Big aeroplane to little aeroplane
 

Just something I've had reason to think about just lately, and I'd be interested in anybody else's opinions?

Take a pilot who has been flying big jets for some years (which I suppose could in reality mean anything from a Citationjet to a B747 in this context). Let's assume that they're perfectly competent in that role.

Now they decide that they want to revisit their flying youth, regain an SEP (or local equivalent) rating and fly small aircraft for fun again. Why the heck not. So they have to go and spend some quality time in a little aeroplane with an instructor and then pass an appropriate skill test.

What have people found are the instructing issues? Here are a couple of mine, but I'm guessing that there are people here with a lot more experience than me in this, and I'd appreciate their thoughts...


- Difficulty identifying the roundout and flare heights

- Tendency to use checklists rather than memory items airborne, particularly in the circuit where they should have their head out of the window.

- Rustiness in the basic principles of VFR/VMC DR-nav.

- Just haven't flow a PFL in decades !

- Cockpit management can be a bit scrappy with the return to paper charts, PLOG on kneeboard, and so-on, plus typically a lot less elbow room.


On the other hand, I've mostly found that ability to understand the aeroplane, lookout, and basic handling skill haven't really required much effort on either the instructor's or student's part to get right. Also your modern airline pilot tends to have really excellent communications, decision making and general CRM skills - as you'd hope of course.

Thoughts anybody?

G

>Thoughts anybody?<

The only issue I consistently find is lack of lookout, or more specifically the lack of an LAI workcycle. A high proportion are also surprisingly poor at raw instrument flying initially but that soon comes back. Judging roundout and holdoff heights can be a problem -- converting a B747 captain on to a Grob 109B recently was entertaining for both of us -- and many seem to have forgotten the first principles of visual navigation. But airmanship and CRM are almost always exemplary in my experience.

Lookout - Attitude - Instruments?, or something more complex.

G

Indeed -- Lookout, Attitude, Instruments.

This is a very interesting thread, as teaching at the airline level I've noticed that new hires from an instructing background often have the inverse issues when upgrading - flare too low, tendency to use memory items over checklists, rustiness in IFR, have yet to fly two-crew (teaching is not two-crew), and not sure on how to manage the cockpit - tendency to overbalance the aircraft with rudder to the detriment of passenger comfort 150 feet further back would be another one.

The reason I bring this up is because anyone, adults specifically, will default to what they know when put in an unfamiliar situation. Regardless of their past experience, transitioning from a Boeing or Airbus to a small Cessna or Piper is unfamiliar, just as it is to move up in size.

What I was taught as a junior instructor, and what I passed on to assit an experienced airline "student" was to sit at the end of the runway before take-off and remind the airline pilot of where the runway sits in relation to the cockpit. This needs to be a minute or so, not twenty seconds. Don't make the first approach to a landing either. Have them take it into ground effect to see the proper flare height, then go around for a landing. You'll find the airline pilot is typically very adaptive and will appreciate being reminded of these "generalizations" before flight, rather than during. The instructor suddenly becomes a professional rather than just "some 250 hour pilot." I've been both of these.

I would suggest that it is passenger comfort in a 200 foot cabin where a small rudder input upfront bashes heads at the back that makes for lazy feet. A Yaw Damper does not permit "feet off" flying, it just dampens the inputs. It's just that a small amount of uncoordinated flight may generate a better ride for the passengers than attempting to bring it into coordinated flight with a rudder near the length of a bus.

That's very useful advice which I shall adopt forthwith. Many thanks.

Likewise, thank you +TSRA

G

I used to find that flare height was the biggest issue, sorted as was suggested above by a long look at the relationship of the aircraft and the view from the ground with the aircraft in the landing attitude if possible; the other was a fixation on the instruments, but a chart draped over those took that out of the equation. A great number of the crew I fly and have flown with over the last 28 years in the airlines have no interest in GA flying, which saddens me, as the potential to accumulate hands on stick and rudder time or even the wish to do so diminishes with every year.

I regularly fly a Cub as well as the airliner and will continue to do so because it is fun.

You wouldn't believe how many hours it can take getting people from little aircraft into big ones. The biggest problems are attitude, lazy feet, under-controlling, dreadful overconfidence and a complete reluctance to participate in a multi-crew environment. So it goes both ways. Therefore, could it be the method and techniques employed by instructors, on both sides, that are at fault?

PM

Or just that the two need flying differently, and the biggest fault any instructor may be displaying is simply not taking the trouble to adequately understand the "student's" starting point?

G

That as well.

I'm not sure the OP was couching the issue in terms of who's "at fault" and my own response certainly didn't start with such a belief; it was intended as a constructive input to the discussion. It's been very useful hearing observations from both sides and I've learned something about how to improve my own instructional technique from reading this thread. Isn't that part of why we're all here?

I had a retired 747 captain who wanted to upgrade his PPLH (with 700 hrs helo) to a CPLH. All went reasonably well until we got to the nav phase.

He could not hand-fly the chopper, visually navigate, and talk to ATC at the same time, or even within the same minute. When he saw the problems, he sold his helicopter and went back to big jets on a contract basis - and subsequently did the first-ever inadvertent 747 nose-wheel-up landing in Sydney.

Genghis

I think you covered pretty much all the points I'd have come up with. Just one more springs to my mind and that's commercial guys and gals may be reluctant to land "on the numbers" since to do that in their day job might lead to a tea and biccies interview! Safe flying.

ACW599

Sadly no more LAI not least in the Vig.:{

regards

BBK

Hmm. No more Vigilant, let alone LAI. I sometimes wonder what on earth they were smoking at Cranwell and Syerston. :ugh:

But the same techniques seem to work quite well in SEP-land. My students nowadays get LAI dinned into them just as air cadets did...

LAI , still there even for returning SEP peeps .
Returning SEP mate 4 years after retirement and 40+ years from PA28s . 2 trips then LPC : vg lookout , rudder came back quickly . PIOs/ over controlling afto self sorted . Final approachs, were quickly sorted wth exhortations to release '' death grip '' , and guide 'er , not heave !

rgds condor .

Have checked out a lot of retiring airline pilots on little aeroplanes over the years. I found it a little easier as I had “retired' from the airlines as well.
All the above comments are valid particularly those from +TSRA.

However, I found that the main factor to work on was visual Nav.

Having spent many years using Jepperson/ Aerad Airways charts and indeed magenta-lined screens at high FLs, it’s a bit of a culture shock to have to start searching the earth’s surface for pinpoints from 1500 to 5000 feet.
A subtle rebrief on the relative importance of various ground features, especially in poor vis., seems to pay off. This can be assisted by allowing a little bit of beacon crawling at the lower altitudes to draw attention to the fact that there are many hidden gotchas when flying straight lines at low level. This applies to high masts, high ground, Rule 5 over built-up areas and, certainly in the southern counties, masses of Controlled Airspace with diverse privileges.
It doesn’t take long to get the message across though but it can obviously be a valuable lesson and takes the uncertainty out of the equation later on when they are getting more adventurous with their shiny new rating.
The fact that such characters WANT to fly little aeroplanes again, following a good career, takes much of the difficulty out of getting the problems of the private pilot across. Many comment that it can indeed be a jungle down here !

You'll have to explain that one as there is no separate nose-wheel handle on a 74 :hmm: or on any large airplane for that matter.

I went on from flying business jets to light aircraft for a living (which is best thing I ever did!) and it took me a while to get used to the Vapp/Vref some 40-50 knots slower. When I re-validate my MEP/IR SP, the examiner insisted I fly the entire instrument approach at just a few knots over Vref! I have gone back to flying the approach at about 130knots and just slowing down to Vref about a mile out.

Couple of years ago, I interspersed some light aircraft flying with my day job in the 747. Basic flying skills were ok but landing a light aircraft was terrifying after years of flaring the 747 at between 30 and 50 ft. It felt like we were going to bury the aircraft. I didn't do any visual nav but I expect it would be pretty ropey too.

Hi guys, interesting thread. I have not touched the controls for 11 years but want to get back flying single pistons. How long does it take to get a 737 pilot competent again at the controls of a light aircraft?

How long's a piece of string!

But 11 year break from big jets, and some years before that in little aircraft, wanting to pass a skill test on little aeroplanes - my money would be on 6-12 hours and a few days with your nose in the books.

G

2LOW and GTE ,
See prev........
'' Returning SEP mate 4 years after retirement and 40+ years from PA28s . 2 trips then LPC : vg lookout , rudder came back quickly . PIOs/ over controlling afto self sorted . Final approachs, were quickly sorted wth exhortations to release '' death grip '' , and guide 'er , not heave ! ''

That was a 1.3hr , and a 1.4hr trip ; plus the 1.0 LPC . Tot..3.7 hrs and a couple of hrs G/S , mostly nav/wx/notam/unplanned divs , planning using a '72 whizz wheel .
He is ex 744s so , thus only 4 sectors a month .... 4 yrs probably equates to 11yrs from 73s with 30+ sectors pm . And more manual handling !

Hope that helps ,

rgds condor .

Cheers fellas, thanks for the intel!

Next step call the local CFI.

Rgds

A few years ago I was flying P2V Neptunes in wildland fire. I was chief pilot of the company and as such had the final say on who would be upgraded. We had a candidate who had flown air tankers in C 119's and S2's, then we got on with the majors. He flew Airbus from JFK to LHR for a few years, and retired. He wanted back in tankers. I flew with him about 15 hours in the P2, he could take off rotate and flair with the best of us. He could not navigate with needle thingies, he could not fly the airplane. Twice in the same traffic pattern he slowed the airplane to 100 kts and DIDN'T KNOW IT. His hand flying skills were dead and burried. On the other hand, we got a guy who had flown 74's, and he owned a glider and a Cessna 170. He upgraded as soon as he could figure out the systems.

twotenaero,

I've seen similar stories to yours at a previous company of mine, and it almost always came down to an attitude from the pilot and the company.

From the pilots perspective, they are looking back on another life, knowing they've done it before and can do it again. As a result, some of these pilots come unprepared for training, with an attitude of "I'll figure it out in due course." Some times they are blinded by their own ego to realize they are not progressing at the speed needed for initial training.

From the company perspective, they have an extremely experienced pilot on paper - say 20,000 hours plus. Perhaps management knew the pilot personally way back before they joined the airlines, and knew how they flew. Or, maybe they have a friend-of-a-friend relationship. In either case, the company often puts a little less effort into the actual training phase, intending instead to simply fly around in circles until the pilot demonstrates competence because that's what we need to do - tick boxes.

My initial response, therefore, is of course the pilot who had flown 74's, owned a glider and a Cessna 170 was a quicker upgrade because he was closer in "practical experience" to the type of flying. He just needed to learn the systems. The ex-airline guy had to re-learn the systems plus the type of flying. Re-learning is much more difficult than initial learning, and if the company or pilot (through no fault of their own, I might add) demonstrates the attitudes I described before, then yeah, you are going to see those problems you described.

Also find they like to drive down the approach path using the vasis, i always thought that a light aircraft should have a steeper approach angle than the vasis

Are you talking a standard VASIS or the 2-bar or 3-bar VASIS? Also, if at an airport utilizing PAPI, have you reminded them of the difference in the presentation a PAPI may have between an airfield meant to service a 747 (P4 PAPI) and an airfield meant to service Cessnas and Pipers (P1 PAPI)?

This again comes down to proper pre-flight preparation with the pilot you are checking out, regardless of whether they are an airline pilot or not.

If you, as the instructor, have forgotten to remind the pilot about the difference in appearance and flying technique between VASIS and PAPI and from a light aircraft to a large aircraft, then you've no one to blame but yourself when you consistently see the same thing from pilots. Indeed, you've no on to blame but yourself if all you do is say "this guy has 10,000 hrs plus, I'm just going to jump in" and suddenly you find the same things happening all the time.

I continually see new airline pilots try and "drag it in" because that's how they like to do it from smaller aircraft. If I don't mention that's not how it's done in the airline environment, then I can't very well blame the other pilot when they continually do it.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you re-brief a PPL ground school for every check-out. But, if during the course of your tenure as a flight instructor you continually see the same behavior from a group of pilots, then perhaps these observations should form the basis of your pre-flight briefing. If you don't, then one must be reminded of the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Harsh, I know. But again, it forms the key difference between a pilot building time and a professional flight instructor.

Fascinating thread drift....

This is interesting, as certainly it would be my opinion that this is absolutely not the way you should be flying light or microlight single engined aeroplanes. The only reason - in my opinion - to "drag it in" at 3 degrees or thereabouts is because you are in night or IMC conditions when following an approach aid is the only sensible way to fly the approach.

Which suggests that somewhat out there there are people teaching 3 degree approaches, in day VFR, in singles. Hell, I know more than "suggests" as I've shared airfields with these characters - when I used to instruct on a couple of syndicates at Booker for example, I'd routinely see single engined Cessnas and Pipers being dragged in on power low over High Wycombe where if they lost power they'd most likely be coming down in the shopping centre with the loss of multiple lives.

I wonder if this is yet another misinterpretation of what's "right" on airline ops that's been ported into the light aeroplane world. (Remember all the fuss a few years ago when some light aircraft schools were teaching pilots to power out of stalls, incorrectly believing that that was good big jet practice.).

G

I would hazard a guess and say you're not far off the mark. I have heard instructors before say things like "think like an airline pilot" and "fly it like an airliner." Looking back, none of those instructors had yet progressed to an airline, so knew not of what they spoke.

There was not a realization that a Cessna, Piper, or Tecnam is not an Airbus, Boeing, or Embraer. As both Genghis and Memories of Pax have pointed out, they have different approach profiles to transport category aircraft and, as such, are flown differently.

Heck, even within the transport category world a Dash-8 or ATR-72 has a different approach profile to a 737 or A-320 on account of the difference between turboprop and jet, so even my previous statement is slightly misleading.