PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Control column flailing during the flare - a dangerous practice by some pilots.
Old 24th Aug 2018, 17:02
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Vessbot
 
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When I started in the CRJ, I had a similar nervous habit: I would flail not on the elevator, but on the trim. With a tunnel visioned field of attention, I would trim for an elevator pressure (just what you're supposed to always do, right?) except that was the elevator pressure was what existed only in the last milliesecond. But when you're new, nervous, and tunnel visioned, that last millisecond is effectively your whole world.

Of course, with any amount of turbulence, there are constantly varying elevator pressures, and when trimming for them all, I would never establish a baseline. The trim and elevator were in constant motion (the trim being appropriate for a parcel air already far behind me) toward no particular end, and my already high workload was therefore only increasing, in a chaotic and positive feedback loop.

After I realized this, I taught myself after trimming to not touch the trim for at least a few seconds -- and handle any pitch needs with the elevator only. Then, if and only if I notice that a preponderance of my inputs were in one direction, I would retrim for that... and then repeat: leave the trim alone, fly for a bit, and then reevalutate whether my last few seconds of elevator use are equally up/down, or biased one way; rinse and repeat. Then things calmed down a lot, my workload decreased, which allowed more of my attention to the bigger picture, etc.

Last edited by Vessbot; 24th Aug 2018 at 22:52.
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