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#31
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Slow Flight
Only slightly related to our topic, but in closing the skating comparisons to flying, and since you are interested in the creative side of the skating equation, I thought you might enjoy watching the video I have linked with this post. This is a video recreation by a very creative person of one of the demonstrations I used to fly on the air show circuit in the P51 Mustang. This fellow actually wrote to me and asked for the exact maneuver sequence and even the location airport over which the display was flown is accurate. He did an absolutely marvelous job of it. When I watch this myself, I'm sorry I didn't use music in the actual demonstration :-)) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4LODPguzTc -- Dudley Henriques |
#32
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Slow Flight
wrote in message...
.... BUT why would you ever want to _fly_ so close to stall? It's really dangerous to be just 10k above stall speed in any part of the circuit and that speed is not good for anything in real flight (terrible lift:drag and poor control response)... So what's the point? Quite a few years back I flew with CAP where we did endless training of ground ref manouvers at slow flight. One of the greatest concerns of the IPs was to lose a search plane because the pilot got distracted when investigating an item of interest while he was low and slow. |
#33
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Slow Flight
On Sep 8, 11:03 am, Ol Shy & Bashful wrote:
There is little doubt in my mind that the ability to do slow flight at the very edge of stall speed will do more to prevent accidents than 1000 hours of cruise speed flight. Is there anyone here who is proficient that lands their aircraft more than 10kts above stall speed? I teach all my students to slow fly with the entire range of configurations for the particular aircraft they are flying. Gear up/ down, flaps up/down/in-between. I want them to be comfortable flying at the very edge of the stall speeds and spend a lot of time maneuvering right on the edge of a stall "nibble". It does more for pilot confidence and ability than anything else I can think of. They learn proper control useage and how their particular aircraft responds while in the low speed areas. Playing with different angles of bank while at low speeds and flying with a modicum of accuracy does a lot for proper control use. If you think about it, how many accidents occur in the low speed spectrum? Either from a stall, or from a high sink rate on approach, or poor control use during an emergency or off airport landing, or something similar? In my opinion, the pilot who is comfortable throughout the entire speed range of their aircraft is a properly trained pilot and one who will not get into an inadvertant stall, or spin. What are your thoughts? I agree with you on the importance of slow flight but for a slightly different reason. I think slow flight and stalls end up being seen by student's as more of a rite-of-passage more than anything else. My approach is to place an intense concentration on the indicators of stall in their aircraft (stall horn, sloppy ailerons, buffeting, nose drop, more buffet, then break). Therefore, I see slow flight more as a way to ensure that students have enough experience with these sensations to recognize them when they need to. In addition, I think most CFI's teach slow flight at WAY to high of a speed. If the student doesn't accidently stall on occasion its almost guaranteed that their slow flight is too fast. In your standard Cessna/Piper type products the plane should be bucking like a wild horse during slow flight. |
#34
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Slow Flight
Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Sep 8, 11:03 am, Ol Shy & Bashful wrote: There is little doubt in my mind that the ability to do slow flight at the very edge of stall speed will do more to prevent accidents than 1000 hours of cruise speed flight. Is there anyone here who is proficient that lands their aircraft more than 10kts above stall speed? I teach all my students to slow fly with the entire range of configurations for the particular aircraft they are flying. Gear up/ down, flaps up/down/in-between. I want them to be comfortable flying at the very edge of the stall speeds and spend a lot of time maneuvering right on the edge of a stall "nibble". It does more for pilot confidence and ability than anything else I can think of. They learn proper control useage and how their particular aircraft responds while in the low speed areas. Playing with different angles of bank while at low speeds and flying with a modicum of accuracy does a lot for proper control use. If you think about it, how many accidents occur in the low speed spectrum? Either from a stall, or from a high sink rate on approach, or poor control use during an emergency or off airport landing, or something similar? In my opinion, the pilot who is comfortable throughout the entire speed range of their aircraft is a properly trained pilot and one who will not get into an inadvertant stall, or spin. What are your thoughts? I agree with you on the importance of slow flight but for a slightly different reason. I think slow flight and stalls end up being seen by student's as more of a rite-of-passage more than anything else. My approach is to place an intense concentration on the indicators of stall in their aircraft (stall horn, sloppy ailerons, buffeting, nose drop, more buffet, then break). Therefore, I see slow flight more as a way to ensure that students have enough experience with these sensations to recognize them when they need to. In addition, I think most CFI's teach slow flight at WAY to high of a speed. If the student doesn't accidently stall on occasion its almost guaranteed that their slow flight is too fast. In your standard Cessna/Piper type products the plane should be bucking like a wild horse during slow flight. I also approach slow flight and stall in this manner. On the "right of passage" issue; I believe instructors should be specifically tuned into this issue and address it as 101 with every student they teach. The mindset that learning to fly is simply to surmount the obstacles placed in front of the student then reach out and accept the PPL is a concept that I personally would like to see driven out of aviation. Instructors should from the first meeting with a new student,make every effort possible to down play the "steeping stones" required on the way to the PPL and instead impart on the student the critical importance connected with the actual learning involved. The problem with the "right of passage" mindset is that students and instructors alike have a tendency to consider these "accomplishments" as the pinnacle of the learning curve for the area affected with learning decreasing on the backside of that subject's pinnacle as learning on the next required "step" proceeds. Learning to fly an airplane is a process that begins the first day you climb into an airplane and ends as you take the last breath of your life. If you have been taught properly by a good CFI, there is a very good chance that this last moment and breath you take as the learning stops won't be in an airplane. -- Dudley Henriques |
#35
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Slow Flight
Damn!! Dudley you have a way with words! What a great concept.
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message ... snip .. If you have been taught properly by a good CFI, there is a very good chance that this last moment and breath you take as the learning stops won't be in an airplane. -- Dudley Henriques |
#36
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Slow Flight
On Sep 10, 10:24 am, "PPL-A (Canada)" wrote:
On Sep 8, 2:03 pm, Ol Shy & Bashful wrote: There is little doubt in my mind that the ability to do slow flight at the very edge of stall speed will do more to prevent accidents than 1000 hours of cruise speed flight. Is there anyone here who is proficient that lands their aircraft more than 10kts above stall speed? ... In my opinion, the pilot who is comfortable throughout the entire speed range of their aircraft is a properly trained pilot and one who will not get into an inadvertant stall, or spin. What are your thoughts? Other then the obvious objections (expressed here by many others) regarding navigation skills ,and calm, ordered responses to emergencies, as well as interpreting and dealing with weather both before and during flight, I think you have identified a skill that needs to be driven home and repeated again and again with ab initio students until they are comfortable handling the aircraft in any configuration in the slow-flight regime, and, indeed, transitioning between different configurations while in slow flight, as well as handling turns, climbs descents, and simulated "approaches" while in slow flight. (They should get to enjoy it so much that they get in the habit of practicing it themselves as often as possible after certification!) It is such an important concept (the backside of the power curve and what it really means ... try explaining this only once or twice to a typical driver of a car ... I usually only get confused looks even after sketching it out on paper) that no student (no doubt most used to driving a car where one power equals one speed on a flat driving surface) should be considered proficient at slow flight until they can not only DO it but also sketch their aircrafts power curve and explain it to their instructor, identifying all the important point, as well as explaining how it is that a range of power settings correspond to more than one airspeed on the curve. Anyway ... one small thing that relates to slow flight that I found improved my approaches in early training immediately and considerably was the realization that for a given power setting and rate of descent (in feet per minute ), the airspeed would be the same every single time. This allowed me to have a stable approach set up very quickly after turning base and resulted in instantly noticeably better approaches and landings on the next lesson after I learned this (my instructor at the time noticed the improvement immediately, unfortunately it wasn't him that taught me this fact ... I found it on a website produced by another flight instructor ... it was a great site, can't remember its URL now). The airspeed that I aimed for was usually a few knots above slow flight (I aimed for approach speed for short field landing, plus a few knots if it was a little windy or gusty) and of course there was descent involved (about 500 fpm in the 172SP was typical). Long story short ... slow flight training made me comfortable with reducing the power considerably, accurately, and consistently and confidently (to about 1000 - 1300 RPM initially depending on the headwind, again 172SP) when turning base (not just slowly stepping the power and speed down, which consumed too much time on base), quickly and confidently aiming for an approach speed close to a "performance" landing approach speed every time, and with the speed (172 SP - about 61 - 65 KIAS) and descent rate (initially aiming for 500 fpm) stable and trimmed out, all that was required to attend to was the drift, any shear on descent, and staying on a good approach slope visually, while occasionally glancing at the airspeed to ensure it wasn't bleeding off. This usually only required small power adjustments to keep on a proper the approach slope, and of course with more headwind, more power on final. While many other skills (especially navigation, emergency procedures, and weather assessment) are required to become (and remain) a safe, confident but circumspect pilot, with respect to consistent and confident aircraft control, there's nothing like slow flight to hone one's skills and feel like you are flying the aircraft, and not the other way around. JAI PPL-A(SEL) Canada JAI Well written reply. Thanks Ol S&B Canada Commercial #408XXX USA #1550XXX |
#37
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Slow Flight
john hawkins wrote:
Damn!! Dudley you have a way with words! What a great concept. "Dudley Henriques" wrote in message ... snip . If you have been taught properly by a good CFI, there is a very good chance that this last moment and breath you take as the learning stops won't be in an airplane. -- Dudley Henriques Comes in handy when my wife appears at the head of the stairs and asks me, "Do I look fatter in the red dress or the blue one hon?" :-)) -- Dudley Henriques |
#38
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Slow Flight
On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:19:06 -0400, Dudley Henriques
wrote: john hawkins wrote: Damn!! Dudley you have a way with words! What a great concept. "Dudley Henriques" wrote in message ... snip . If you have been taught properly by a good CFI, there is a very good chance that this last moment and breath you take as the learning stops won't be in an airplane. -- Dudley Henriques Comes in handy when my wife appears at the head of the stairs and asks me, "Do I look fatter in the red dress or the blue one hon?" That's when your survival training and judgemental ability complement each other. :-)) Roger (K8RI) :-)) |
#39
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Slow Flight
Some asked why we'd ever do slow flight or MCA in the pattern. We
don't practice it there, BUT one of our 150s went out with a student and instructor and blew a jug right off the engine as they were leaving the pattern. The had to fly almost the whole pattern at MCA just to keep it in the air and even then they were slowly losing altitude. They did make the runway and I hear it was a pretty good landing. The previous lesson had been slow flight and MCA |
#40
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Slow Flight
"Roger (K8RI)" wrote in message ... On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:19:06 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote: Comes in handy when my wife appears at the head of the stairs and asks me, "Do I look fatter in the red dress or the blue one hon?" That's when your survival training and judgemental ability complement each other. :-)) Not to mention very good health and "accident" insurance. |
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