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Old 22nd Nov 2007, 17:07
  #66 (permalink)  
socalflyer
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: San Diego, Ca
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Be aware of errors in the ACE book

Just a word of caution for people interviewing. Apparently there are many errors in this book as shown in the review below. This was for the 2002 edition. I don't think a revised book has been published.

"This book is literally full of errors and inaccuracies. While it has helped me refresh my memory a bit, one really has to be careful and critical to avoid learning wrong answers! Sometimes the given answer is even exactly the opposite of the correct answer. Some examples:

1. What is Dutch Roll?
"(...) the outer, upward-moving wing stalls and loses all lift, and therefore the wing drops."
The author doesn't have a clue of how Dutch roll works. The wing certainly does not stall, Dutch roll actually starts out as a very gentle instability. And why would the upward-moving, faster wing stall anyway? When a wing is going up, its AOA decreases! If one wing should stall, it should be the other one. Obviously, neither does.

2. The critical engine on a crosswind take-off is NOT the downwind engine. It is in fact the upwind engine. A crosswind from the left does not apply "a restoring force to the right", it in fact makes the aircraft want to turn left into the wind (weathervane effect). When he's already holding a lot of right rudder in a left crosswind (as any airline pilot should know), the author would prefer to lose the left engine?!

3. Vortex generators are not there for "preventing spanwise flow" but for making the boundary layer turbulent so it doesn't detach as early as a laminar flow. To prevent spanwise flow, winglets or fences are used.

4. "Density is defined as mass per unit of volume of a substance. By definition, a block of gas is less dense than the same size block of liquid, which is less dense than the same size block of solid".
Has the author ever wondered why ice floats, then?! "By definition", it should sink.

I could go on and on quoting other errors. There's one on every few pages."
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