PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - So when does it all click?
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 11:42
  #81 (permalink)  
9 lives
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
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To keep banging on about angle of attack as if we don't get it is not getting us anywhere. We do "get it".
The problem is convincing you that we get it.
I think some get it, I have doubts about others. However, each poster here is accountable to themselves, and maybe an instructor - not SSD, Crash, nor any other poster here.

As stated, AoA awareness will be one of those "click" moments, and the new pilot probably won't realize that click has happened until they look back upon their own improved skills, and understand that is has.

SSD mentions aerobatics as a great way to refine the understanding of AoA, G and speed as it relates to stalling. I do agree, but as he says, aircraft availability makes that impractical as a learning tool for the masses - we just don't have enough aerobatic planes nor instructors to go around.

So we're going to have to train and mentor the new pilots with the resources available. The challenge is though that this is one of those skills which has a large element of learning which can be done only hands on, and with lots of practice. I doubt that most of the PPL's out there want to spend their hours or two of rental a month practicing stalls and slow flight, when they could take their mates or significant others for a flight somewhere.

Stall awareness and airplane handling is a perishable skill. Once a pilot has done a few hundred stalls in different types, that skill will have a longer shelf life, but still not indefinite. A month ago I did ten hours training with a 300 pilot, which included 20 approach and landings where precise stall awareness was a primary element. The aircraft was fitted with an Alpha Systems AoA indicator, and we focused a lot on using it. It worked very well. But it too was only a part of a good approach, and even while flying with it, I still had to correct a few approaches.

This goes to show the importance of a "whole knowledge" of the subject, not just picking points and declaring "I get it". Anyone here being offended because someone else does not seem to get it is pointless, but each pilot reading need to know that their own life may depend upon their getting it!
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