Flying Different Types of Aircraft

[Hedley]

Another deserving splinter from the tailwheel thread:

aircraft like a Harvard, Stearman and Beech 18 are not fire breathing dragons to us. We have a decent amount of tailwheel time under our belts

It's not just the amount of tailwheel time you have. The ability to easily fly different types of aircraft is not something that is taught in aviation - there is no endorsement or rating for it - yet oddly enough, it is a highly prized skill.

The finest pilots - like Bob Hoover - display it, in spades. IIRC Bob Hoover set a record a few years back when he flew 60 different types of aircraft in one hour (!) at OSH.

These days, when somone "transitions" to a new type of aircraft, they are solemnly sent away for weeks of groundschool and simulator and flight training, and written and sim and flight tests, to learn from the gurus in some far-off land, about this mysterious new type of aircraft.

Most people only fly one or two types of aircraft. However, if you put the effort into flying as many different types of aircraft as you can, you will find it easier and easier to learn a new type of aircraft. After a while, you will be checking yourself out, because there's no one around that knows how to fly it. It might be a type of aircraft that has never flown before.

There are a couple skills you need to learn, to do this.

The first is systems knowledge. Not knowing about critical aircraft systems is stupid, and will kill you. You need to know, at a minimum, about the fuel system and the landing gear system. Embarrasing to do a forced landing on an empty tank, with fuel in another tank. Ask the comanche driver at Rockliffe about that. And, you probably want to know the gear speeds, which are never marked on the ASI or even placarded nearby, for some odd reason. It's nice to know about the emergency gear extension procedure, too. Pay attention to other systems that can really ruin your day. For example, on the L39, if I flick a couple of switches, I will have bleed air at 325C pumped into the cockpit. Not good.

The next skill is closed loop stick & rudder. Open loop flying doesn't deal with changing circumstances very well. You need to observe the results of your inputs and use that to modify your next inputs. Alex Henshaw, a crazy spitfire test pilot at the famous Castle Bromwich, flew fighters and bombers, puzzling everyone at the time, because "everyone knew" that a pilot could only fly fighters or bombers - but not both. But, Alex could. He was closed loop.

Fly as many different types as you can! It will make you a far better pilot.

[Cat Driver]

Many moons ago I was chief pilot in a company that operated both fixed and rotary wing airplanes and had no difficulty flying all of them randomly day after day.

PPC's were unheard of, pilots were approved to fly a given airplane by demonstrating they could safely fly each one.

The secret is move the controls so as to make the aircraft go where you want it to go.

[North Shore]

IIRC Bob Hoover set a record a few years back when he flew 60 different types of aircraft in one hour (!) at OSH

One a minute? Surely not. More like 60 in a day, surely...

[FlightSolutions]

Couple of simple tricks I have discovered while flying over 20 different types:
For a Tricycle memorize the attitude while sitting at the end of the runway. There's your cruise attitude.
Memorize the attitude and sight picture at rotation, just as the mains lift off. Thats your flare attitude.

The quote below sums up the rest of it quite nicely.

The secret is move the controls so as to make the aircraft go where you want it to go.

[Hedley]

Thats your flare attitude

A very old trick that I have had good results with, during tailwheel training, is to have the student use a grease pencil and draw inside the windshield, the horizon in the 3-point attitude. Works marvellously!

[albertdesalvo]

he flew 60 different types of aircraft in one hour (!) at OSH.

That one seems a bit of a stretch to me.

[FlightSolutions]

Thats your flare attitude

A very old trick that I have had good results with, during tailwheel training, is to have the student use a grease pencil and draw inside the windshield, the horizon in the 3-point attitude. Works marvellously!

Thats an awesome idea.

[Hedley]

Thats an awesome idea

A highly experienced test pilot used that trick recently, during the first flight of a restored Me109. It's not very high tech, but it works incredibly well for pilots in aircraft that are new to them.

[Finnegan]

Haven't heard about the grease pencil idea before.

Most of the types I've flown were self-checkouts. One thing that kept these transitions from being too exciting was to make small corrections and avoid big and complex attitude changes, i.e.: high-bank turns onto short final with too much speed, etc.

As was mentioned, know how the critical stuff works and where to find the fuel selector, emerg. gear crank, etc. Show your hands where they are and what they feel like (sometimes you can't see them from where you sit). If things go sideways, you can thank your hand later for its quick reaction.

I know there are different schools of thought, but I've found that I've had much better control with unfamiliar taildraggers when I wheel land them. At least you can establish a straight line before that transition from mains to 3-point and usually are going a little slower at that point as well. A bit of a crooked bounce during a 3-point landing and things can get a little squirrely when there's not a whole lot of control available.

I've probably made close to 20,000 landings on gravel roads and wouldn't think of 3-pointing, so I'm probably a little biased.

[Cat Driver]

I know there are different schools of thought, but I've found that I've had much better control with unfamiliar taildraggers when I wheel land them. At least you can establish a straight line before that transition from mains to 3-point and usually are going a little slower at that point as well. A bit of a crooked bounce during a 3-point landing and things can get a little squirrely when there's not a whole lot of control available.

That is also my method.

[Hedley]

There is no "right answer" to the age-old wheel landing vs 3-pt debate.

Do whatever works best for you in that airplane on that day on that runway.

[Old Dog Flying]

Having flown 89 types over the past 58 years has taught me lots of tricks including humility! The grease pencil trick is one that I have used on many a student in taildraggers but I also like to sit at the end of the runway and look over the nose at the far end then refer that point to something on the aircraft..particularly when starting out in a tandem seat machine with a new student.

Unless the nooby is about .'s size, I could not see the runway in the landing attitude and needed some other refference point(s). On something like a Helio Courier, on a 700 foot downhill strip like Butler's Field, not even this method works on a self-checkout!

Barney

[into the blue]

I'm not by any means a high-time pilot, nor have I flown a lot of types, but, nevertheless, let me dilute this topic with this question to frequent "type jumpers" regarding possible cons:

Are you sure that in case of a real-life "hot" emergency in a type on which you have, let's say, 4-5 hours, you won't subconsciously revert to habits and procedures applicabble to an aircraft you're most familiar with, or simply reach a state of mental "saturation" while trying to remember which of the multiple procedures stored in your memory for multiple aircraft applies to the type you're flying right now?

Actual emergency checklists on paper can be helpful if you're not familiar with the machine, but, at the same time, you all know that real-life emergencies are usually not as straight-forward as they're described in a POH. Whether an outcome of an in-flight emergency is a success or not can all too easily depend on how thorough the pilot's knowledge of his/her aircraft's systems is, not how many hours he/she has in the logbook. We all like to think of ourselves as pilots extraordinaire, but, really, we all have a very definite limit to our capabilities, especially under high stress. I am almost certain I wouldn't be able to perform well under conditions I described in the question.

I'm going to sum up my opinion on this subject this way: if I had a choice of being a passenger of a pilot who has 10,000 hours TT and 100 types in his logbook, or a pilot with the same 10,000 TT who has dedicated his career to flying just one or two types, I would have to say I would pick the latter (if those are all the facts I know about them).

[Cat Driver]

I'm going to sum up my opinion on this subject this way: if I had a choice of being a passenger of a pilot who has 10,000 hours TT and 100 types in his logbook, or a pilot with the same 10,000 TT who has dedicated his career to flying just one or two types, I would have to say I would pick the latter (if those are all the facts I know about them).

Interesting opinion, however there are many variables in what constitutes a safe pilot.

In your example the first pilot would have an average of one hundred hours on each type of airplane, which is sufficient to be very competent in each type.

In your second example the pilot would be hard wired on type and possibly have difficulty in flying something different.

So I would go with pilot number one in your example.

[Hedley]

Interesting question.

A couple of interesting aviation accidents come to mind:

1) DHL airbus 300 over Iraq is struck by SAM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghd ... n_incident
They lost their hydraulic flight control system. I guess a lot of the people here would conclude that it was time to die, but these guys figured out they could control pitch by powering up and down both throttles, and they could turn with differential throttle. They actually overshot the first landing, and after landing successfully the second time, they ran out of the airplane into a minefield.

2) DC-10 uncontained engine failure takes out all flight control hydraulic systems :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
Everyone onboard was dead after that happened. Only some very skilled piloting by Al Haynes saved more than half of the people on board.

3) MD-83 jackscrew failure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261
Some interesting aerobatics resulted. Everyone on board died, but the crew never stopped trying.

4) B737 explosive decompression convertible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243
Wild.

5) B737 rudder control reversal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues
Many crashes and fatalities. Some crews handled it, some didn't.


Now, you might think that none of the above could ever happen to you. But the convergence of the central limit theorem tells us otherwise. And when it happens, I hope you're up to flying a slightly different airplane than you took off in.

[FlightSolutions]

I'm going to sum up my opinion on this subject this way: if I had a choice of being a passenger of a pilot who has 10,000 hours TT and 100 types in his logbook, or a pilot with the same 10,000 TT who has dedicated his career to flying just one or two types, I would have to say I would pick the latter (if those are all the facts I know about them).

This would be true if you are are trying to be proficient on anything more than 2 aircraft at a given time, in my opinion. Light singles, and even most light twins I find that the systems from type to type are essentially the same. It is just a matter of knowing what you have and what to do when it goes wrong.

I think its better to be a jack of all trades, rather than a one trick pony.

[Hedley]

Agreed. All airplanes have a wing that pushes air down, and an engine that pushes air back. That's it, really. As long as you have an interest in learning about aircraft systems - I find them fascinating, being a mechanical/electrical engineering type - you will do ok when stuff breaks, and rest assured, it will.

Case in point: going to the Gatineau airshow in September. I flew lead L39 over, Bob on my wing. Landed, and jumped into the Pitts that Eric flew over for me, to fly a low-altitude aerobatic routine in. Then I jumped back into the L39 to fly it in the airshow. Then at the end of the airshow, jumped into the 450hp stearman to fly it home.

They're all airplanes. They all fly the same (shrug).

Last airshow I did in Central America, I got the royal treatment - Freddy decided Raymond needed the experience across the Gulf of Mexico (been there, done that) so Freddy bought me a airline ticket to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Fine with me - I like being the rock star.

Due to a scheduling screwup, however, I arrived there friday night, which was practice day. My first flight in a Pitts S-2C - different model than I am used to - was a head-on takeoff with a 1/2 cuban-8 at the end of the runway, during the Saturday airshow, to perform surface-level positive and negative G formation aerobatics in an aircraft model I hadn't flown in a year, flying wing on a lead pilot I hadn't flown with in a year, either.

It went perfectly. The Pitts S-2C is just another airplane, and Freddy is a fantastic lead.



That's me inverted in the yellow and black S-2C. Freddy is flying the red and white S-2C.

I remember that pass - I was lead for it. I did a rolling turn to inverted from downwind to overhead the runway for the mirror pass at 300 feet, Freddy is tucking in for the mirror pass in the newspaper photo. I look up, and I see a large aircraft taking off towards me from the opposite end of the runway, during our sequence. Welcome to airshows in Central America. Freddy suggests, "Move over the taxiway, buddy". Brilliant idea - I do a gentle inverted turn and drive down the parallel taxiway inverted with Freddy tucked in, and a twin-turbine aircraft taking off beside us, in the opposite direction. The crowd loved it. Great photo.

[Shiny Side Up]

Agreed. All airplanes have a wing that pushes air down, and an engine that pushes air back. That's it, really. As long as you have an interest in learning about aircraft systems - I find them fascinating, being a mechanical/electrical engineering type - you will do ok when stuff breaks, and rest assured, it will.

+1 After all its not like we're talking about switching over to flying eight engined bombers. One could largely group airplanes to their broad configuration as to any changes one might critically need to know to fly them. A useful training tool in this regard is ground flying airplanes - which I suppose not suprisingly few students engage in - sit in the seat, make some airplane noises and imagine the possible things that might go wrong and what you'd do. Of course those hours you can't put in a logbook so many aren't interested in the suggestion.

Now, you might think that none of the above could ever happen to you. But the convergence of the central limit theorem tells us otherwise. And when it happens, I hope you're up to flying a slightly different airplane than you took off in.

That would be murphy's law wouldn't it?