Flying the perfect wing waggle!
 

Any thoughts/tips?

How to combine visibility from the ground and pax comfort?!

Thanks, Sam.

You can't combine passenger comfort with perfection looking from the ground.

For passenger comfort a wing waggle needs to be flown in balance. This means basically a succession of balanced turns, rolling into and out of the turn rather slowly so that your head doesn't bang against the side windows. But this will look rather sloppy from the ground.

To look good from the ground you need to fly straight and just roll along the longitudinal axis of the plane. By definition you're not flying in balance and in fact, in most aircraft you'll find that you will have to cross-control to stay on heading (a roll left needs a bit of right rudder and slight forward push).

Fortunately a wing waggle as a way of saying goodbye (after a photo orbit, say) only needs to be about 20 degrees either side to be visible from the ground. Once left, once right is enough and most passengers are able to survive this. Especially if they've just survived a few minutes of steep turns to get into the right position for the pictures.

It's a different matter for the wing waggle that's marking the start of your aerobatics sequence. The rule is three wing drops (all to one side or alternating) and they need to be 45 degrees. Unless you have a thoroughbred aerobatics plane, this maneuver will rob you of somewhere between 10 and 20 knots. Especially if you try to do them the proper way, compensating for adverse yaw with the rudder and so forth.

Must admit in an aerobatics sequence passenger comfort is nowhere near the top of the priority list.

I'm a bit concerned why a pilot should be asking this.

A high time pilot wouldn't be asking (he would know). Any pilot with common sense wouldn't try to impress folk on the ground whilst carrying passengers, or at all for that matter. Unless you have a display authority, leave this sort of thing alone. It can and has, ended in disaster.

Here's a discussion of just one example:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/private...cambridge.html

Shy, you're absolutely right.

Let me just say I hope every pilot realizes that if you are low&slow and then fly cross-controlled/out of balance, you're cooking up a recipe for disaster!

I fly over my Mum's house occasionally, with the kids on board. They love it.

I do this at about 1000' agl, gentle angles of roll, at about 80kts - I see NOTHING unsafe in this whatsoever.

I was wondering if anyone had a technique for making it visible from the ground without sticking the kids up against the windows :E.

Live a little...;)

Sam.


I'm going to duck for cover now...

Thanks for your advice; I have already been living (and flying) quite a lot, really. ;)

First solo glider 37 yrs ago, PPL training 35 years ago. Then nearly two decades of military flying, including basic and advanced instruction, well beyond PPL, teaching aeros, close formation, instrument flying etc. A fair bit of rotary too, including display flying. Teaching at basic and advanced levels to combat ready. Now done nearly another fifteen years of civvie stuff and I certainly do intend to carry "living a little" for a long time yet.

However, your serious topic.....

Sadly, quite a few of my friends and colleagues, some of them supposed "sharp cookies", are sadly no longer here to live even a little. By coincidence with your last posting, one of them got himself killed by getting into something beyond his handling capabilities at 1,000 ft, and the aircraft went out of control. His girlfriend was also in the accident, she was in the back seat. She survived, but nearly twenty years on, is no longer the same person, physically and mentally. I went to the accident site, a very sorry scene, as it was very close to my home. I still have to fly over it regularly and so I won't forget....

My real point is that requesting advice from a public website isn't the safest way for inexperienced pilots to improve their handling skills. In any event, if you fly a regular Cessna or a Piper, a "wing waggle" is more likely to look like a wing "wallow" from the ground.

Take care out there, especially when your kids are on board; your folks on the ground will be impressed enough just by looking up and seeing you there. :ok:

What is a perfect wing waggle? Anything less than 45 degrees is more likely to look like you are wobbling about and can't fly straight.

Generally what feels impressive in the aircraft doesn't look anything like as impressive from the ground.

As has been mentioned, aerobatics competitors start with wing rocks but they must be over 45 degrees in order to be clearly seen from the ground.

Opening and closing the throttle is a much better way to get the attention of someone on the ground.

Normally, if someone is expecting you and you circle overhead then that is enough.

ZA

Inverted wing-rocks can be amusing, but the most impressive I've seen recently were at Duxford where one competitor deemed that his first freestyle figure required sufficient oomph to require his wing rocks be performed on a vertical down-line rather than the more traditional 45 degree dive.

To the OP - attempted public high-jinks in touring aircraft invariably result in embarrassment, passenger nausea and sometimes a lot worse. A more impressive feat would be to give your Ma an expected time overhead and arrive there to the *precise* second....(...and then maybe have one of the sprogs send her a text message...)

How about a quick flash of the landing light instead? :}

Cheers

Whirls

You mean like every landing I do with a crosswind?

Actually, come to think of it you're right :}


Seriously, I'm all for living a little, In fact (horror of horrors) I'm even a bit of a risk taker. But not in planes, and definately not with kids/others on board. Different hat.

Your 80kts could be fine, or very slow depending on type. Why as slow as 80kts - faster = more margin. What're the landing options like if the engine coughs, bearing in mind you're going to loose a lot of alt making turns? Just thoughts - my limited experience suggests the more I fly, the more I see traps in places I'd have otherwise sailed through without consideration.

Pilots may seem like a sanctimonious bunch of old grandparents sometimes, but where we go a lot have been before.. and the circling over parents/girlfiriends house is one of THE all time classic ways to go, unfortunately in full view of your loved ones.

Frankly, and this is just my view....If you have a pilot licence and you can't waggle the wings safely, then there is no hope...(few hints: don't stall, don't hit the ground, don't overstress the aeroplane, tell the pax what you are going to do)

Ive waggled the wings a few times and to be honest I couldn`t give a hoot what it looks like from the ground and spend the whole waggle looking at the dials.
I have to agree with English, if a pilot cant do this safely then questions should be asked.

If you are in doubt get an instructor to go up with you and show you how best to do it safely.

My own advice would be dont spend any time looking at your intended viewers and keep your wits about you in the cockpit, get it over with quickly and concentrate on flying the aircraft.
I have noticed that when taking photos (for example) some of my friends inadvertantly let the airspeed bleed off......:= NOT A GOOD IDEA. and probably more likely in your example.

BackPacker is spot on regarding the incompatibilty between 'looking right' and 'passenger comfort'. Don't do it in a soggy spamcan - it just looks like a wobble, which they do a lot. In a sharper aeroplane, you will need crisp aileron inputs with opposite but co-ordinated rudder to keep straight.

But I, too, wonder why you ask. If you are not absolutely fully conversant with all the issues involved (and if you are not aeros trained and experienced, you might not be, and if you are you wouldn't ask), don't do anything but a gentle co-ordinated turn in alternate directions, ball in the middle.

SSD

I was wondering (see original question) if anyone had any techniques to make the waggle more comfortable inside the aircraft, whilst it remaining clearly visible from the ground.

Apparently nobody out there has an improvement on the technique I have been using.

I wasn't expecting a rush of criticism for asking a question! Although PPrune does seem to have more emotion on it than other sites I look in on.

My mistake, perhaps I'll hold short on the questions...

Sam.

Sam... we just want you to be safe. Some of us have seen the result of crossed controls and high angle of attack at low height. It's very quick and very final.

SSD

SSD, I concur.

I was taught many long years ago "rolling on a heading" in gliders. It is not difficult, but the primary thing here is FLY THE AIRCRAFT & don't try to roll about & wave at Susie at the same time. Didn't someone say that in a Spitfire, if you look somewhere that's where it will go!

There is nothing dangerous about "waggling the wings" ......It is a good exercise in coordination for a start - You look at the nose and bank left and right. With no rudder input the nose yaws opposite to the bank, with the correct inputs it doesn't. It is a very good way to learn to use the rudder properly....

I think you'd have to really manhandle the controls to loose it while waggling the wings (besides you are not cross controlled). The C17's leaving Long Beach - where they're made - usually do a few big waggles on departure.....

What, from a switched on mobile phone in a light aircraft?? :}

Probably OK if VFR, surely, provided you're not relying on a VOR for navigation? And you will be VFR, if doing the circuit-over-girlfriend's-house routine.

Or is there evidence that they interfere with more than just the VHF radios?

On the main point, the message I get is that if I ever feel inclined to want to wing-waggle I'll practice it first at altitude with an instructor on board, then decide whether or not I feel like doing it near the ground on my own.