Wander00 wrote:
ISTR the magic beam that when the gear went from "airbrake" to "down" cranked in x degrees of up elevator. In manual on an a roller (until they were banned) one worked like a one armed paperhanger, going between full power, electric trim, 90% power, gear up, re-trim, etc
Datum shift was simple and reliable - a piece of bike chain attached to the landing gear actuator which acted on the Hobson motor to add about 3° of TPI (not 'elevator') as the landing gear extended.
Manual rollers weren't banned in my day - even as a pretty cr@p student, my QFI trusted me to fly one...at night...at Mona.
Once the Gnat had been fitted with a feel trim position indicator, STUPRECCC became much easier - the 'T' part meant that setting the feel trim to the safe/ideal sector was easy. 'E', exhausting the accumulator with the TPI at the correct value was important, because the standby trim (actually nothing of the sort - it was an electric motor which moved the whole tailplane) could only be used to increase the TPI n-u value from the point of failure - and it didn't move that quickly. So on landing (or a roller) you set the specified value, accepted the push force and then relaxed it to flare - which was much easier than it sounds.
"Use the s'by trim (whether by using the left coaming switches or, via selecting the mod 399 switches, the stick top trim switches) to keep the control column load-free and central" was the sage advice I was given.
So important were the STUPRECCC and CUBSTUNT drills, that I can remember them today even though I can barely remember any checks for the 8 other types I flew subsequently - except for the Chipmunk and JP pre-landing checks, that is!