I think I finally got it.

[Cat Driver]

Thinking back over the years that I have been posting here I believe I have finally figured out why I have been so out of touch with modern aviation, and I am beginning to see that I am a relic from the past clinging to a concept that is no longer in vogue.

My expectations that all commercial pilot candidates should have the hands and feet skills to easily fly any certified tail wheel airplane in the class they are being trained on is flawed, badly flawed it seems.

I am finally learning to accept the modern mindset that as long as a pilot gets the airplane off the ground and back on the ground without losing complete control they are commercial grade pilots and as long as they stick to SOP's and all the other alphabet soup acronyms that cover every possible scenario everything is golden.

So gang it seems even us old dogs can learn new stuff....amazing huh?

However even being a born again member of the aviation fraternity my conversion to the new age faith is still not strong enough to compel me to put a nose wheel on my Cub.

[Hedley]

Some of us remember the masters, .:





As far as stick & rudder skills being "old-fashioned", see the recent thread where it was shown that 60% of all serious, reported light aircraft accidents occur during taxi, takeoff and landing. That reveals a serious deficiency of the hand-flying skills of pilots today.

However there is hope. This young man, son of airshow legend Jimmy Franklin, is one heluva fine stick:



Not sure if anyone cares, but if you want to learn more about the original great stick who did it first, before World War One:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_J._Beachey

Vast crowds had followed his tours and it has been estimated that 30 million people saw him in his career, 17 million in 1914 alone (when the US pop. was a mere 74 million)

[Cat Driver]

Bob Hoover has been my benchmark and the goal I have set for my own flying ever since I can remember.

Today I was talking to a retired Air Canada A320 captain and we were discussing the 5 to 10 % ers. that have that certain something that transcends the average pilot who flew the A320 using hands and feet skills to finesse the landings using visual clues not the computer generated " retard " command and not depending completely on the computers in floor alfa protect mode.

So Hedley we can take some solace in knowing there will always be a few artists in the industry regardless.

We are looking forward to spending a few days with you this summer.....it will be fun.

[bandaid]

The only parody that I have to offer . is that back when I started as a paramedic we had to rely on what we saw in a patient. Now a days they have all these gadgets to hook to a patient that supposedly tells them the same information, the difference, we did not have to waste the time hooking them up. If a patient looked sick he was sick until proven otherwise and we did not have and still do not have the instruments to tells us that information better than what we can see. So trust your judgement and get him/her to the hospital.

[Cat Driver]

Yes bandaid experience, visual clues and the ability to use common sense has been the best way that people have gotten things done since we came out of the caves.

However technology is quickly overtaking almost everything we do now and machines will eventually do everything for us.

Pilots will eventually become extinct as computers take over the operation of airplanes.

Just look at how effective the drone aircraft are right now, they can target a given car and hit it dead center flown by someone on the ground in another country.

[goingmach_1]

Cat,

As someone who started out not having a clue to what I was doing, and eventually ending up flying one of the worlds most sophisticated business jets in the world has been a journey to say the least. I for one did not join the military to hone my skills. After 14K plus hours I feel that perhaps I have learned a thing or two, as you have. The way I look at it we all have to start somewhere. You crawl, walk, run and fall down a few times. Like learning any eye hand skill.

If you are still in a posistion to offer your expierence to someone who has less, continue to do so, this is how we all have and will continue to learn. Your input will be of huge value no matter how far removed from current "electronics" you feel. At the end of the day a skilled aviator still has to make the call no matter how skilled that person is. In other words if you are the person making the call, or a first time out the door brand new Captain on his C-150 HEAVY! making the call there will always be a human making a decision, at least in our life time.

I too feel like, what the heck, when it comes to the NEW stuff. Did a Rnav slash overlay into the Aspen the other day. The First Officer was all over the FMS, finger pushing buttons, cross filling, taking out waypoints, generating new crossing thresholds telling me we are good to go into the bowl of milk at a great rate of knots.

Question: "what is the MEA around here?"
F/O: "14,700"
Me: "Request a hold please."

Point is something was not right. Did not know at the time, but something was not right. Turns out the decent angle was too steep after he changed a few things. We still need a human to make a decision.

Having someone like us still around is worth every hour we have learned. The First Officer was very sheepish. I said hey, It takes two of us to make it right, one of us to make a mistake.

My point is the community as a whole need youth and Wisdom alike. We have a part to play, even if we feel we are a little out of touch with the new stuff.

A famous guy, Neil Armstrong answered a media question when a young reporter asked him after all the aircraft types he has flown over his life time if there was one thing that he could offer to new up and coming pilots that make an airplane fly, and his reply was: Actually there is three things that make an airplane fly, airspeed, airspeed and airspeed. If you don't have any one of those three things you wont fly.

Kinda sums it up nicely.

[Cat Driver]

Airspeed is necessary for flight in fixed wing airplanes.

What can kill you is wrong angle of attack.

FMS is only as good as the fingers programming it, you are correct human oversight is critical to safety.

[yousuckmonday]

....as long as a pilot gets the airplane off the ground and back on the ground without losing complete control they are commercial grade pilots and as long as they stick to SOP's and all the other alphabet soup acronyms that cover every possible scenario everything is golden....

What in tarnation!?!?

I remember back in my day that we weren't even allowed to put fuel in our Sopwith Triplane until we could demonstrate to our instructor that we could do a triple barrel roll while snagging a bag of mail from the Forest Ranger's lookout in the tree tops!

I thought that things were beginning to slide downhill when I heard that the expectations had deteriorated to the point that commercial pilot candidates only needed the hand and feet skills to easily fly any certified tail wheel airplane in the class they were being trained on. Now this! Man alive...

[Cat Driver]

Something bothers me about this issue yousuckmonday, if we were able to get a PPL in thirty hours of training using only tail wheel airplanes fifty years ago why is it not logical to wonder why a CPL today may not be capable of flying one of these basic tail wheel airplanes?

The only difference between a Cessna 140 and a Cessna 150 is one has a tail wheel and one has a nose wheel.

[iflyforpie]

I think the problem is all the other crap that has been thrown on top of basic stick and rudder flying that has resulted in hours being so high.

And maybe it's not crap, maybe it's a good thing. Accident statistics aren't what they used to be. Insurance rates are outrageous as a result of the 'good ol' days' of aviation. Maybe alphabet soup, human factors, and learning laws have their place.


But they can never take the place of good hands and feet, no matter what you fly.

An A330 made a huge hole in the ground in Toulouse in 1994 in spite of its advanced Alpha Protect and Alpha Floor safety features because the pilots were concentrating on electronic gizmos instead of maintaining safe airspeed, and then trying to use those gizmos (namely the autopilot) to recover the aircraft. By the time the pilot flying took over manually, it was too late.

http://www.aviation-safety.net/database ... 19940630-0

However even being a born again member of the aviation fraternity my conversion to the new age faith is still not strong enough to compel me to put a nose wheel on my Cub.

There is a Tri-Pacer for sale here that could really use a tail wheel...

[squirrely]

You damn punks with your "WIFIs" and your "3G's"! GET OFF MY LAWN!

[Beefitarian]

But your lawn has a good WIFI signal so I can post here.

[ScudRunner]

if you old geezers don't pipe down ill send you to one of those old folks homes you see on 60 Minutes.

[bandaid]

Just out of curiousity, how many new aircraft are produced with tail drag configuration?

[Hedley]

how many new aircraft are produced with tail drag configuration?

Not many, because of the difficulty that pilots encounter when they try to fly them.

Nosewheel light aircraft production includes Cessna, Cirrus, Piper, Beechcraft, Diamond, etc.

Tailwheel aircraft (eg Husky, Pitts, Decathlon) are mostly off-airport, towplane and aerobatic types, which need the extra prop clearance from the ground. They're very much specialty (and now older museum) pieces.

Flying tailwheel is like driving a car or truck with a manual transmission. Some people choose to never do it, because they don't like it, or they don't figure it's worth the effort to bother learning how.

I tell people that tube & fabric / tailwheel / biplane / aerobatic / radial engine aircraft are really museum pieces these days, even though people may be reluctant to admit it.

[bandaid]

That is a really good comparison. I think that every new driver should have to drive a manual transmission as part of the licensing process. Having said this, I have not driven a standard in years.

[Grantmac]

I tell people that tube & fabric / tailwheel / biplane / aerobatic / radial engine aircraft are really museum pieces these days, even though people may be reluctant to admit it.

Its a damn good thing I can get in my manual transmission sportscar, drive down to the airport without ABS or traction control then hop into my 62 year old tube and fabric tailwheel aircraft.

Its going to be a sad world when a J3 sits in a museum for lack of a qualified operator, an aircraft that was once considered just barely fast enough to kill you.

-Grant

[Hedley]

a sad world when a J3 sits in a museum

Congratulations! You have now graduated to the rank of Grumpy Old Guy, Second Class (tm) and joined the ranks of many over-the-hill aviators on AvCan including Yours Truly Shortly you will receive by mail your ceremonial walking chair.

In addition to developing your stick & rudder skills - after flying a tailwheel aircraft, most people find a crosswind in a 172 to be much easier - becoming a tailwheel pilot opens all sorts of doors for you. I have flown a truly incredible array of types of aircraft - some of which are unique type examples in Canada - because I am perfectly at home in a tailwheel aircraft. Hard not to be, after you log your first 1,000 hours in a Pitts.

I do a ridiculous amount of tailwheel training, often in homebuilt types that I haven't flown before. Checked myself out in all sorts of weird stuff. The more types you fly, the more types you are comfortable flying. This ability to check yourself out in new types is a skill, like tailwheel/biplane/aerobatic/radial, which has almost completely been bred out of the pilot population. I know that there are many people who disapprove of what I do, and how I do it - and have for many, many years. But none of them will come out to the airport, strap on a parachute, climb in the front seat, and show me what I'm doing wrong.

www.pittspecials.com/images/gat_t7.jpg

For example, the above photo was taken at an airshow, where I got terribly dis-oriented. Not many straight-and-level pilots will help me correct my deficiency in that department.

[Cat Driver]

I am finally realizing that I am so far out of touch with modern aviation that it is time I just accept reality, which is most of today's pilots have only today's reality to make comparisons from.

Tail wheel airplanes to me are just airplanes, I have over five thousand hours on DC3's alone and most of that time is off airport operations, so it is understandable that I am mentally stuck in an era that no longer really exists.

[Hedley]

I am mentally stuck in an era that no longer really exists

Congratulations, .! That is your reward for longevity - alienation. My grumpy old fighter pilot father feels the same way. He finds his cherished military, the government and in fact the entire country bewilderingly bizarre.

I can only imagine what my 104 year old grandmother would say about the internet, email, computers, cell phones, facebook and twitter. The world has changed so much as to be unrecognizable to her.

[sky's the limit]

Hey .,

I would have thought after a healthy number of these threads over the years you'd have just come over to rotary full-time, I mean you want a place where hands and feet matter, and you know enough about it to know what I'm talking about, right? Lol You just need to let go of that fixed wing thing, take a "been there, done that" attitude, and move on over to a place where what you prioritize is gospel.

I am very grateful for my time in FW, particularly the off-strip and tailwheel time, as it held me in good stead when I made the switch to rotary. There will always be a disparity between jobs or machines that require good/great hands and feet, but it seems FW aviation is moving full throttle to a place where that is just not required anymore. Even some of the new helicopters, and particularly some types used by the militaries such as the Blackhawks, Chinooks, and Apaches to name a few, are heading that way too. And it shows in the relative skills of the pilots.

Hope you are well,

stl

[Cat Driver]

Congratulations, .! That is your reward for longevity - alienation. My grumpy old fighter pilot father feels the same way. He finds his cherished military, the government and in fact the entire country bewilderingly bizarre.

Yes, Hedley you are correct, " alienation " is a good description and it somehow seems to be unfair because I thought that having survived for so long there should be something I can share......but I guess the world has changed and that is just the way it is.

[Hedley]

I have over five thousand hours on DC3's alone

.: I hate to appear selfish and cold-hearted (which I am) but ....

Could you see fit, sometime, to writing a few memos? They don't have to be formatted prettily - just point form would do. Some topics such as:

Flying the Canso
Flying the DC-3
Flying the Atlantic
Flying Africa
etc

When you old-timers are gone, your knowledge is gone forever, too. If you could see fit to writing some notes like these, we can put them up on the internet, and then it pretty much lives forever.

Younger pilots often fail to realize what an incredible resource senior aviators are. The have an incredible database of knowledge which has kept them alive all these years. I have been very fortunate to learn from some very senior aviators in my decades of flying, and what I learned from them has kept me alive.

Aviation really hasn't changed that much, over the decades, despite the gadgetry. Wings still keep pushing air down, and engines still keep pushing air back, and the weather is pretty much the same, too. As a result, it's not terribly easy to have a novel accident. Odds are, someone has faced the same problem before.

[Cat Driver]

Hey .,

I would have thought after a healthy number of these threads over the years you'd have just come over to rotary full-time, I mean you want a place where hands and feet matter, and you know enough about it to know what I'm talking about, right? Lol You just need to let go of that fixed wing thing, take a "been there, done that" attitude, and move on over to a place where what you prioritize is gospel.

I can't wait until we buy the 206 so I can finally go back where I really want to be, was talking to Bob on Saturday and told him you will be doing my training on the machine and he is just fine with anything I need to do......as we both know there is going to be quite a few hours of dual before I will be content to fly it on my own....and of course there is the insurance requirements.

I am finally feeling like I may recover and hopefully get back to a near normal life.

If Bob Hoover could maintain competency into his eighties I can do the same thing.

[sky's the limit]

Hey .,

I would have thought after a healthy number of these threads over the years you'd have just come over to rotary full-time, I mean you want a place where hands and feet matter, and you know enough about it to know what I'm talking about, right? Lol You just need to let go of that fixed wing thing, take a "been there, done that" attitude, and move on over to a place where what you prioritize is gospel.

I can't wait until we buy the 206 so I can finally go back where I really want to be, was talking to Bob on Saturday and told him you will be doing my training on the machine and he is just fine with anything I need to do......as we both know there is going to be quite a few hours of dual before I will be content to fly it on my own....and of course there is the insurance requirements.

I am finally feeling like I may recover and hopefully get back to a near normal life.

If Bob Hoover could maintain competency into his eighties I can do the same thing.

Sounds good, just let me know when you want to get started... as much lead time as possible would be good. I'll be flying the 212 most of the summer, also some Astar work as well, looking forward to a good year again.

I'm glad to hear you're feeling better, I will try to stop in next time I am over. The first dirt bike race of the year is in Sooke on the 20th, so I'm hoping to make that. If I do I'll try to stop in on the way home for sure.

stl

PS Who needs a tail wheel, when you can have a tail rotor???