Definition of "properly trained IR pilot" includes, but is not limited to: proper initial IR training, proper type rating training and proper recurrent training. ~Clandestino~
That last is how one keeps one's skill at the necessary level.
The last two are now done in a simulator which maintains its physical heading, and can only simulate long term horizontal accelerations or very short term vertical (e.g. light turbulence). There is no spatial disorientation in a simulator. What makes you think it is now properly trained? ~Rudderrudderrat~
Fair enough point. The question remains open as to how often sims are used to train and reinforce good habits rather than check off a certain laundry list of mundane tasks. (Don't know enough, but from the comments here from a few airline professionals, I wonder).
That is a most excellent link, with well chosen excerpts about upsets and pilot reactions. Many thanks.
Most important and most often checked information in "blind flying" is attitude. If one cannot read it properly or cannot maintain it properly, the rest of instrument scan is in vain.
Unless one is on partial panel scan, of course.
(Per your earlier post ...) Performance as cross check for attitude ... which takes us to ...
When pilot is handflying by sole reference to instruments, it is important to keep movement smooth and precise to avoid unnecessary maneuvering that might upset pilot's sense of balance and induce illusions of turning or banking. Pilots who, when without outside visual reference, start flying by their senses instead by their instruments, get far more often killed than not. ~Clandestino~
The smooth takes practice, IMO.
So, as instrument rated pilot, I don't fly by feeling Gs, I fly by reference to my instruments.~Clandestino~
If I might add (for our non pilot readers) the pilot will often feel G's. It takes dedicated effort to ignore that and fly by what your instruments tell you.
Let me add to that, it is not only refence to the flight instruments, but also to the performance instruments . It ís in the former mentioned reference upset recovery training at the beginning.
It is not understandable to change altitude (intentional or unintentional) without attention to powersetting, speed change and vvi change. Change attitude, change power, except you want to accelerate in diving or decelerate in climbing. No need to wait what the speed will be doing, because that can bring one already behind the aircraft. ~Retired F4~
Zorin, bear with me. 447 is descending rapidly with a reasonable attitude ~bearfoil/Lyman~
Not so. If you aren't intent on climbing, 10-15 degrees nose up is not a reasonable pitch attitude, particularly for a rapid descent. If you want a rapid descent, you would in a reasonable flight regime have your pitch attitude below the horizon.
rudderrat ... I can't help thinking, "I really really don't want to go down into that storm," was bouncing around in that poor fellow's {PF} head. So, ironically, he descended all the way down through that storm he might have been trying with all his might and soul to avoid. ~JE-EE~
Could be, but we'll never know.
Back to Davies "when given the choice between stall and something else, try something else." What gets me in the gut is that the PF never seems to have acknowledged the fact of stall being his in-flight condition.
* Only experienced pilots would recover from "falling" by trying to fall faster. They've been trained that this is the way you get the required airspeed over the wings to give you lift. For real stick and rudder pilots and even military FBW pilots who have hours upon hours of active joysticking behind them this becomes the intuitive response as insane as it seems to a lay person. ~JE-EE~
I dont' quite agree. Caveat: I used to teach primary flight training in the Navy a few years ago. (For certain definitions of "few."
). The US Air Force has a similar approach.
Fairly early in the training syllabus, in flight, you teach the simple stall, which is a gentle maneuver. You trim the aircraft, stall it wings level, note that you are falling, then lower the nose to reduce AoA to unstall it (and of course add power to resume airspeed and altitude.)
A few flights later, the spin is taught. You raise the nose up quite a bit higher, and at stall (you get a bit of buffet or a rudder shaker) you kick in full rudder to induce a three dimensional upset. You depart in the direction of the rudder. Your nose is down as you fall. You end up recovering in the T-34C (as we did in the T-28B/C in the era when dirt was recent) by applying full opposite rudder, and stick
forward of neutral. (Well,
slightly forward is the correct technique).
But this is taught VFR.
Spins on instruments (me under the bag, the flight must be in VFR so that the check pilot isn't in actual IFR doing spins) isn't something I was exposed to until I was trying to get my special instrument rating. That was about 2000 hours into my flying career.
But my point is that the idea of lowering nose to get out of a stall is taught early on. (If I am not mistaken, this is likewise taught in Cessna's in civil aviation, but maybe there are subtle differences I am not aware of).
The "experienced pilot" bit you suggest seems to me an "in IMC" limited condition. So while I agree somewhat on your point there, I disagree that it is only experienced pilots who will lower the nose to overcome falling in a stall. Any pilot would do that, if he or she recognized being in a stall.
What is critical IMO here is that with Airspeed on the fritz, the typical cross check on performance information (as AoA isn't available in the c/p) was missing. Why he'd not believe he was stalled when nose was up and VSI was high descent and altitude was clicking off is another point, but typical upset/out of control flight remedy procedures will include checking your airspeed to see if you are stalled or not (or at an unsuitable airspeed). So, even if he'd had some training on stalls, his cross check of performance would have been frustrated early in the event since early on, he didn't have airspeed as a valid cross check ... and he knew that. He knew it so well that even as airspeed (in retrospect) seems to have returned to utility, he would not or could not or did not check it so ascertain his in flight condition ... other than falling nose-high. <= That condition didn't trigger the correct response from three different pilots.
And I'll wager that that condition isn't part of typical sim training, or at least wasn't.