Farnborough and ETPS Continued
From Unpublished Incomplete Memoirs covering most TP activities. Experience before ETPS, post flying training, was combat tour flying Mustangs in Korean war, QFI 3 yrs, CFS 2 yrs. Hours flown pre ETPS 2000, Types - Tiger Moth, Wirraway, Dakota, Mustang, Vampire, Lincoln, Valetta, S51 Helicopter, Sabre.
I found myself wondering how to define the level of a pilot's expertise and then how to apply similar definitions of levels to the test pilot. Why was a good pilot different from a bad pilot and how could this be quantified. My conclusions then have not changed much with increasing experience. A pilot or car driver or anyone handling equipment requiring a reasonable level of co-ordination is good or bad depending on his ability to contribute to the total control and feedback loops which combine to cause the machine to perform to the greatest satisfaction of the intended design. Generally with aircraft or cars or other means of human transportation, the ultimate aim is for the pilot/driver to control the machine in the smoothest and most efficient manner. Disturbances arising from external influences need to be smoothed out by compensating control inputs from the pilot. The inputs from the pilot need to be applied without abrupt transitions as they affect our normal senses and always within structural and performance limits.
It then follows that if a pilot has a high natural sensitivity to subtle acceleration forces he will be able to react at very low thresholds of these forces and achieve high levels of damping. The result is the smoothest possible progress.
This is best appreciated by two aspects of car driving. We are all very aware of the driver who allows a car to wander from side to side along a lane on a highway only taking corrective action by a deliberate turn of the steering wheel when his level of sensitivity at last detects an excursion which, to him, should be corrected. This driver does not apply slight pressures to the wheel to keep the deviations in check at low levels. Instead, he is more likely to deliberately and suddenly turn the wheel so that the unfortunate passengers are continually being subject to changing lateral accelerations which cause their heads to be forced from side to side. Translate this into four dimensions in an aircraft and it becomes easier to appreciate the differences between pilots.
The other part of car control, where almost universal malpractice persists, occurs during stopping. With brakes applied, the average driver fails to flair down the deceleration just before stopping. The result is an uncomfortable lurch when the deceleration abruptly stops. Many average pilots torture their more sensitive passengers and aircraft with the same treatment.
Smoothness of control is basic to good piloting. Smoothness can only be learned to a limited degree. High levels of natural sensitivity with all of the senses then provides the good pilot with an ability to detect a myriad of other inputs and cues providing extensions to his nervous system to encompass the total aircraft and its systems. Instruments provide further extensions in addition or where no natural cues are present.
As a passenger in an aircraft, I can readily tell the sensitivity of its pilot soon after taxying starts. If the brakes are released in such a manner that passengers lurch in their seats then the odds are there is an insensitive pilot in the feedback loop. If, when stopping the pilot does not flair off deceleration as speed approaches zero then we have another uncomfortable lurch situation. This is very common with insensitive or careless car drivers. The manner of use of nose-wheel steering gives another clear indication to the smoothness of a pilot before flight.
After taxying with a poor pilot, I know that I am in for poorly coordinated flight in the air. I also know from experience that the non smooth pilot will have difficulty in handling abnormal circumstances. He may be able to do it by rote or by the book but there will be that edge of finesse which will always be missing.
Recognition by the test pilot of the limitations of the whole range of pilots leads to the definition of safety margins covering almost all aspects of aircraft handling, control and cockpit design. Obviously, the test pilot can hardly describe the stability of an aircraft as satisfactory if only he is able to fly it. He must always be aware of the limitations of the worst pilot who may be permitted to fly. The result of all the derived limitations and standard requirements is that today we have aircraft which are all easy and safe for the average pilot to fly. As pilot ability decreases from the average, his degree of difficulty rises but rarely to the extent where a desired level of safety is jeopardised.
The TPS course could not possibly cover the vast range of engineering and manufacturing aspects of aviation in any detail but it was instrumental in giving us the basis for design and handling and making us aware of the significant responsibilities we would have in the future to ensure that the established design philosophies continued to be upheld and improved.
Significantly also, the ETPS course gave us the confidence and indeed the ability to be able to make adequate preparation to climb in to yet another aircraft type and be able to make adequate preparations for the first flight of a newly designed or modified aircraft. We became expert in recognising the essentials whilst deliberately discarding the non-essentials in launching an aircraft and in being able to cope with malfunctions of any sort. We became expert at observing and recording intricate details on our knee pads or into tape recorders whilst doing all required to operate an aircraft safely to the edges of their handling and performance envelopes. All of this was in an environment which, on most flights, was all but friendly and always variable.
Aircraft cockpit standardisation was still in its infancy so we had to cope with a great variety of switches, levers, indicators and instruments to achieve similar results. We were essentially the "standard man" as detailed in the AVP970 and so became very aware of man's physical limitations of reach, muscular strengths, vision day/night, tactile feel and all of these within the unforgiving realities of g forces, oxygen supply and extremes of temperature. It was not until the early 60s that we TPs were able to collectively insist on all vital cockpit controls being arranged so that switches and levers be all forward or up for take-off.
We had come a long way in a very short time since the Wright brothers and Cody at Farnborough. Before their first tentative flights, man had for some centuries been preoccupied with attempts to emulate birds. Knowledge of the properties of air flowing around objects puzzled engineers for many years. Basic knowledge of stability and control essential for safe flight took many generations to develop.