Looking back at the airspeed should be instinctive

[photofly]

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.

[youhavecontrol]

I've read more than I care to about airspeed v/s pitch and bank turning final.. blah blah blah.. I think we are more or less on the same page here with that.

A big issue I see is distraction in general. You don't know your attitude if you're not paying attention to it, nor your airspeed. Base to final can be deadly when the pilot is looking too much at that runway off their wing and turning while staring at it, often unaware of how steep they are turning or how much they are skidding. That's when I often see the mistakes begin. An experienced pilot has a better idea of their energy even when looking sideways, but that skill is weak in new pilots, as well as those that don't fly often.

Not just in turns, but even on long final approaches... when you're mesmerized by the lights or you're fixated on that student you are hoping will continue to hold short. I remember flying with a student in the Seminole during a long final. We were waiting for a landing clearance as an Alpha Jet was taking off in front of us. The students eyes were fixated on the jet as it teared through the air, climbing at a ridiculous angle. I gave the student a nudge and cautioned, "It's pretty cool, but fly your own plane!" as the student's speed started to bleed off.

[pelmet]

This was a great thread to read through. My initial take away from the first post is simple: pitch for airspeed, power for altitude. Doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Actually, in my opinion it is irrelevant to my intention of the thread. Don't take this the wrong way. What method you use to control your speed can be an important subject but is separate. If you are flying sloppy but at a safe speed, it is much better than the person using the preferred method for airspeed adjustment but stalled the aircraft in because power was low/drag was high and the preferred method was not followed. I'd rather be a passenger of the first pilot.

The simple thing is.....monitoring your speed on a regular basis while maneuvering/climbing must be done on a regular basis and it should be instinctive so that when it hasn't been done for a 'significant' period of time, you just naturally look without even thinking about it.

Get in the habit of regularly monitoring your speed so that a distraction doesn't affect your monitoring in a significant way.

[Pilotdaddy]

Biggest takeaway from this thread is repeating your point over and over and over again eventually tires out everyone else, making your point eventually correct... not because it is, but because everyone else tired out.

[pelmet]

Biggest takeaway from this thread is repeating your point over and over and over again eventually tires out everyone else, making your point eventually correct... not because it is, but because everyone else tired out.

That is the whole point(although all instructors should be doing it).

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/us ... rstanding/

1500 lives lost over ten years.

[Pilotdaddy]

Biggest takeaway from this thread is repeating your point over and over and over again eventually tires out everyone else, making your point eventually correct... not because it is, but because everyone else tired out.

That is the whole point(although all instructors should be doing it).

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/us ... rstanding/

1500 lives lost over ten years.

I think you meant to paste this article...

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/dont-beli ... le-repeat/

[rookiepilot]

Biggest takeaway from this thread is repeating your point over and over and over again eventually tires out everyone else, making your point eventually correct... not because it is, but because everyone else tired out.

+100.

[pelmet]

Biggest takeaway from this thread is repeating your point over and over and over again eventually tires out everyone else, making your point eventually correct... not because it is, but because everyone else tired out.

That is the whole point(although all instructors should be doing it).

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/us ... rstanding/

1500 lives lost over ten years.

I think you meant to paste this article...

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/dont-beli ... le-repeat/

So now you think I am lying when I say that a pilot should ensure that they monitor their airspeed during distraction.

Student pilots, ignore the dangerous people who can easily result in your death. 1500 people died in ten years in the US due to loss of control accidents. Almost everyone of them would be alive today if airspeed had been properly monitored.

Your life depends on it.

If your way of controlling speed is by methods recommended by others here, that is fine. Just remember to monitor airspeed at regular intervals, especially when maneuvering.

[digits_]

Or to paraphrase:

"1500 people died in ten years in the US due to loss of control accidents. Almost everyone of them would be alive today if they didn't lose control."

Or, more general:

"The best way to not die in a crash, is by not crashing."

[Squaretail]

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.

Indeed. I think Langeweiche posits the silver chain theory to make the airplane stall proof. Pilots stall planes not because they aren't looking at the airspeed, they stall them because they haven't been taught not to yank on the stick when they shouldn't be.

When I think of my own flying, I rarely consult the airspeed indicator on the approach. I think the main place I do is to make sure I'm not too fast when the wheels go down. Otherwise its a combination of knowing the combination of power and attitude is where I want it for what's necessary for that particular performance that segment of the approach warrants. Thus its really hard for me to say to another pilot they need to watch the airspeed more when that's not what I do to get what I want.

Pilots lose control of airplanes when they are behind what the airplane is doing. If there's a part of your mind that needs to be looking at the airspeed to determine that the airplane isn't where you want it, your problems are larger. Not that I haven't encountered pilots that somehow managed to be licensed and flew this way, so they are out there. At the end of it, the basics of flying just aren't that difficult. The airplane only does what you make it do.

[Pilotdaddy]

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!

[pelmet]

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.

[Heavy Rayn]

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.

[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.

[photofly]

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.

[rookiepilot]

"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 )

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

[pelmet]

"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 )

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.

[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.

[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?

[Big Pistons Forever]

Time to stick a fork in this thread, its done

[digits_]

<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

[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.

[pelmet]

<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.

[photofly]

Ok, so let's have a discussion about avoiding distraction, rather than looking more at the ASI, mkay?

[rookiepilot]

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.