Can we learn anything new here?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

It is getting near my bedtime here on Vancouver Island and I thought I would ask all you people out there if you ever learn anything new here that may sway the way you fly your airplanes?

Just over a week ago I started a thread asking why so many people fly the final approach correcting for drift by side slipping.

The response was quite active with almost 7500 views and 230 posts so far.

For an internet forum that thread has been so polite and so on topic it is almost frightening. :O

Most of you will be back on Pprune long before I get out of bed tomorrow so I will be very interested in finding out if these discussions have any real value.

we need new people to get involved, there are far to many who never post for what ever reason...

....And the private pilot group are by far the most important group here because they fly for the joy of it and this is a free learning environment where you can sift between the valuable opinions and the B.S. opinions.

As we see in the side slip discussion each question and idea is being carefully dissected and a pattern is emerging.

Talk to you all tomorrow.

Chuck E.

[SidT]

As a relatively low-hours (about 100) PPL in the UK who has just returned in the last few months to the wonderful world of the sky after a 23 year lapse... I find most of the discussions interesting, thought-provoking and informative (in one way or another).... I don't comment much because my experience is low.

The crab/side-slip discussion was extremely interesting and I am pleased that I was taught both methods and tend to use a combination of the two (crab down and cross-control as I de-crab if needed).

Thanks.. and keep 'em coming.

Sid

[piperboy84]

It is not overstatement to say I have basically learned to fly from pprunes private flying page,

I passed my private 20 years ago, then started flying 4 years ago after a 8 years of little or no flying, my skills were rusty in some areas to non existent in others and doubt I would have been able to pass my ppl had I been obligated to re-sit it.

I could not possibly list all the things I have learned or re-learned but here's a stab at just a few:

Runway sighting and flare judgement technique
Proper carb heat use
Engine (lycoming 360) best practiced and efficiencies at altitude
Navigation and mental math estimation and guesstimating
ATC operations and interaction
Flight instruments explained
Aerodynamics
W&B CG etc.

And many many more,

Not to blow smoke up the contributors arses but BPF,FBW,MJ,GTE and the Canadian guy with the 152 and Teal who,s name escapes me right now along with several others have been unbelievabley helpful in not only explaining things but making me go find resources to dig deeper into subjects that I did not know about or was having trouble grasping,

So to answer your question, I can say without a doubt this forum makes people better and safer pilots, it certainly has for me.

[dubbleyew eight]

due to family, home payments and stuff I ran out of money for flying at about 85 hours.
18 1/2 years later and the hormonal surges that bring about the midlife crisis were undeniable. so I decided to but the urge to use and get back flying.

I spent a year reading pprune before trying any flying.
I also re read all the theory (trevor thom series).

oh in australia at the time the bull**** of having to totally requalify if you hadnt flown for 3 years had been abolished and pilot's licences had become perpetual.
two months later I found an instructor.

I would do a training flight, then spend the rest of the day and the next day analysing the problems and researching the solutions.
we continued like that for 4 flights.

after shutdown at the end of the 4th flight I was feeling pretty good. nothing had overwhelmed me during the flight and I'd even contended with a near miss in the circuit.

the instructor turned to me in the cockpit. he said dont let this stroke your ego but you are pretty :mad: incredible. you next flight will be with the CFI for final sign off. I have students that havent flown for a year and 10 hours later they are still hopeless. you are back up to speed in 4 hours after 18 years away from it. :mad: incredible.

at 4:45 back into it the CFI signed me off with a pat on the back.

I have now flown 400 or so hours in a W8 Tailwind and am restoring 2 austers.

I must say that pprune was the key to it all. the diversity of subjects discussed pushed my memory back into all the corners and blew away all the cobwebs.:ok:

pprune isnt all frustrated vitriolic pilots, there are some gems here.

[mad_jock]

I don't know about learning anything new.....

I have learned plenty of old stuff that seemed to be missing all the way through my PPL,CPL and IR.

And that old stuff works a treat I might add.

[Heston]

One of the pieces of advice often given to PPL students is to hang around at the flying school or club and to get involved in the conversations there - not just to turn up for their lesson and go home straight after - because they'll learn lots from the discussion. Same goes for folk later in their flying careers - the reason for the barroom discussion is that we know we need to keep on learning and that the views of others and their experiences are a great way to learn.


This place is the internet version of the flying club bar. So yes there's lots to learn here.


But just like any clubroom you have to work out over time who is worth listening to, who is going to exaggerate, who makes it up as they go along, etc etc

[Johnm]

I learn lots from here, even though I've got a fair bit of experience now, others on here and elsewhere have far more.

Much of it is about there being more than one way to skin a cat, the cross wind approach being a particularly good case study.

I also learn about flying I don't do, such as mountains and tailwheel and aerobatics, which is just interesting.

All shared knowledge and experience enhances your flying enjoyment and hopefully your skill and judgement too.

[thing]

PPRuNe isnt all frustrated vitriolic pilots,Didn't know there were any! Why would you waste a lot of money on an expensive hobby if it makes you miserable? Just send your money to me instead and have a happier life on the ground. Hey I claim copywrite to that idea as well.

I second the 'hanging around in the crewroom' idea as well. This is like a virtual crewroom at times, I've learned some interesting stuff on here. I don't think I would apply any of it in real life without running it by a real life experienced pilot first, as you just don't know whether the guy with a claimed 20,000 hrs on everything from microlights to the SR-71 is really a 12 year old using Google.

There used to be a guy on here who had flown everything in every theatre you can think of who I suspected slightly. If you added up all of his experiences he would have been about 300 years old.

I mentioned to Chuck the other day that the problem with t'internet is that 80% of all human communication is visual; which of course doesn't happen on a forum. There's also a tendency (on any forum I might add) for feet to dig in occasionally and the 'my way is right' viewpoint is bandied around. There can be too much technicallity, IMO obviously. I remember one thread about circuits that went into detailed theories about the correct angles to turn at various points, which got very silly. I made the comment that I fly my circuits so that they look about right which kind of killed it dead. Maybe one or two wannabees around on that one I think.

Other than that there are some good, helpful posters on here, long may it continue. I may one day be able to post from a position of knowledge myself!

[fisbangwollop]

Piper boy......sorry a bit late with this question but was it yourself that called Scottish a couple of weeks ago for a radio check?.....if so it was myself but could not remember your pprune name to ask if it was you :cool:

[India Four Two]

Can we learn anything new here?Chuck,
Absolutely. I've learned new stuff, relearned old stuff and been exposed to different points of view about things that I felt were pretty much cast in stone.

It's a great forum and as an ex-Calgarian, I'm delighted to see the very valuable contributions made by you, BPF and Pilot DAR (NB PB84), plus other assorted Canucks. :ok:

PS I gave up on the Avcanada (?) forum a couple of years ago. Useless.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Yes I also have quit Avcanada because it became impossible to communicate without being put down by multiple posters on an ongoing basis.

Pilotdar may come back to Pprune...I hope he does.

[India Four Two]

I didn't know he had left!

[Piper.Classique]

Yes Chuck, one does learn here. And I hope contribute, also. I saw something by pilot DAR not all that long ago, though he has been quiet lately.
I just got back from a weekend training course, where I learned among other things much more than I wanted to know about t phi grams. I will refrain from sharing in order to npt make your heads ache, too.
Good night all.

[thing]

I didn't know he had left!

Neither did I. He sent me a very encouraging PM once, I shan't forget it.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I think that DAR was one of the people who left when I got booted off for a while for refusing to respect and leave alone some dodgy stuff going on on the forums.

Whilst I've received an apology from the board owners and come back (occasionally I do suspect against my better judgment), not everybody else did. DAR I am still in touch with, but I believe that his online presence now is mostly on a couple of other aviation forums - a Canadian one, and a European GA forum. Probably.

G

[Andy_P]

FWIW, I think a lot of us sit on the sidelines learning. I dont say a lot as I am only a 30hour student pilot, so I don't have a great deal to offer. Sometimes I pipe up saying how I am being taught something just to see if the is a better alternative. I also know there are other students watching too, because I have had several PM's from them helping me out (and hopefully me helping them) with confidence building..

I am sure my life skills may be valuable to a post one day. IF you want to know about sailing, motorcycles, electrical/electronics/computers then I am your man, but when it comes to flying, I will just sit and watch for now.

[Whirlybird]

Very interesting question Chuck. I learned loads on here over a number of years. Later I attempted to pass on some of the little that I knew. Now I read, but rarely post; I'm not sure why, but things change. There's a lot of guff on PPRuNe, but also some incredibly useful stuff. Thanks to everyone who's shared their experience with me over the years. :ok:

[Andy_P]

Very interesting question Chuck. I learned loads on here over a number of years. Later I attempted to pass on some of the little that I knew. Now I read, but rarely post; I'm not sure why, but things change. There's a lot of guff on PPRuNe, but also some incredibly useful stuff. Thanks to everyone who's shared their experience with me over the years.

Please dont stop posting. Ignore the guff. I am only a noob, but it does not take long before one separates the Google expert from the actual people who know what they are talking about. For a youngen, maybe not so easy, but for us seasoned experts in bull**** we quickly figure out who is worth listening to.
I have taken a lot from this forum, most of it from google results, but also a lot from people who have responded to my couple of posts.

Sometimes a fresh PPL with 50 hours may help someone like me with 30 hours, only because the training is fresh in their mind. Likewise I recently provided some suggestions to someone who has only trained with a tower, where I am only CTAF (we were both nervous about the unknown). All knowledge is welcome as far as I am concerned.

[Heston]

Andy P - good post. Oh, and don't apologise for being a newbie!

[glum]

I'm ten hours into my PPL training, and several of the posts on here have promted me to ask questions of my trainer already.

As Baz Luhrman said:

"Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it."

[localflighteast]

I'm slowly plodding away at my PPL. I've gotten some good advice and encouragement from PPRUNE.

I hope some day I'll be able to pay it back. Like others have said, I've run away quietly sobbing from AvCanada (only joking) because for a newbie the constant
"you're crap"
"Your instructor is crap"
"no one except me and a few elite others know how to fly nowadays"

gets really disheartening , really quickly for a newcomer.

I've never been shot down for asking stupid stuff and never felt that there was anything I couldn't ask. My flight school doesn't have much of a "hanger talk" culture so I get what I can from here. I don't have the time or luck to make all the mistakes there are to make. I need to learn from other people's as well. If you have a board where people are afraid to post, no one learns anything except to keep their mouths shut.

[glendalegoon]

dubbleyew eight and others:

someone smarter than me said: "flying is done largely with the imagination".

What you dubbleyew and others may learn or have learned is this:

not how to fly

BUT (pre emptive high five) HOW TO LEARN/TEACH YOURSELF how to fly.


Imagining kicking the crab out (slang useage of the language)

or imagining how to maneuver a plane in a confined area.

But by doing it , safely thinking on the ground, you are expanding your brain and the ability to think about it, imagine, project, whatever word you like while in the sky.

The mind of a pilot becomes highly evolved/developed in the perception of multiple dimensions and options and , in a way like playing chess, you are ahead of the game by one, two or a dozen moves.


I read one thread in which one pilot constantly had an idea where to land and one response said this would be too much of a mental effort. IF you develop your "FLYING MIND" you will have surplus to handle things.

Others have called this : being ahead of the plane.

the reverse is: sitting in row 15 because you are so far behind the plane.


so , brave PPruners, learn to think like a pilot. And much of this can be started at home without the hobbs meter running (money). Build your brain so that when you get those precious moments in the sky, your brain can handle the things reality presents you with.

[Fantome]

ah yes . . . imagination . .. that is definitely part of the game. .. even tho' many have said and believed that a heightened imagination is not a good thing . . . and pilot psych tests had a component to filter out those so endowed. .. and maybe still do.

(bloody psych tests . . fancy being asked to say whether your preference would be to go to a party or stay home and read a book .. . . (thank you! Macleod and Chandler.)

PG Taylor the renowned pilot/author in 'Call to the Winds' recounts flying round at night on charters in his Percival Gull -


"As night fell I was once again confronted with the discomforts attendant on having but one engine - and a fertile imagination."

One of the key components to maintaining good airmanship is to
conscientiously give yourself a good self-briefing prior to any days flying.
The key part of this has to do with alertness. Once the fundamentals of handling your aircraft soundly and competently are approaching second nature, that is the time to guard against complacency. To say to yourself. . . . stay alert . . . never let up on the good lookout . . scanning. . scanning. . all the time. Be almost birdlike in awareness of the moment. Expect the unexpected . . It may never happen. But that is no excuse for unpreparedness. No one can teach you any of this. It comes from acquiring the right attitude, a certain maturity that is the greatest skin saver.

It has little to do with the preaching of safety mantras. That has its own shortcomings in that it can too often become a hollow thing, the mouthing of platitudes. With the right frame of mind and heightened awareness it will follow naturally that you acquire a shield.

Without the need of mother dear to keep us from all harm.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

For sure thinking ahead so you do not get into a situation that will require more skill or aircraft performance than you have will go a long way towards not wrecking an aircraft.

[Heston]

...as in "A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations that would require the use of his superior skills" ? :)

[mary meagher]

Yes indeed. Lately here in the middle of England, which is a tad damp and windy, I find a certain phrase useful...early in the morning,.after walking the dog to the far end of the paved runway, and observing that his ears are fully deployed,

"Sorry, but conditions today are over my personal limits!"

[Fantome]

"Would you take a deep breath please madam and blow hard in the tube?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But you raise an interesting point Chuck as to why so many who come
in here, as subscriber or guest, either rarely have anything to contribute or
are merely voyeurs. Somewhere between the garrulous and the inhibited there runs a golden thread. Praise be.

Have you any theory why the discussion and negativity on AvCanada has been as you describe? Is it part of a general malaise right across society?

[OldDogNew]

I don't post much but am keen to learn. Don't think that makes me a voyeur. Threads where knowledgeable and experienced pilots discuss and debate in a respectful manner are very useful and interesting. The converse is also true, both in this context and in many others. For example, public transport would be a much more pleasant way to travel if more people abided by the useful rule of thumb "keep mouth shut until you have something intelligent to say!" Of course there is nothing wrong with an honest question....

[Big Pistons Forever]

I'm slowly plodding away at my PPL. I've gotten some good advice and encouragement from PPRUNE.

I hope some day I'll be able to pay it back. Like others have said, I've run away quietly sobbing from AvCanada (only joking) because for a newbie the constant
"you're crap"
"Your instructor is crap"
"no one except me and a few elite others know how to fly nowadays"

gets really disheartening , really quickly for a newcomer.

.


Last year the Avcanada moderators starting getting serious about cracking down on posters who were only interested in insulting and demeaning others. This caused the departure of several well known troublemakers. Since then I think the site has improved considerably although I admit, in general, pprune is a still a bit more civil.

However the flight training forum in Avcanada is IMO much better than the one in pprune. It is very active and has many threads which discuss practical flying matters in a useful way.

Also Pilot DAR now regularly posts on Avcanada.

[powerless]

I don’t think I am unusual in that I don’t often post but doread a lot. As a glider pilot who onlyflies club gliders I have limited experience but find PPRuNe gives me a usefulinsight to how other airspace users see things, the problems they encounter andthe different solutions suggested. Likemany others I have noticed certain posters are very worth reading fully whilsta few others are treated with a great deal of scepticism and in a few casesadded to my Ignore List. Generally Ithink I have learnt a good deal of information that can contribute to saferflying. Thanks to all those who contribute to those interesting threads.:ok:

[ma11achy]

Most of my learnings have come *after* my PPL, and I'm still learning with a long way to go, as I'm a low hour "in the kill zone" (200hrs) PPL.

Listening avidly to other pilots around different hangars, flying with other PPL's to different airfields and countries and reading interesting books like How and Why Pilots Die.

Mostly what I learned on PPRune was to not follow an Ag / GA commercial career and just enjoy flying for what it is to me - a really fun hobby.

[Fantome]

the 'voyeur' reference was tongue in cheek

public transport would be a much more pleasant way to travel if more people abided by the useful rule of thumb "keep mouth shut until you have something intelligent to say!"

Travelled a lot on the chube in and around London recently. Not always a pleasant experience. My dear old travel agent in Devonport, Tasmania (East West loco on proone) describes England as his favourite 3rd world country. It is little better in large parts of Sydney and Melbourne.

There's so much that the student pilot can pick up from various websites.
On PPRuNe in the archive if you go hunting there are posts that point you to
very best of books written by the Conrads of the air. When people ask, I always recommend starting with Ann Welch's ACCIDENTS HAPPEN then Alan Bramson's BE A BETTER PILOT (it's never too late PO Prune)

Looking to the broader canvas, for a taste of a brilliant airman's livelong devotion to the air, search out the posts of 'Duke Elegant'. He's dead now. But many of his friends and acquaintances will be thinking RIP Les for a long long time.

[mary meagher]

Fantome, I trust you were not suggesting that I need breathalyzing when I mentioned the morning check on the wind strength and direction by walking my Dachshund to the end of the paved runway at the gliding club. Though some club members may find it wiser to postpone flying until after lunch when the intake of beer has had time to clear the brain, the hound and I strictly follow the advice of Benjamin Franklin: early to bed and early to rise. And early to research the weather by every means, including personal observation.

To be able to declare that conditions are over my personal limits is a very good doctrine. I have been badly frightened flying in obscene weather, and try to avoid it when possible. It is difficult to teach a newbie to fly when the apparent effects of the controls are distorted by turbulence. And it is even worse to give a complete newcomer a rough ride for his first experience, he probably would never come back again.

[Fantome]

dear Mary . . . have to agree with every word of that. (Why does the sound of a young sprog upchucking into his oxy mask come back from aeons ago?)

Speaking of Franklin, only received an email today where he is mentioned in another context. Pardon the 'French' at the end. (Not my words, for once.)

QUOTE -

Here's to my dear friends who enjoy a glass of wine. . . and to those who don't,
but who seem always to have a bottle of water handy -

Benjamin Franklin it was who said:

In wine there is wisdom.
In beer there is freedom.
In water there is bacteria.

In a number of carefully controlled trials,
scientists have shown that if we drink
1 litre of water a day,
after a year we will have absorbed
more than 1 kg of Escherichia Coli, (E. Coli) - a bacteria
found in faeces.

However, we do not run that risk when drinking wine or beer
or rum or whisky, because alcohol has to go
through a purification process of boiling, filtering and fermenting.

Therefore it is better to drink wine and be
brilliant than to drink water and be full of ****.

[Andy_P]

So for those who think there is no value in this forum. In the recent "Increase in Weight demands an increase in Power" thread, I put my hand up and said I dont understand some stuff. I am currently studying for my BAK exam, so the timing was great for me to get a better understanding of weight and balance stuff. Some answers made me go off and do some more research which in turn resulted in my Google search turning up some more good info from pprune.

So there is this assumption, that if you are learning to fly planes, you must be loaded with cash. Truth is, with most people this is not the case. So places like this that give up info freely are a great resource.

FWIW, my club has an example test with 150 odd BAK questions. I did it 2 days ago an managed 87%. A pass if I was sitting the real exam, but left me unsatisfied. If it were not for pprune, I doubt I would have managed that. I have only done about a week of solid study, but this forum has provided a lot of info (mostly through google searches) that has helped me along.

So if you think you contribution is insignificant, you are wrong. I have taken a lot from here, both in theory and practical knowledge. Keep it up folks, us noobs appreciate it.

[Pace]

Andy P

Yes agreed with one reservation that you are very cautious over the information given which may or may not be accurate.

There are posters who are very much respected who should be listened too and others who should be taken with a pinch of salt.

As for my ramblings :E cautious :ok:

Pace

[Andy_P]

Andy P

Yes agreed with one reservation that you are very cautious over the information given which may or may not be accurate.

There are posters who are very much respected who should be listened too and others who should be taken with a pinch of salt.

As for my ramblings cautious

Pace

Yup, already noticed that trend too!

[Pace]

Andy

What? Being cautious of my posts :E ???

Pace

[Andy_P]

Andy

What? Being cautious of my posts ???

Pace

Nah, this part Yes agreed with one reservation that you are very cautious over the information given which may or may not be accurate.

There are posters who are very much respected who should be listened too and others who should be taken with a pinch of salt.

:ok:

[Big Pistons Forever]

I think my posts are worth every penny you paid for it :p

[India Four Two]

BPF,

I would rephrase your post.

From my point of view, your comments are worth much more than the time you invested in posting them.

I agree with Pace. Some posts need to be taken with a large pinch of salt, but to a regular reader, with some aviation background, it rapidly becomes clear who knows what they are talking about! :ok:

[Pace]

I used to be quite heavily involved in flight sim sites! There it was even harder to know who was really on the other end typing away.
We had one person who posted as an experienced 747 Captain. He posted with authority and posters would place questions with admiration at the responses that flowed from this highly experienced Captain.

Then there were a succession of basic flaws which got some more regular posters exchanging private messages about this guy.

He turned out to be a 12 year old kid who got his kicks out of living the dream and taking everyone for a ride.
He felt important and was an absolute master at googling copying answers and adjusting that text as if it was written by him.

Here its not so bad as some of us know each other real world and as stated you get to know who to listen too.

i will also add that we all bring different expertise, some with engineering backgrounds, some with instructing backgrounds, some with law backgrounds, some as experienced PPLs, some as commercial pilots etc etc etc.

Often there will be arguments especially over hurt egos where someone is shown to be wrong.
Sometimes neither are wrong but they hold rigid to the way they do things and that is the way it should be done.

Sometimes the subject matter has been done to death many times and you can almost sense the minds of others scraping the barrel to post a new subject or its a variation on a theme.

I personally do not mind threads going off topic so while the question maybe on landing an aircraft it evolves to taking off because in that broad spectrum of discussion there are always hidden gems.

As stated treat any individual answer with caution as even the best here get it wrong or only see one picture when infact there are a number of equally correct pictures to choose from.

I know with my own posting style that I post to generate discussion and i hope in a colourful and challenging way:E but equally know there are those here with much more detailed knowledge than i have or who are much more specialised in certain fields of aviation.

So we all have a contribution to make in our often very different styles and experience levels! We all have a lot to learn from the student to us supposedly more experienced ego orientated pilots :ok: :E

Pace

[Piper.Classique]

Well spoken, Pace. Must be something wrong though, as try as I might, I can't find anything to disagree with. Would you mind being a little bit unreasonable so as to keep the thread going?


:E

[Saab Dastard]

I think my posts are worth every penny you paid for it

Keep those pennies coming, folks, they are our only salary! :p

SD

[Pace]

Would you mind being a little bit unreasonable so as to keep the thread going?

Piper classique

Not feeling in an unreasonable mood today :E

Pace