need to learn how to fly VFR...


I have done
5.4 hours of simulated instrument flying, nothing more than enough to
keep me upright while I get my ass out of the crap I just flew into..
And the leans have to be experienced to be believed! I was told to
put the hood on immediately after takeoff, and by the time I got to
1000 ft I had my head just about in my instructor's lap, the leans
were so severe! It is when your brain decides you're going one way
but the instruments say you're going another way... You don't feel a
gentle right turn, say, but when you look at the AH, you see it's
turning to the right. You correct, and the AH says you're straight
and level but the brain says you're leaning to the left!! It's a real
funny feeling!!!

And did you find it hard to ignore? Was it a struggle to trust the
instruments? Or was it merely a nuisance?

As I remember, as I was doing my scan, I'd come back to the AH for
instance, and it would be different to how it was a few seconds ago,
and I sure didn't feel the plane move. Then you roll level and you'd
start to lean to one side, and so on...

In an elevator, if you go from a low floor to a high floor, you'll experience
a distinct feeling of dropping as the elevator stops at the destination floor.
Do most people jab desperately at the elevator buttons trying to stop it from
falling, or do they ignore the sensation and look at the display in the
elevator to verify that they are indeed stopping at the right floor and not
descending again?

I thus wonder whether the trouble some pilots have with misleading sensations
in instrument flight is not a direct result of learning to depend excessively
on sensations in visual flight (without realizing that the sensations are
useless until visual information constantly corroborates them). If so, then
never having learned to depend on sensation would be a great advantage in
instrument flight.


Pilots who begin real flight training after using a sim are often at a
disadvantage because they learn to look inside the cockpit
excessively. A vfr pilot can tell what the plane is doing without
looking at instruments, by seeing, feeling and hearing. We sometimes
fly with all instruments covered up.. Much easier than you would
think, once you get used to looking outside and listening..

Sounds fine to me.. Nothing wrong with wanting to give passengers a
gentle, smooth ride with rate 1 turns...

For me, that's good piloting. The less passengers feel, the better I'm doing.


Me too.. Smooth takeoffs, rate 1 turns and nice landings with great
scenery.. Which this country is famous for!

chris writes:

I would think there's more to it than that.. Just curious, what
exactly do you consider instrument flying??

To me, instrument flight is flight that depends exclusively upon instruments
as the final authority for navigation and determining the aircraft's attitude,
heading, altitude, and so on.

I distinguish this from instrument conditions (IMC), which I consider to be
flight conditions that make any form of flight other than instrument flight
unsafe.

I wonder if there may be a whole lot of stuff you maybe aren't aware
of because you are self-taught.. If so, you would need to learn that
stuff first...

I doubt it. I read the same stuff that people in formal training read.
There's always the question of flight instruction, but the more I read about
flight instructors, the more wary I am of their alleged utility in training
pilots. While some may be very good, it sounds like the majority are rather
mediocre.

You still need to get off the ground, and to get the basic license to
let you do that you need to learn how to fly VFR...

Only because that is a legal requirement.

As I remember, as I was doing my scan, I'd come back to the AH for
instance, and it would be different to how it was a few seconds ago,
and I sure didn't feel the plane move. Then you roll level and you'd
start to lean to one side, and so on...

But was it psychologically difficult to resist the sensations you felt
physically and force yourself to use the instruments, or were the sensations
just an unwanted distraction?

Pilots who begin real flight training after using a sim are often at a
disadvantage because they learn to look inside the cockpit
excessively.

That's understandable. But pilots who have only known VFR for years would be
at a disadvantage when learning instruments because they look _outside_ the
cockpit excessively, and they depend too much on physical sensations.

A vfr pilot can tell what the plane is doing without
looking at instruments, by seeing, feeling and hearing.

Yes. But a big problem arises when those sensations become unreliable. And
in fact, they are all unreliable, anyway, except when reinforced by vision. A
pilot may think that he can fly based on sensation, but he can test that very
easily by flying with his eyes shut for a while, and then opening them and
seeing how far off he is from where he thought he would be.

We sometimes
fly with all instruments covered up.. Much easier than you would
think, once you get used to looking outside and listening..

I'd consider VFR trivially easy compared to IFR.

Me too.. Smooth takeoffs, rate 1 turns and nice landings with great
scenery.. Which this country is famous for!

A good flight is one in which the passengers can watch the world go by as if
it were a movie. If they mention sensations after landing, it was too rough.

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On Feb 12, 10:38 am, Mxsmanic wrote:
chris writes:
I would think there's more to it than that.. Just curious, what
exactly do you consider instrument flying??

To me, instrument flight is flight that depends exclusively upon instruments
as the final authority for navigation and determining the aircraft's attitude,
heading, altitude, and so on.

I distinguish this from instrument conditions (IMC), which I consider to be
flight conditions that make any form of flight other than instrument flight
unsafe.

I wonder if there may be a whole lot of stuff you maybe aren't aware
of because you are self-taught.. If so, you would need to learn that
stuff first...

I doubt it. I read the same stuff that people in formal training read.
There's always the question of flight instruction, but the more I read about
flight instructors, the more wary I am of their alleged utility in training
pilots. While some may be very good, it sounds like the majority are rather
mediocre.


I can't do anything other than speculate about IFR flying, as I know
next to nothing about it. So I will refrain from making any further
comments that are little more than guesses..
As for flight instructors, I know a number personally. I think you
might be getting a bad impression because people only write about
instructors when they are bad!!! Of the instructors I know, many are
pretty good, several are excellent, and a couple are bloody legends!!
I don't think I actually know an instructor I would class as
mediocre. For them to get to the stage of being able to instruct, the
training they go through is pretty damn rigorous, and they are
expected to uphold a pretty high standard.

Or maybe it's just our aero club that has all the good instructors??

You still need to get off the ground, and to get the basic license to
let you do that you need to learn how to fly VFR...

Only because that is a legal requirement.

Nahh... You still gotta fly the aeroplane!!! And land it, and stuff
like that...



As I remember, as I was doing my scan, I'd come back to the AH for
instance, and it would be different to how it was a few seconds ago,
and I sure didn't feel the plane move. Then you roll level and you'd
start to lean to one side, and so on...

But was it psychologically difficult to resist the sensations you felt
physically and force yourself to use the instruments, or were the sensations
just an unwanted distraction?

Yeah, it's unbelievably hard to trust the instruments when you are
leaning at 60 degress to the right but the plane aint!!


Pilots who begin real flight training after using a sim are often at a
disadvantage because they learn to look inside the cockpit
excessively.

That's understandable. But pilots who have only known VFR for years would be
at a disadvantage when learning instruments because they look _outside_ the
cockpit excessively, and they depend too much on physical sensations.

I have no idea if that is true or not..

A vfr pilot can tell what the plane is doing without
looking at instruments, by seeing, feeling and hearing.

Yes. But a big problem arises when those sensations become unreliable. And
in fact, they are all unreliable, anyway, except when reinforced by vision. A
pilot may think that he can fly based on sensation, but he can test that very
easily by flying with his eyes shut for a while, and then opening them and
seeing how far off he is from where he thought he would be.


Yeah, we know they are unreliable.. Vision is very important...


We sometimes
fly with all instruments covered up.. Much easier than you would
think, once you get used to looking outside and listening..

I'd consider VFR trivially easy compared to IFR.

There is no way to know unless you were to do it, so I won't tell you
I think it isn't, because then it would just be my word against yours,
so I will just shut up now...


Me too.. Smooth takeoffs, rate 1 turns and nice landings with great
scenery.. Which this country is famous for!

A good flight is one in which the passengers can watch the world go by as if
it were a movie. If they mention sensations after landing, it was too rough.

No argument there..

On Feb 12, 6:41 am, Mxsmanic wrote:
information. So, is it harder to unlearn the dependence on physical
sensations that you've acquired while flying VFR in a moving aircraft, or
is
it harder to ignore unreliable sensations when you simply have never
depended
on them at all for flying (as in simulation).

Do you mean, unlearn basic airmanship before you can get proficient on
instruments?

My forehead would be a bloody red gash from continually bashing it against
my desk if I read your posts regularly.

Think of the instrument rating as meaning only that you are qualified to
operate as the controllers ask, without continual hand holding. Staying
upright and pointed in the desired direction is only incidental to that. In
that regard, sim flying is the antithesis of fitting into the airspace
system. Flittering about willy nilly randomly close-enough is the habit that
needs to be unlearned.

chris writes:

As for flight instructors, I know a number personally. I think you
might be getting a bad impression because people only write about
instructors when they are bad!!! Of the instructors I know, many are
pretty good, several are excellent, and a couple are bloody legends!!

What percentage are bad, what percentage are so-so, and what percentage are
good?

From what I read, most instructors are just trying to accumulate time so that
they can get lucrative jobs flying big iron. They don't really care about
teaching. If so, that's a bad attitude for an instructor to have, no matter
what subject he is teaching.

Or maybe it's just our aero club that has all the good instructors??

Are they paid or working for free? The ones with no fundamental interest in
teaching would certainly not work for free, unless there were something else
in it for them.

Nahh... You still gotta fly the aeroplane!!! And land it, and stuff
like that...

But that's like learning to ride a bicycle.

I have no idea if that is true or not..

Evidence that it might be true is the speed with which many VFR pilots get
into grave trouble as soon as they are deprived of visual information (as
during an encounter with IMC). If they didn't depend on that visual
information, they wouldn't have any difficulty. And if sensations could
really be trusted, they'd have no trouble. And if they weren't dependent on
sensations, they wouldn't have trouble. But they _do_ have trouble, which
implies that they depend a lot on sensations, even though sensations are
unreliable, and that they unconsciously depend most of all on visual
information.

Yeah, we know they are unreliable.. Vision is very important...

And if sensations are unreliable, then being accustomed to them doesn't serve
much purpose.

There is no way to know unless you were to do it, so I won't tell you
I think it isn't, because then it would just be my word against yours,
so I will just shut up now...

I am obviously speculating as well. But aviation is no different from a
thousand other areas of human endeavor, and many of the same principles apply.

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Mike Young writes:

Do you mean, unlearn basic airmanship before you can get proficient on
instruments?

Basic airmanship is independent of sensation. The sensations pilots feel are
unreliable. They consider them reliable because they unconsciously reinforce
them with visual information, which usually _is_ reliable. Proof that
sensations are useless is easy to obtain, by depriving the pilot of visual
references. No matter how much experience he has, without instruments he
rapidly becomes disoriented. If sensations were reliable, that wouldn't
happen. And since in fact they are unreliable, learning about them isn't
really important, as they won't help you to fly.

Think of the instrument rating as meaning only that you are qualified to
operate as the controllers ask, without continual hand holding. Staying
upright and pointed in the desired direction is only incidental to that.

IFR can exist independently of controllers.

In that regard, sim flying is the antithesis of fitting into the airspace
system.

Not when it is simulation of instrument flight and ATC.

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On Feb 12, 1:07 pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
Mike Young writes:
Do you mean, unlearn basic airmanship before you can get proficient on
instruments?

Basic airmanship is independent of sensation. The sensations pilots feel are
unreliable. They consider them reliable because they unconsciously reinforce
them with visual information, which usually _is_ reliable. Proof that
sensations are useless is easy to obtain, by depriving the pilot of visual
references. No matter how much experience he has, without instruments he
rapidly becomes disoriented. If sensations were reliable, that wouldn't
happen. And since in fact they are unreliable, learning about them isn't
really important, as they won't help you to fly.


Umm, that logic is faulty... The other senses may be unreliable, but
that doesn't mean they don't help you fly. You can tell you are
climbing by feeling it in the seat of your pants, for instance. Do
you suggest we disregard every clue the aircraft give you except for
visual clues because they are unreliable?? No.. That would be silly.
You can tell a lot by the seat of your pants and by listening, and
that helps you fly.. So we shouldn't disregard those senses. And we
certainly should learn about them. This is like your thread about
coordinated turns - we can feel the turn, so we should use that
feeling.

You can tell you are
climbing by feeling it in the seat of your pants, for instance.

Well, yes, but you can also feel (in the seat of your pants) that you
are climbing, when you aren't. As you said, the senses are unreliable,
and part of the skills of instrument flying is being =able= to disregard
those sensations when they disagree with the instruments.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Roger" wrote in message
...
I was referring to the comment about the 5 mile final previous to my
post. IOW if some one calls in on a 5 mile final and I'm on down
wind, I know I have at least two minutes or more (if he's telling the
truth) to land. From my position in the pattern I should know if I
have that much time. OTOH I call final when I pass the FAF for the
GPS 24 or 06 approaches. That is about 5 miles out (5.1 to be
specific) and I fly the approach at 120 MPH. That means I should get
to the runway in 2 1/2 minutes. So calling final passing the FAF lets
most of those in the area know where I am and about how much time they
have.

If you're in the circuit, and about to turn base, or have just turned base,
but you've done a reasonably wide circuit, and another a/c calls a 5 mile
straight in final, what happens if you calculate that you will not get down
and clear before he lands? Do you contact the other a/c and advise him you
are already on base, or are already in the pattern, and ask him to join
downwind? or do you have to turn and extend your downwind because he called
final first? Obviously if you've just turned onto base, you've done your
base call, so he should know where you are, but he may not have heard you.
Oz Lander

If you're in the circuit, and about to turn base, or have just turned base,
but you've done a reasonably wide circuit, and another a/c calls a 5 mile
straight in final, what happens if you calculate that you will not get down
and clear before he lands? Do you contact the other a/c and advise him you
are already on base, or are already in the pattern, and ask him to join
downwind?

I call and tell him where I am. We negotiate who will be first and who
will be second.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.