On Being Hurried...
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Flying five knots fast on a three mile final on a limiting strip could also put you through the fence at the other end.
Have a look at accident statistics you'll see what I mean.
Have a look at accident statistics you'll see what I mean.
Flying five knots fast on a three mile final on a limiting strip could also put you through the fence at the other end.
Brumby, C-210, B-777 or whatever.
Yeah the best speed is the exact, accurate one.
A good rule of thumb is to increase final speed half the gust factor.
e.g. your final speed is 70 KIAS. ATIS says "Wind 180 degrees 15 gusting 22 knots". Make your final/threshold speed 73 KIAS. It gives you a bit more control authority to deal with gusts, and your extra landing roll is taken care of because your ground speed is 10-15 kts slower from the headwind component.
And an addendum to my last post, flying faster (in speed) does not get you anywhere faster. You save time on the ground, or by cutting out track miles airborne. That's it.
I had a guy who used to say in an emergency, in cloud, do the RNAV approach at full speed. Noooooooope. That's a good way to turn yourself into a smoking wreckage. I timed it once; saves 35 seconds for about 10-15 nautical miles going 120 vs 95, but significantly increases workload in a non-autopilot, non-anything old junker (CT4!)
Summary:
- Push yourself in training if you have a safety net (VMC, Instructor)
- They should be offloading workload, even if you're highly competent at the bits they are offloading (e.g. engine, radios, schedule/timings, fuel management).
- Never fly faster on final "just because".
- If you want to get there 5 minutes faster, leave 5 minutes earlier!
A good rule of thumb is to increase final speed half the gust factor.
e.g. your final speed is 70 KIAS. ATIS says "Wind 180 degrees 15 gusting 22 knots". Make your final/threshold speed 73 KIAS. It gives you a bit more control authority to deal with gusts, and your extra landing roll is taken care of because your ground speed is 10-15 kts slower from the headwind component.
And an addendum to my last post, flying faster (in speed) does not get you anywhere faster. You save time on the ground, or by cutting out track miles airborne. That's it.
I had a guy who used to say in an emergency, in cloud, do the RNAV approach at full speed. Noooooooope. That's a good way to turn yourself into a smoking wreckage. I timed it once; saves 35 seconds for about 10-15 nautical miles going 120 vs 95, but significantly increases workload in a non-autopilot, non-anything old junker (CT4!)
Summary:
- Push yourself in training if you have a safety net (VMC, Instructor)
- They should be offloading workload, even if you're highly competent at the bits they are offloading (e.g. engine, radios, schedule/timings, fuel management).
- Never fly faster on final "just because".
- If you want to get there 5 minutes faster, leave 5 minutes earlier!
Thread Starter
Shagpile, you make one assumption in your earlier post that invalidates your argument, at least as applied to me' I have plenty of time and money (God willing!) to achieve the required performance. I am not trying to keep up with the tempo of a structured military or civil flying course.
Even if I adopted a super healthy military fitness lifestyle and lost 20 kg., I am not going to learn fast enough to benefit from a "like this - do that" instruction pace and style and I cannot invest all my waking hours in planning and study prior to instruction.
The intended outcome is to be able to perform under pressure and if I thought I couldn't I would ground myself. what I was referring to was being hurried in a learning framework where the hurrying takes away from the purpose of the exercise and introduces additional risks.
what's the old saw? A superlative pilot uses his superior judgement so as never having to demonstrate his superior skills?
Agree with you about speeds on final in gusty conditions, I've also now found instructors who are quite wary about using full flaps in such conditions as well. especially with LSA this appears to be a wise move.
Even if I adopted a super healthy military fitness lifestyle and lost 20 kg., I am not going to learn fast enough to benefit from a "like this - do that" instruction pace and style and I cannot invest all my waking hours in planning and study prior to instruction.
The intended outcome is to be able to perform under pressure and if I thought I couldn't I would ground myself. what I was referring to was being hurried in a learning framework where the hurrying takes away from the purpose of the exercise and introduces additional risks.
what's the old saw? A superlative pilot uses his superior judgement so as never having to demonstrate his superior skills?
Agree with you about speeds on final in gusty conditions, I've also now found instructors who are quite wary about using full flaps in such conditions as well. especially with LSA this appears to be a wise move.
I have plenty of time and money (God willing!) to achieve the required performance.
The efficiency of the lesson still has a positive learning outcome on the student though. When teaching instructors course, we used to try and eliminate anything airborne that could be said on the ground (so that ground + air makes up the entire package. In my opinion, the instructor makes their money on the ground). For example if we're teaching a sequence, a good instructor offloading the student might be able to allow the student to fly 4 of that sequence in the same time as a verbose instructor does 2. That's potentially double the hands-on-stick experience the student receives and most of the time it's because the instructor does *nothing* !! I.e. speaking less and moving those concepts to the ground actually increase the effectiveness.
For things like flight reviews, they may need to see X number of items (couple of stalls, some steep turns, one of each circuit, etc...) so there may be some kind of time imperative on those flights if we don't want to be sitting there after 1.5hrs. Remember concentration and retention drop off dramatically after about 40 minutes of high workload, so a 1.6 may not be twice the effectiveness of a 0.8.
Thorn Bird, I think my attempt at sarcasm didn't translate to the keyboard. The idea of flying 45 circuits to gain 0.1 is plain silly, and yes a good way to wind up in a fence!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlas Shrugged View Post
Unless you're on fire, there is ABSOLUTELY #@!%ING NOTHING, that ever needs to be done in a hurry in or on an aircraft!
Originally Posted by Atlas Shrugged View Post
Unless you're on fire, there is ABSOLUTELY #@!%ING NOTHING, that ever needs to be done in a hurry in or on an aircraft!
Hasten slowly is generally a good plan.
Does anyone have opinions about the Constant-Angle Variable-Speed technique (as in Noel Kruse's books) vs the constant-speed variable angle technique on final?
The aim of final is to get you to the correct spot on the runway, at the correct speed.
It would therefore make sense to maintain a constant aimpoint (where you want to crash, absent of a flare) and adjust speed to get there at the correct airspeed.
Constant speed / variable angle technique: never heard of it, but doesn't make much sense to arrive at the exact aimpoint you desire. You'll be pushing & pulling to maintain airspeed, presumably with a few large power changes to adjust for overshoot & undershoot. I suspect it would be more comfortable making lots of power changes in challenging conditions than lots of attitude changes.
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Constant speed / variable angle == attitude for airspeed, power for rate of descent. ie you keep your airspeed constant using the attitude, and change your power to move the aimpoint up or down the windscreen.
Constant angle / variable speed == keep the aimpoint at a constant point in the windscreen, and use the power lever to keep your airspeed correct
The former is what is taught in most GA schools. Once I discovered the latter technique (and you know if you've been a school that uses that technique - the windscreen is covered in dots) I found it much easier to change between aircraft.
Constant angle / variable speed == keep the aimpoint at a constant point in the windscreen, and use the power lever to keep your airspeed correct
The former is what is taught in most GA schools. Once I discovered the latter technique (and you know if you've been a school that uses that technique - the windscreen is covered in dots) I found it much easier to change between aircraft.
Nice, Draggie, nice...
