Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

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Pilotdaddy
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by Pilotdaddy »

pelmet wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 9:08 am So now you think I am lying when I say that a pilot should ensure that they monitor their airspeed during distraction.
Sir, we both know that that strawman isn't what is being argued here. Airspeed, of course, must be monitored and is critical. No one ever claimed otherwise. It's the method at which the monitoring is being conducted that's being questioned.

To that point, I, too, am tired. Have a good day!
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pelmet
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by pelmet »

Pilotdaddy wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 9:49 am
pelmet wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 9:08 am So now you think I am lying when I say that a pilot should ensure that they monitor their airspeed during distraction.
Sir, we both know that that strawman isn't what is being argued here. Airspeed, of course, must be monitored and is critical. No one ever claimed otherwise. It's the method at which the monitoring is being conducted that's being questioned.
Thanks for clarifying after posting a link about repeating something to make a lie seem true. It would be better if you could tell us what method at which monitoring airspeed is being conducted you question and what you think would be a more appropriate method.

Keep in mind that I have said several times that distractions have led to a significant amount of time where airspeed is not monitored. Of course, I haven't given exact details of how often to take a look as there are so many scenarios. That being said, I wonder if around every ten seconds at a maximum would be reasonable while climbing/maneuvering.

Anybody have an opinion. Maybe more maybe less, maybe it shouldn't be defined.

Keep in mind, I fully agree with those who talk about pitch attitudes being for controlling speed and the ability to land an aircraft without an airspeed indicator. But there is obviously a problem when loss of control is one of the causes, or the the greatest causes of aircraft fatal accidents.
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Last edited by pelmet on Mon Jan 04, 2021 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Heavy Rayn
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by Heavy Rayn »

photofly wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 5:30 am You are all so funny. Fetishizing bank angle is as bad as fetishizing the airspeed indicator. A zero-hours pilot can make a 75 degree banked turn to final perfectly safely. It’s the crappy teaching (or more likely the crap you’ve taught yourselves) in the next twenty hours that makes you dangerous.

The stall control is in your hand, and no airplane will stall at low power unless you pull back on it. If you don’t want to stall, don’t pull back on the yoke. It never needs to get more complicated than that.
I don't really care if a student pilot banks aggressively as long as they understand what happens to stall characteristics in the turn. You can reiterate stuff to students as much as you want such as "don't pull back on the yoke and you won't stall" but student pilots are not perfect pilots, if they become task saturated they will make mistakes, it's easy to avoid these mistakes by teaching to avoid overbanking the base to final turn if possible. I imagine tons of student pilots will be reading this post so I just wanted to give some insight into what changes in a turn. Would you want one of your students that has just gone solo to be cranking a 60 degree turn to final because they overshot the approach? Personally, I would not, despite me knowing that I have taught and simulated this scenario. It's unnecessary and easily avoidable, so I teach to avoid the situation, that way if they make another mistake it won't be a catastrophic one. It's all risk mitigation to me, I'm trying to make a student pilot as safe as possible. Every student is different though too and carries a different set of skills with them, there are some that I wouldn't mind putting it into a steep bank angle, and others that I would mind based on their skill level at the time.

If you still disagree with my thought process, not a problem. I completely understand where you're coming from and you've made many great points on this thread alone, I definitely respect your opinion and viewpoint.
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photofly
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by photofly »

I'm sure there are pilots who might be kept away from a fatal accident if they looked at their airspeed indicator more. Those pilots need to do something a lot more significant than that though - they need to be more aware of their aircraft attitude. You've jumped right to the end of a chain of failures and determined that's the appropriate fix. You are saying, in order to prevent a crash, make sure you don't crash!

The fix for a pilot who is in danger of stalling and losing control when in the circuit, is to be more aware of attitude and angle of attack.

Here's the fallacy in another format:
  • Good pilots are aware of their pitch angle.
  • Good pilots monitor their airspeed.
  • Therefore the only thing a bad pilot who has no awareness of their pitch angle must do to become a good pilot is to look more often at their airspeed.
Heck, if you only said "look at your airspeed more often to teach yourself a better awareness of your pitch angle and angle of attack" at least you'd show an awareness of what the real lack of skill is.
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photofly
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by photofly »

Heavy Rayn wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 11:30 am
photofly wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 5:30 am You are all so funny. Fetishizing bank angle is as bad as fetishizing the airspeed indicator. A zero-hours pilot can make a 75 degree banked turn to final perfectly safely. It’s the crappy teaching (or more likely the crap you’ve taught yourselves) in the next twenty hours that makes you dangerous.

The stall control is in your hand, and no airplane will stall at low power unless you pull back on it. If you don’t want to stall, don’t pull back on the yoke. It never needs to get more complicated than that.
I don't really care if a student pilot banks aggressively as long as they understand what happens to stall characteristics in the turn. You can reiterate stuff to students as much as you want such as "don't pull back on the yoke and you won't stall" but student pilots are not perfect pilots
I said zero-hours pilot. Zero hours pilots don't instinctively pull back on the stick. A 15 hours pilot probably can't make a 75 degree banked turn because they've taught themselves, or been taught a bunch of wrong-thought:
  • pull back on the stick to avoid the ground (it worked for my first 10 hours, didn't it?)
  • steep banks are dangerous (if I go there, I'm already close to death)
  • as long as I maintain 70 knots nothing bad will happen (I was looking at my airspeed indicator! every ten seconds, like I was told to!)
  • using the elevator trim is an optional extra (therefore I'm usually hauling back pretty good when things are going well - what harm can hauling back some more do?)
  • adding power will make me go faster (just like in my car)
It's not the airspeed indicator nor the angle-of-bank scale that's going to keep you safe. If you're not safe, those are not the things you need to learn about.
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by rookiepilot »

Heavy Rayn wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 11:30 am "don't pull back on the yoke and you won't stall" but student pilots are not perfect pilots, if they become task saturated they will make mistakes,
There's a core safety topic to explore, and not just for students. Task saturation during a busy phase of flight.

Treating airspeed as the core problem is as dumb as a doctor reviving an unconscious patient having repeated heart attacks, and telling him "don't pass out".

Airspeed is a symptom, IMO better to treat the problem (aircraft attitude / angle of attack / energy state)

When task saturated, do what you gotta do to slow things down. Do a slow orbit away from the circuit, or early on the final approach if IFR, to sort things out. (Ask ATC first :D )

IE -- PPL's don't kill themselves doing IFR approaches cause they aren't watching the airspeed, things are just happening too fast for their competence level, ie in single pilot IFR accidents
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Last edited by rookiepilot on Mon Jan 04, 2021 4:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
pelmet
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by pelmet »

rookiepilot wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 12:19 pm
Heavy Rayn wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 11:30 am "don't pull back on the yoke and you won't stall" but student pilots are not perfect pilots, if they become task saturated they will make mistakes,
There's a core safety topic to explore, and not just for students. Task saturation during a busy phase of flight.

Treating airspeed as the core problem is as dumb as a doctor reviving an unconscious patient having repeated heart attacks, and telling him "don't pass out".

Airspeed is a symptom, IMO better to treat the problem (aircraft attitude / angle of attack / energy state)

When task saturated, do what you gotta do to slow things down. Do a slow orbit away from the circuit, or early on the final approach if IFR, to sort things out. (Ask ATC first :D )

IE -- PPL's don't kill themselves doing IFR approaches cause they aren't watching the airspeed, things are just happening too fast for their competence level, ie in single pilot IFR accidents
Somebody said "don't kill themselves doing IFR approaches cause they aren't watching the airspeed". That is totally incorrect and should not be believed.

A famous accident that got huge press coverage quite a few years ago was the death of a US senator who put his life in the hands of two professional pilots in a King Air. His name was Paul Wellstone.

Here is the full probable cause from the NTSB....

"Probable Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the flight crew's failure to maintain adequate airspeed, which led to an aerodynamic stall from which they did not recover"


So make sure to monitor your airspeed on a regular basis, and when distracted, ensure that airspeed monitoring remains one of your top priorities on approach(and on climbout...and when maneuvering.
By the way, one more quote from the report......

"During the later stages of the approach, the flight crew failed to monitor the airplane's
airspeed and allowed it to decrease to a dangerously low level (as low as about 50
knots below the company's recommended approach airspeed) and to remain below
the recommended approach airspeed for about 50 seconds."


https://www.smartcockpit.com/docs/Beech ... errain.pdf

If it can happen to professional pilots, it can happen to you.

Be careful who you believe. Advice from a rookie might get you in big trouble.
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Last edited by pelmet on Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:17 am, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by tsgarp »

The thing that kills pilots is fixation. Don't pay attention to any one thing any longer than you need to; i.e. once you have gotten all of the info you can from that one thing (be it your ASI or scanning on sector for traffic) move on to the next thing. Certain things need to be checked more often than others; attitude and airspeed are the top two priorities. If you maintain the correct attitude and power pretty much everything else will behave itself. Your cross check must maintain attitude as its hub (i.e. check attitude, check ASI, check attitude, check altitude, check attitude, check VSI, check attitude, check ASI....). In certain phases of flight the priorities in the cross check will change; i.e. during approach/landing your cross check is going to be attitude, ASI, aim point. Just a quick note; when I say check attitude I mean either out the window when VFR or with the AI when IFR.
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photofly
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by photofly »

<puzzled> How is it I can fly a good circuit with the airspeed indicator covered up, then? I mean, if the airspeed is so important ...? What am I doing wrong?
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by Big Pistons Forever »

Time to stick a fork in this thread, its done :rolleyes:
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by digits_ »

photofly wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 4:37 pm <puzzled> How is it I can fly a good circuit with the airspeed indicator covered up, then? I mean, if the airspeed is so important ...? What am I doing wrong?
'cause you're a god
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photofly
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by photofly »

I have pretty much average aptitude for that sort of thing. Can't play video games, always crash MS Flight Sim within a minute or two of starting, lousy at sports. If I can do it, anyone can.
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by pelmet »

photofly wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 4:37 pm <puzzled> How is it I can fly a good circuit with the airspeed indicator covered up, then? I mean, if the airspeed is so important ...? What am I doing wrong?
There is nothing puzzling about it at all. I have landed with the airspeed indicator covered up. But I guarantee you that when you were flying with the airspeed indicator covered up, you were very intentionally not letting yourself get distracted and being a least a bit more careful. You were making darn sure that you were operating at the proper power and pitch settings. And you may very well have done what I did, seeing as I floated a bit on landing, I had some extra speed(for wife & kids).

The problem is that many pilots are getting distracted, quite possibly when more experienced and they have let down their guard and are unintentionally stalling. In effect, their airspeed indicator was as useless as yours that was covered up because they were not getting any information from it, but were not in a heightened state of alert to ensure that proper pitch and power were set for their phase of flight and configuration/power setting.

Maybe it is a little bit like being in a house with low ceilings/obstacles(or under an airplane) that would hurt if you hit your head on them. One does that on occasion and it hurts. But if you were to walk around blindfolded, you will be damn careful to ensure that you are feeling your way around to ensure that this doesn't happen.
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Last edited by pelmet on Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
photofly
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by photofly »

Ok, so let's have a discussion about avoiding distraction, rather than looking more at the ASI, mkay?
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by rookiepilot »

photofly wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:53 am Ok, so let's have a discussion about avoiding distraction, rather than looking more at the ASI, mkay?
Think I might have mentioned something like this too. I`ll need to check.
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

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You did. But you didn’t start a thread. I conclude you’re just a tease.
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

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photofly wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:23 am You did. But you didn’t start a thread. I conclude you’re just a tease.
:goodman:
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by pelmet »

rookiepilot wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 10:00 am
photofly wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:53 am Ok, so let's have a discussion about avoiding distraction, rather than looking more at the ASI, mkay?
Think I might have mentioned something like this too. I`ll need to check.
Good luck on preventing millions of flights from having distractions. Time to deal with realities of life rather than fantasy world.

Distractions will inevitably happen......

.....so make sure to monitor airspeed instead of wishful thinking.

Losing control of a perfectly working airplane and damaging it is nothing more than a rookie mistake. One way to avoid this kind of situation is to have that instinct to look at your airspeed, even when distracted.
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by Pilotdaddy »

pelmet wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:40 am Check your airspeed on a regular basis in the pattern....and climbout. I bet we would be surprised how often it doesn't happen for a long while.Monitor your airspeed on a regular basis when maneuvering.
pelmet wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:40 am Monitor your airspeed on a regular basis when maneuvering.
pelmet wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:40 am Check the airspeed on a regular basis, as habit.
pelmet wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:40 am Monitor the airspeed at regular intervals.
pelmet wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:40 am Get in the habit of regularly monitoring your speed so that a distraction doesn't affect your monitoring in a significant way.
pelmet wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:40 am .....so make sure to monitor airspeed instead of wishful thinking.
Wait, are you saying that we should monitor our airspeed? :rolleyes:
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Last edited by Pilotdaddy on Tue Jan 05, 2021 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Big Pistons Forever
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Re: Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

Post by Big Pistons Forever »

pelmet wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:40 am
rookiepilot wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 10:00 am
photofly wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:53 am Ok, so let's have a discussion about avoiding distraction, rather than looking more at the ASI, mkay?
Think I might have mentioned something like this too. I`ll need to check.
Good luck on preventing millions of flights from having distractions. Time to deal with realities of life rather than fantasy world.

Distractions will inevitably happen......

.....so make sure to monitor airspeed instead of wishful thinking.

Losing control of a perfectly working airplane and damaging it is nothing more than a rookie mistake. One way to avoid this kind of situation is to have that instinct to look at your airspeed, even when distracted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjoMQJf5vKI
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