When I first did my PPL ( many moons ago) it was in a 'Learn in three weeks' school in sunny Florida. The worst mistake I ever made. I can remember now tightening climbing and descending turns by putting in more rudder and wondering if there was something wrong with ball as it was never in the centre, I am amazed I am still alive!
I came back here and and had some lessons with Dave Coulson and it was like a revelation. He taught me to lead the turn and more so, the rollout with the rudder assisted with aileron. It makes such a difference to the way the aircraft flies especially at slower speeds. (this paid dividends when I went on to fly seaplanes in the mountains of BC Canada where an uncoordinated turn will spin you in every time).
I am now sadly fanatical about rudder/aileron use.
For instance on the approach to landing I find that wing drop or misalignment with the runway is usually corrected by 80% of the pilots and students I get with hefty use of the ailerons, with the result that the nose ends up pointing in the wrong direction due to the adverse yaw, or we do a falling leaf approach (PIO).
In the PA 28 arrow if you use small aileron corrections for wing drop on approach the only thing that happens is that the ball moves from side to side. If however we feed the rudder into the equation not only do we get accurate small heading corrections, we find that we hardly need the ailerons at all.
In fact I get people to fly the approach with just rudder to make the point.
I have had people tell me that in a Cessna they need a bit of rudder on the full power climb but in a PA 28/38 you dont need it at all???
In a medium turn in a warrior it tends to overbank, so you need opposite aileron. ie in a right turn - left aileron. Therefore you need rudder to match this. So in a right turn you need left (or less right) rudder. This takes an inordinate amount of persuading of people who think the rudder turns the aeroplane like a boat.
I teach "you use the rudder because you use the ailerons". This is taught unequivocally frrom trial lesson onwards with no options.
I find that the people willing to take this on board can cope with a higher workload in the cockpit as the can fly S&L with just their feet while map reading or plog filling, and they have no trouble making smooth approaches even in windy conditions.
What do you think?
