Why airplanes fly

On Feb 10, 8:25*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

It's interesting to note that the control pressure differences should
offer no problems for the pilot going from the actual airplane into the
sim, but could easily cause problems going the other way.


I agree, I could fly the simulator easily and even land first time
straight on track it but I find the real thing much harder. I'm
guessing but the reduction in data input (to the model and to the
"pilot") coupled with the simplicity of the model makes it easier to
operate. I thought it did not simulate ground effects well either.

Cheers

WingFlaps wrote:
On Feb 10, 8:25 am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

It's interesting to note that the control pressure differences should
offer no problems for the pilot going from the actual airplane into the
sim, but could easily cause problems going the other way.


I agree, I could fly the simulator easily and even land first time
straight on track it but I find the real thing much harder. I'm
guessing but the reduction in data input (to the model and to the
"pilot") coupled with the simplicity of the model makes it easier to
operate. I thought it did not simulate ground effects well either.

Cheers


What happens is interesting, and involves the mental/physical process
acquired when learning to fly in the real airplane first before coming
into the simulator.
Although when using aircraft controls there most certainly is a vector
involved when applying them, the learning process in the actual airplane
involves a constantly changing control PRESSURE dynamic as the controls
are applied at various airspeeds. (one could consider the dynamic as a
function of slugs per/sq.in. load vs response on the surfaces if
inclined in that direction :-) (We're talking un-boosted controls here
of course :-)
Once you have become acclimated to control use in the actual airplane,
the pressure needed becomes second nature and an educated reflex as you
determine the desired pressure to achieve the desired result regardless
of the airspeed.
What's interesting in this equation is that the vector required
(direction plus length) of control use is not really an important factor
in the actual airplane after the direction needed has been learned.
Bringing this from the airplane into the simulator loses the pressure
factor but retains the vector learning curve.
The pilot coming into the sim moves the joystick using the right vector
in direction and uses a visual cue for result acquired from the monitor.
The only thing missing in the equation here is the pressure.
Going the other way, from the sim into the aircraft, the vector factor
is a known, but the pressure dynamic is missing.
It's the pressure in the changing energy dynamic that the sim pilot
moving into an airplane must learn.
This is why I always recommend that instructors encourage new student
pilots who use the simulator to NOT use it during the initial period of
dual instruction before solo. After that, the sim has uses that can be
beneficial in the flight training environment.



--
Dudley Henriques

On Feb 10, 6:27*am, wrote:
I've never heard any mention of a design from the Brits. Actually, the
design concept was quite simple. They did the entire aircraft based on
ballistic tests with a 50 Cal. bullet even to taking the canopy out of
the equation and replacing it with molded in windows.
...
The horizontal tail proved to be the only real issue and they changed
that to a slab tail to solve the shock issue.

--
Dudley Henriques

I watched one of the Nova series episodes about 3 weeks ago about
breaking the sound barrier (I rented it on DVD). They covered the
British and American attempts to break the barrier in fair detail, and
had extensive interviews with one of the engineers from Miles
Aircraft, the British firm that was asked by the RAF to develop a
supersonic aircraft. IIRC, the Miles' engineer said that they
concluded that the best fuselage design would be one modeled after a
bullet. He also said they figured a hydraulic actuated movable tail
would do the trick to stop the shock-wave induced control freeze up
that was killing so many pilots during the time.

It was said that an American team did go to England during the last
part of the war and met with the Miles' engineering group, and that
the Miles' group was going to go to the US afterward to see what the
American's had learned, but the Pentagon nixed their trip. The Brits
didn't like that one.

Anyway I can't remember the timelines here ... a few weeks before
Miles' was to begin actual prototype testing of their ship (which
looked very much like the X1, but with a different nose) their program
was cancelled. This was sometime shortly after VE day. It was
cancelled by a bureaucrat who had visited some of the secret German
aircraft development centers the Allieds had discovered (some buried
underground). There he had seen swept wing designs and somehow
concluded that sweptwing was the only way to go supersonic. He
cancelled the supersonic program because the Miles' design was a
straight wing.


Ah. Thanks for that, part of the story is in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_M.52

The time lines show that the data given to Bell in 1944 was key to
their development (the Brits had been working on the control problem
for years and a picture of an air tunnel model is in the wiki ref).
Bell started their program in 1945. If the British had not scrapped it
for political/financial reasons in 1946,I don't doubt it would have
been the first true supersonic airplane. The m.52 design was
apparently so good that it did not break up as planned in a
destructive test on an unpiloted model at 15g! It is a shame that
Bell did not live up to the trans-atlantic technology agreements in
place at that time. Yet another example of the shortsightedness of the
British government in not trusting in the abilities of their engineers
and investing in technology. A history repeated with the TSR2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSR2
Cheers

Jay Honeck wrote:


Example: I am certain that The Bunyip has responded to this thread, as
flies are attracted to you-know-what. I would bet a thousand bucks on
it. You may even be responding to his post.

But I'll never see it. It's absolutely wonderful.


By not being willing to simply ignore what you don't like, you miss the
good stuff. You have apparently killfiled not only Bertie but any
response to him. Therefore, you miss not only the knowledgeable stuff
that is posted under his nome de plume but the discussions he has with
the likes of Dudley H. and others you respect. Don't tell me that there
is no worthwhile content there. These people are conversing with him.
Besides you killfiled him, so you don't see it.

romeomike wrote in news:1jg185-ml61.ln1
@news.infowest.com:

Jay Honeck wrote:


Example: I am certain that The Bunyip has responded to this thread, as
flies are attracted to you-know-what. I would bet a thousand bucks on
it. You may even be responding to his post.

But I'll never see it. It's absolutely wonderful.


By not being willing to simply ignore what you don't like, you miss the
good stuff. You have apparently killfiled not only Bertie but any
response to him. Therefore, you miss not only the knowledgeable stuff
that is posted under his nome de plume but the discussions he has with
the likes of Dudley H. and others you respect. Don't tell me that there
is no worthwhile content there. These people are conversing with him.
Besides you killfiled him, so you don't see it.


Can you see this post? I couldn't see your's cuz it was killfiled.


Bertie

In rec.aviation.student Dudley Henriques wrote:
Michael Ash wrote:

My apologies if you thought I meant that all pilots should expect to have
trouble in sims, and I hope the above better explains my full opinion and
experience with them.

No problem at all Mike. I didn't take it that way. My post was simply a
general explanation on how pilots interact with the simulator as we
envision it when working on the program through the eyes of a flight
instructor.

Glad to hear it, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I
appreciate the perspective.

There is a fine book on all this which I happened to review for ASA.
It's called "Flight Simulator as a Training Aid" by Bruce Williams.
If you search my name at www.simflight.com or the book itself on ASA's
web site, you can read that review if interested.

Thanks for the pointer, that looks like an interesting book. With the
right techniques I'm sure it can be a useful tool for instruction.

Incidentally my glider club was considering setting up a simulator for
students. It would have had a bit fancier setup than I have in order to
help with some of the drawbacks, including a TrackIR (head-mounted
pointing device) which is supposed to help make it a bit more natural to
look around the environment in the sim. I was sort of skeptical, but other
clubs have had some success with sims. Alas, the person who was working on
it ended up moving out of the country for a couple of years, and I don't
believe anyone had managed to try it on a student before he left. Maybe
when he comes back we'll be able to try again.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

On Sat, 9 Feb 2008 18:29:11 -0500, "Morgans"
wrote in :

I happen to feel strongly about the way MX has influenced the group, and
have expressed it.

I realize that it is likely to not result in much change, but I still feel
the need to express it, and hope.

Have you ever considered the possibility, that it is your emotional
public admission of frustration that is the precise reward the troll
is seeking to validate her power to provoke?

Larry Dighera wrote in
:

On Sat, 9 Feb 2008 18:29:11 -0500, "Morgans"
wrote in :

I happen to feel strongly about the way MX has influenced the group,
and have expressed it.

I realize that it is likely to not result in much change, but I still
feel the need to express it, and hope.

Have you ever considered the possibility, that it is your emotional
public admission of frustration that is the precise reward the troll
is seeking to validate her power to provoke?



Hasve you ever considered that this kind of moronic observatin is precisely
what the troll is looking for to validate her power to provoke, hyocrite
pseudo christian gay lamer?

Nothing I like better than a hypocrite gay lamer.






Bertie

Best of luck with it. If the sim is used in conjunction with a good CFI
input along with it, I think it can be quite useful.
DH





Michael Ash wrote:
In rec.aviation.student Dudley Henriques wrote:
Michael Ash wrote:

My apologies if you thought I meant that all pilots should expect to have
trouble in sims, and I hope the above better explains my full opinion and
experience with them.
No problem at all Mike. I didn't take it that way. My post was simply a
general explanation on how pilots interact with the simulator as we
envision it when working on the program through the eyes of a flight
instructor.

Glad to hear it, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I
appreciate the perspective.

There is a fine book on all this which I happened to review for ASA.
It's called "Flight Simulator as a Training Aid" by Bruce Williams.
If you search my name at www.simflight.com or the book itself on ASA's
web site, you can read that review if interested.

Thanks for the pointer, that looks like an interesting book. With the
right techniques I'm sure it can be a useful tool for instruction.

Incidentally my glider club was considering setting up a simulator for
students. It would have had a bit fancier setup than I have in order to
help with some of the drawbacks, including a TrackIR (head-mounted
pointing device) which is supposed to help make it a bit more natural to
look around the environment in the sim. I was sort of skeptical, but other
clubs have had some success with sims. Alas, the person who was working on
it ended up moving out of the country for a couple of years, and I don't
believe anyone had managed to try it on a student before he left. Maybe
when he comes back we'll be able to try again.



--
Dudley Henriques

My point exactly!

It can be fun, especially to try things you'd never want to try in real
life, and it can be a good laugh when things go wrong. And I can see how
they can be a really useful tool in certain circumstances. But it's silly
to think that they're an ironclad indicator of skill for everything.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

Michael there's no point in feeling bad at all. Here's an anecdote:

My primary instructor for the PPL has an aerobatic endorsement (or
whatever the technical name is) on her CFI cert. She has been doing
aerobatics for many years. I had used MSFS before taking lessons from
her. On our first flight she acted surprised and wanted to know how
long I'd been flying. It was all straight and level but I understood
things like the how the VOR stuff worked, how to trim, use the radios,
and that the throttle was the up/down control (ie, throttle back to
descend), etc. I told her I'd learned all that in the simulator. Later
she came to my house for dinner once, and for fun she wanted to try
the simulator. She couldn't do it at all, or course, because the
control inputs are completely different as was how you view "the world
outside". So she stalled out trying to land and crashed, she couldn't
do a snap roll "correctly", and the loop was impossible. The whole
time she just laughed her a$$ off.

To say that she was "humbled" by the simulator, or that she wasn't a
good pilot because she crashed trying to simulate landing with MSFS
would be utterly ridiculous and absurd.

She's a finest kind pilot in my view, a real character, and I can't
wait til later this spring when I will have some time because I'm
going to do some aerobatics training with her -- and I ain't even
considering her simulator "problems".

Simulated landing crashes don't count for jack!

(Maybe only if you're an ATP and the airline sends you off to
simulator training and you crash repeatedly -- something I bet rarely
or never happens. Hmm. Hey you airline pilots -- does anyone ever
"crash" in the real simulators? What happens, screen go blank?)