GROWTH OVER COMFORT

Acknowledgements: AIR FACTS ( Jerry Ziegler)

(Ed. Note: No heavy lesson this time... thanks to Jerry just a scenario that one or two of you might admit to identifying with ...)

“Growth over comfort. I’m not sure when I learned that phrase or where I heard it, but it completely sums up my experiences of becoming a pilot. 

I certainly was not comfortable the first time that small plane rose off the runway. I was not comfortable the first time I heard that stall horn blare, and I certainly was not comfortable the first time I turned final and my instructor said, “Your airplane.” So I guess that means I must be growing.

My grandfather was a pilot and I wanted to fly airplanes as long as I can remember. The first time I saw Top Gun and the first time my family visited the Wright Brothers Memorial in North Carolina were important moments for me and my growth. I always told myself that one day I would take lessons and get my license. I talked and dreamed so long about the trips I would take and the places I would go that before I knew it I was almost 40. Would I ever actually become a pilot? ...........

About three weeks after my son was born, my wife, my son, and I were at the airport to take my first flight. I had almost finished ground school and purchased books and some small items of equipment and I was ready to go. 

It was a drizzly, overcast day, but the CFI had assured me that we were still able to fly VFR. The ceiling was thousands of feet high and it would not be a problem to fly that day. I was just proud that I knew what VFR meant. I was in ground school after all and well on my way to becoming a pilot.

Then I had just a sudden fleeting thought. It came and went within seconds. But it was there. What if I didn’t enjoy the flight? I dismissed it. Of course I would enjoy it. In fact, the CFI may even tell me I just executed the greatest first flight in all of aviation history. Yeah, that’s probably what would happen. 

We continued on with the introductory lesson. We talked about the basic principles of flight and the controls. I tried to interject any knowledge I had at that point to let the CFI know I wasn’t the average student. I really knew what I was doing. Besides, how many pilots has this guy come across whose grandfather was a pilot? Not many, I bet. I really enjoyed the pre-flight and was excited to get moving.

After completing our run-up, we taxied the Piper to the runway. I moved the throttle forward and we bombed on down the concrete. I’ll never forget the feeling of lifting away from the ground and breaking the bounds of gravity. COMPLETE AND UTTER TERROR!. I remember squeezing the yoke while screaming inside my head, “HIGH ENOUGH! HIGH ENOUGH! TOO HIGH, TOO HIGH!”

Before we even exited the pattern, all I could think of was how I was never interested in flying again. How I had spent/wasted all this money on ground school and flight books, flight bag and fancy instruments from the fun online catalogue I poured over for hours.

I thought about how all I wanted was to make it back to solid ground and have breakfast with my family. “How ya doin’?” the CFI asked. “I’m good. This is nice.” Good? Nice? What was I thinking? This is an insane death mission only for psychotics who want to die. Please ... just let me survive this!

“Loosen your grip on the yoke,” he said. “Fly with just a few fingers. A light grip.” I loosened up a bit as sweat was literally dripping from my hands onto my pants. The whole flight lasted about 30 minutes even though it felt like it lasted 30 hours.

But as we were climbing and descending, turning left and turning right, something happened. I started to feel calmer and a little more comfortable. I thought that maybe I coulddo this. Maybe with hard work and persistence Icould be a pilot. Maybe I could show my son that his rapidly ageing father was pretty cool. That his dad could be a pilot. 

Maybe my son could see that hecould be whatever he wanted, too. That by growing, we can accomplish anything we set our mind to. By getting out of our comfort zone, we could grow the most.

I did stick with flying. I can’t even remember how many flights it took me to stop feeling reallyuncomfortable beforehand. Then, I just felt a littleuncomfortable. I grow every time I climb into that small, cramped cabin and take off down the runway for another hour. I have a little over 20 hours at the point of this writing and I can’t wait to add some more. Even if I feel a little uncomfortable about it. 

I know that I’m growing as a person.

FLY SAFE!

LESSONS FROM THE REAL WORLD .....

Acknowledgements: Thomas P. Turner (Mastery Flight Training Inc.)

(Ed. Note: Theory is fine, but we can also learn from studying actual events as Thomas illustrates below ...)

“FLYING LESSONS” uses recent aircraft mishap reports to consider what might have contributed to accidents, so you can make better decisions if you face similar circumstances. © 2018 Mastery Flight Training, Inc.

Australia’s Air Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) reports:

“On the morning of 21 February 2017, the pilot of a Beechcraft B200 King Air aircraft was conducting a charter passenger flight from Essendon Airport, Victoria to King Island, Tasmania with four passengers on board.

The aircraft’s take-off roll was longer than expected, and a yaw to the left was observed after rotation. The aircraft’s track began diverging to the left of the runway centreline before rotation and the divergence increased as the flight progressed. The aircraft entered a shallow climb followed by a substantial left sideslip with minimal roll. The aircraft then began to descend and the pilot transmitted a Mayday call. It subsequently collided with a building in the Bulla Road Precinct Retail Outlet Centre of Essendon Airport.

The aircraft was destroyed by the impact and post-impact fire, and all on board were fatally injured. The building was severely damaged and two people on the ground received minor injuries.

A superficial look at the early data from the crash makes it easy to conclude this was a case of engine failure on take-off and loss of directional control that led to a departure from the planned flight path and ultimately a collision with obstacles. 

There were clues, however, that might suggest something different had happened. Most notably, ATSB noted that airplane was in a “substantial left sideslip with minimal roll”. An engine failure usually includes both a yawing (slip or skid) and a roll component. ATSB reported the airplane had not begun to roll, only that it yawed.

... the crash wascaused by something completely different. In its final report this week, ATSB writes:

“… the pilot did not detect that the aircraft’s rudder trim was in the full nose-left position prior to take-off. The position of the rudder trim resulted in a loss of directional control and had a significant impact on the aircraft’s climb performance in the latter part of the flight. There were several other factors involved in the accident flight, but ATSB does not consider them to have had a significant effect on the outcome.

ATSB’s conclusions are summed up in its Safety Message contained within the final report, which states:

·      Cockpit checklists are an essential tool for overcoming limitations with pilot memory, and ensuring that action items are completed in sequence and without omission. The improper or non-use of checklists has been cited as a factor in some aircraft accidents. Research has shown that this may occur for varying reasons and that experienced pilots are not immune to checklist errors. This accident highlights the critical importance of appropriately actioning and completing checklists.

This accident was simply the result of forgetting to set the trim for take-off. This can happen in light, personal airplanes just as readily as it did in this heavy King Air. Checking the trim position(s) is a vital part of every Before Take-off checklist. Trim, after all, drives the position of primary flight controls, and the faster you’re going the more effective trim becomes in moving control surfaces (because greater air flow increases trim effectiveness). 

The only time I’ve been called as a potential expert witness turns out to be the case of improperly set trim as well. A turbocharged Beech Bonanza was departing when  its forward cabin door popped open just as the airplane lifted off. We teach pilots to properly secure the door before flight - to do it themselves, not let a passenger close the door. We demonstrate that if the door opens at lift-off, aerodynamics prevent closing the door in flight. We practice flying the airplane with only slightly degraded performance back to a landing. Once back on the ground, secure the door and take off again.

The pilot flew the pattern, landed and closed the door. Yes, he did everything right … except he did not re-set the elevator trim before his second take-off. With power application at the beginning of take-off, and with the trim set in the landing position, the airplane will pitch up dramatically. That’s what apparently happened, because the Bonanza stalled right after lift-off, killing the pilot -  all because the trim was not properly set.

How can we protect ourselves, our passengers and those beneath our flight path from the effects of improperly set trim for take-off?

·      Use your checklists. Confirm during your Before Take-off checks that all moveable trim tabs are in their correct take-off position.

·      Confirm trim position before every take-off, even if it’s not the first take-off of a flight. 

·      Abort take-off at the first indication of a difficulty or inability to maintain directional control. As a guideline, keep the runway centre-line between the main wheels. If the airplane drifts enough that one of the mains touches the centre-line, abort the take-off. It might be a wind issue, it might be power loss in a twin, it may be a trim problem … you don’t know the cause yet, but you know the effect. Stop your take-off and figure it out.

Often it’s the little things which set off a chain reaction which results in a mishap. It’s easy to forget the little things when you’re busy, or distracted, or in a rush - and suddenly they are not so little any more. 

That’s why we have checklists - one last way to catch those little things like trim before they have a big effect on the success of a flight. No matter what you fly, complete a Before Take-off Final Items checklist appropriate to your aircraft”.

FLY SAFE!

FLYING HEAVY ... ADDENDUM

Acknowledgements: Thomas P. Turner (Mastery Flight Training Inc.)

Reader and well-known flight instructor Zdravko Podolski writes about last week’s LESSONS on airplane weight, centre of gravity, stability and control:

“One minor correction to an otherwise excellent FLYING LESSON. For any given weight, an aft loaded conventional airplane will actually fly at a lower angle of attack than if it was forward loaded. One of the reasons why the Bonanza was so efficient... Happy to go into it in more depth if you wish, but if in doubt just remember what the horizontal stabilizer does”.

Tom responded: 

... You’re correct: if the pilot maintains a constant vertical speed an aft-loaded airplane will fly at a lower angle of attack. To visualise this, think of an airplane maintaining altitude while loaded at the rear of its envelope. It will tend to pitch upward compared to a more fully forward loaded airplane. Because it pitches upward, it tends to climb. Consequently, the pilot must trim the nose further down- to a lower angle of attack - to maintain altitude. 

What I meant to emphasize is that the aft-CG airplane will tend to pitch up, increasing its angle of attack, unless the pilot provides more forcethan normal for the vertical speed he/she desires. Apply the “usual” pressure necessary to flare for landing in an airplane loaded farther aft that you’re used to, and the angle of attack will increase more than you’d normally expect. The lower breakout forces and reduced pitch stability (both described in last week’s LESSONS) make this an even greater hazard for the pilot not used to flight at the aft limits of the loading envelope. Thanks for helping me clarify and emphasize this point, Zdravko.

FLY SAFE!

FLYING HEAVY ....

Acknowledgements: Thomas P. Turner (Mastery Flight Training Inc.)

A heavily loaded airplane is usually loaded further toward the aft end of the envelope than many pilots are used to. Passengers and baggage that make up the extra weight which drives the gross weight upward are usually added to the aft part of the cabin, moving the centre of gravity (CG) toward the aft end of the weight and balance envelope.

Even within the approved envelope, compared to a more forward CG condition, for any given indicated airspeed the aft-loaded airplane will: 

• tend to pitch upward more
• fly at a higher angle of attack 
• be less stable in pitch (tend to nose up and down, and not maintain a given attitude) 
• take less force on the elevator to change the pitch attitude, or conversely, respond more dramatically to the same amount of control input

The rearward CG limit of an aircraft is determined largely by considerations of stability. The original airworthiness requirements for a type certificate specify that an aircraft in flight at a certain speed dampens out vertical displacement of the nose within a certain number of oscillations. 

An aircraft loaded too far rearward may not do this. Instead, when the nose is momentarily pulled up, it may alternately climb and dive, becoming steeper with each oscillation. This instability is not only uncomfortable to occupants, but it could even become dangerous by making the aircraft unmanageable under certain conditions.

When entering a landing flare in an airplane loaded toward the aft end of its envelope, if the pilot applies the same amount of aft elevator control he/she is conditioned to add, the result will be a greater nose-up pitch and a higher angle of attack. The airplane will tend to flare high; it may stall and “drop in” for a hard landing.

Such a flare often results in one of three outcomes:

1. The airplane hits hard on the main landing gear, possibly blowing the tires or damaging the gear and causing the airplane to go out of control on the runway.
2. The stall occurs high enough above the ground that the nose drops far enough for the nose gear to hit the ground first. The nose gear collapses and the pilot may or may not lose directional control.
3. Either attempting to correct for the stall or after initial impact with the ground, the pilot enters a Pilot-Induced Oscillation - that is exacerbated by the stability effects of aft CG and quickly increases in amplitude until the nose gear collapses and/or the pilot loses directional control. 

Most flight training occurs with two persons on board and somewhere between half-full and completely full fuel tanks. Unless you’re in a Cessna 152 or a J-3 Cub or similar, this is a fairly light airplane weight with the centre of gravity near the forward edge of the envelope.

Your experience with take-offs, landings, go-arounds, stalls and other high angle of attack manoeuvres, then, is usually under the best conditions of stability and handling your aircraft can provide. If the airplane has a high useful load capability and/or a wide centre of gravity range, the airplane’s stability and control response in common accident scenarios may be very different from those which you encounter in training. 

Very frequently, hard landings and airport-environment Loss of Control – Inflight (LOC-I) involve a heavily-loaded airplane and/or one in which the CG is toward the aft end of the envelope.  Your conditioned response to these scenarios, reinforced in practice and instruction, may not be adequate for recovery from performance excursions under these conditions.

Perhaps we should all carefully load our aircraft near the aft end of its CG envelope at the airplane’s maximum weight, and with an instructor experienced and current in that type of airplane go up and practice slow flight, stalls, go-arounds, and high performance (short- and soft-field) take-offs and landings in this condition. If your airplane is one that has a large rearward movement of the centre of gravity with fuel burn, you might also practice these manoeuvres at lighter weights but with the CG near the aft limit.

Performing this exercise does three things for you:

1. It refreshes you on the process of computing aircraft weight and balance. My experience is that very few pilots feel confident in making a loading calculation. This suggests that they rarely do so and are less likely to know when their airplane is loaded at the edges of the envelope - or even outside it
2. You’ll gain an appreciation for the changes in airplane stability, performance and handling across its entire range of approved loading 
3. You’ll be better practised and ready for a high-performance take-off and landing, go-arounds and stall recoveries in conditions more typical of the way you may routinely fly your airplane … conditions less represented by the way you’ve been trained and evaluated on these skills

Ask your instructor to help you train for common LOC-I scenarios, and to avoid hard landings, by experiencing them at weights and load distributions more typical of how you fly the airplane. It might be a good focus of your next Flight Review or other training event.

FLY SAFE!

THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS AS THEY SEEM.........

Acknowledgements: Rod Machado

(Ed. Note: An interesting technique for anyone experiencing difficulty in touching down gently ….)

“When I was a very young flight instructor in the right seat of a Cessna 210, I witnessed a very unusual behaviour. The fellow I observed looked like he was performing miniature push-ups on the yoke, moving the elevator forward and aft in small increments during the landing flare. It appeared that he was pumping himself up to get down, and he continued these shenanigans until the wheels kissed the concrete below.

Stranger than the act was the action. While doing his routine, and despite the forward and aft elevator movement, I hardly felt the airplane pitch up or down, nor did I feel his subsequent smooth landing. Equally remarkable was the fact that his landings were consistently smooth nearly every time I flew with him.

What was 210 Man doing here? Why would someone push and pull on the elevator control during the landing? And why would this behaviour result in little or no pitch acceleration during the flare, much less a smooth touchdown? The answer lies with a concept I later came to call the threshold of immediate control.

One of the reasons pilots have difficulty making smooth landings is their failure to anticipate and compensate for ground effect during the flare. As an airplane approaches the runway surface, the wing’s downwash on the tail decreases, resulting in the nose pitching forward. The manner in which downwash affects the airplane is sometimes irregular and inconsistent, making it difficult to anticipate, much less control, the downward-pitching nose.

It’s as if the downward pitch of the nose sneaks up on a pilot and doesn’t allow much time for reaction. The result is often a series of over- and under-corrections and eventually a hard landing. If it were possible to compensate for the change in downwash by a linear increase in back pressure on the yoke, pilots would land more smoothly more consistently, because most of us routinely attempt to pull back steadily on the yoke as we flare. That’s what we were taught to do. But there’s nothing linear about elevator control forces during the flare, especially when flying larger single-engine airplanes.

There are many variables affecting the rate and degree to which the nose pitches forward in these conditions (weight, C.G., aircraft type, control surface size, and perhaps phases of the moon). To compensate for these variables (and make smoother landings as a result), 210 Man manipulated the yoke with small back and forth movements. His constant probing let him find the sweet spot where any further pull would cause the nose to rise and any less would cause it to fall. He was on the threshold of immediate control.

His technique prevented the natural forward pitching of the nose from catching him unaware. By manipulating the flight controls in this way, he knew precisely when to pull aft on the elevator and the precise amount of pressure with which to pull to maintain the desired closure rate with the runway.

To better understand this technique, here’s another way of looking at how you can apply it.

After the round-out and during the flare, apply continuous elevator back pressure, but do so in small pull-and-release motions. Think about pulling just far enough aft so that the nose would rise beyond the desired pitch if you pulled even a tiny bit more. As you begin to release a tiny bit of elevator pull, you’ll find a point where the nose would drop with any additional release of pressure. You’ve arrived at the threshold of immediate control. But the threshold is always moving, so you have to keep testing. It’s the constant recalibration resulting from this pull-release motion that allows you to make the airplane’s nose stay right where you want it to stay, and lets you retain immediate control of the airplane’s attitude. This means that the airplane’s nose shouldn’t unsuspectingly pitch downward without your being able to immediately stop its motion.

Now, you’d think the plane would be jumping up and down like one of those mechanical bulls in a Texas bar. The pull-release motions, however, are small enough (if they’re done correctly) that no one in the cockpit will feel any vertical pitch acceleration. This is especially true in heavier single-engine airplanes, where small elevator movements don’t result in the airplane’s immediate vertical acceleration. On the other hand, the lighter the airplane the more immediate will be the vertical acceleration from even small elevator movements.

The proper application of this technique requires proportionally smaller forward and aft yoke movements to remain in the threshold of immediate control when flying airplanes in the weight class of a Cessna 150 or J-3 Cub.

Despite the lack of pitch acceleration, you’ll still see the controls moving forward and aft during the flare. That’s what propelled my eyebrows when observing 210 Man many years ago. This movement doesn’t matter as long as the airplane isn’t pitching up and down and annoying anyone on board. Remember, there are many ways to fly an airplane, and this is just one technique to help some pilots make smoother landings.

Over the years, I’ve observed this technique being used by pilots who I suspect had experienced a decline in their kinetic, visual or tactile sense (perhaps because they counted sunspots for recreation and/or manicured their fingernails with power tools). It took me a while to realize that what they were really doing was amplifying their sense of elevator response. In this way, they were seldom surprised by a sudden change in attitude because they were continuously making micro control adjustments on the yoke and thus compensating for the tail’s aerodynamic surrender as it neared the runway.

As an aside, this pull-release technique is often used by pilots making extreme short field landings. Pilots operate deep in the region of reversed command during these landings. Slight forward and aft movement on the elevator lets them know how much (if any) aft elevator travel is still available, as well as how effective the elevator response is at that instant. The moment the elevator hits the stops, the pilots knows he’s reached the limit of the pitch envelope and must now compensate with a change of power or forward pitch.

By practising with the threshold of immediate control during a few landings, you will gain a better idea of how best to flare your airplane. I’ve used this strategy successfully with students transitioning to larger machines, where the stick forces are noticeably heavier throughout the flare.

Ideally, you should apply one continuous increasing pull on the elevator during landing. As you get to know your airplane by using the pull-release technique, you’ll be in a better position to approach the ideal.

Or not. Some people have a difficult time making landings any way other than pull-release. So be it. While it may look a bit strange to a close observer or new flight instructor, at least they’ll land as softly as a butterfly with sore feet".

FLY SAFE!

DON’T TURN A PRACTICE EMERGENCY INTO A REAL EMERGENCY

DON’T TURN A PRACTICE EMERGENCY INTO A REAL EMERGENCY

Acknowledgements:  AIR FACTS/Tom Curran

“I was out at my local airport one recent afternoon, watching planes beat up (or should I say pulverize), the traffic pattern, and I saw something that really made me wonder what folks were thinking. 

I observed one locally-based Cessna 172 try to execute a simulated engine-out emergency landing on our 5,000 ft-long runway. I could see that there were two people in the airplane, but I can’t say for sure that it involved a CFI giving dual instruction.

They flew a very tight base-to-final turn, and were still pretty high over the threshold; I’d estimate around 200-300 ft AGL.

The winds were light, and it looked like they had partial flaps extended. Since they were obviously going to land very long, and really did have power available, I was betting they would abort this attempt and try it again.

I was a bit surprised when they continued their descent to the runway. (Hmmm… Maybe they really do have a problem…) I don’t remember seeing anything that looked like full-flaps coming down, but they appeared to try a fairly weak attempt at a forward slip when they got down to maybe 100 ft.

By this time, they were way past mid-field, and I could just barely see them over the curve of the earth (I was sitting adjacent to the approach end). I’m guessing they landed about 4000 feet down the runway.  So, I was even more surprised when they executed a touch-and-go out of it!

“So what?” you may ask; “A 172 can get airborne in less than 1000 feet.”  That’s not the point. The point is: Don’t create a possible real emergency situation while simulating an emergency.  If you’re doing engine-out landings, give yourself a reasonable distance to put it down on the runway; after all, you’re practicing for a possible worst-case scenario of having to land in a very small, tight, confined space. 

If you’re not going to make it, penalize yourself by going around (which we also need to practice), and trying it again, and again, and again, as necessary.  If you have a real emergency, and end up with 5000 ft of runway available – great!

Continuing that approach to a touch-and-go served no purpose, except to put that crew in peril if their touch-and-go didn’t go as expected”.

FLY SAFE!