Soft Field Technique

[hz2p]

I dug out my first logbook, and I had 4.4 hours of dual logged before I was sent solo on a taildragger on pavement. Oh yeah, it was fuel injected and had a constant speed prop ... I'm sure none of the young people here could even hazard a guess as to what aircraft type it was.

btw, it sounds like you guys instruct in the worst possible environment, which is purpose-designed to cost your students as much money as possible. Good business practice, I suppose, but when I instructed we started with the simple first, then the complex. A quiet, uncontrolled airport is far better for ab initio training than an international airport with continuous jet traffic. Feel free to disagree, but does anyone teach people to fly off aircraft carriers at night in poor weather? Of course not.

On the subject of flying skills .... I met a couple of USN pilots a while ago, it was interesting to talk to them. Nice young people, they did their carrier qualifications as PIC with 300TT. I wouldn't trust any civilian Canadian commercial pilots with 300TT to fly a buck-fifty across Ontario. Do you think there's any difference in training?

[Cat Driver]

Flaperons :

Not only are you ignorant in the extreem but I would suggest you have some serious anger management issues that need dealing with.

Cat

[Flaperons]

hz2p:

4.4 hours. So you're trying to tell us that at 4.4 ours, you had displayed a consistent safe level of proficiency in taxiing, attitudes and movements, straight and level, climbs, descents, turns, climbing and descending turns, range and endurance, slow flight, stalls (especially power on with a wing-drop, without using aileron inputs), spins, spirals, slipping, take-offs, circuit procedures (including COM failures, electrical failures, engine failures, runway changes and unexpected ATC instructions), landings (with proper x-wind technique), and all emergencies. Wow!!! You must've been the sharpest f*cking tool in the shed, boy!

Is it perhaps more likely that you had been shown the basics in some or most of those exercises, and shown a bit of proficiency, so that your instructor decided "What the Hell! Send him solo!" because it would make both him and yourself feel good?

Were you a good pilot? Was he such an amazing instructor that he actually got all that covered in 4.4 ours? No. Roll of the dice, baby. Lucky nothing went wrong. Try that these days and see how fast the lawsuits bite you in the ass when your student injures or kills himself.

btw, it sounds like you guys instruct in the worst possible environment, which is purpose-designed to cost your students as much money as possible. Good business practice, I suppose, but when I instructed we started with the simple first, then the complex. A quiet, uncontrolled airport is far better for ab initio training than an international airport with continuous jet traffic. Feel free to disagree, but does anyone teach people to fly off aircraft carriers at night in poor weather? Of course not.

What the f*ck!?! "Purpose-designed" to cost the students as much money as possible? Who are you!?! It's called population growth, dumb*ss! We didn't design that, it just happens. Of course a quiet aerodrome's better, if you have the choice.

On the subject of flying skills .... I met a couple of USN pilots a while ago, it was interesting to talk to them. Nice young people, they did their carrier qualifications as PIC with 300TT. I wouldn't trust any civilian Canadian commercial pilots with 300TT to fly a buck-fifty across Ontario. Do you think there's any difference in training?

Another great point, hz2p. How much level C or D sim time came with that 300TT? How many dedicated hours in a controlled environment to get the landings right? What skill level are you talking about? Average? Don't think so. What's the washout rate? How can you compare USN training to civilian ab-initio? And I'd love to see what would happen if you stuck one of those new carrier pilots over Muskoka in 3 miles vis and had them try to navigate to CYPQ without any navaids...

Maybe you sould pay more attention to my signature.

[Cat Driver]

hz2p :

Of course it can be done and done safely in the right situation with the right training.

I soloed the Hughes 269A in 3:40 during my helicopter training, my instructor was a US Navy heli. instructor and knew what he was doing..

One of the biggest problems with a great many instructors is they have become programmed to make evreything more difficult that it really is.

Cat

[Flaperons]

right...

[chipmunk]

hey Flaperon... do you know how many pilots in the 2nd world war had 17h dual, 12 h solo, 45 h total before they shipped out? RIGHT........ And not only did they have to fly the machine, but use it to fight - precision flying for dropping bombs, and aeros for dogfighting.

Things change, and time to solo changes, and as recent as a few years ago you didn't have to go check off all the exercises like spirals and such before you could "legally" go solo as you do now for your students. I soloed in 12 hours in 1998 at Springbank, out of a flight school based at Calgary, so counting the .3 or .4 to get there and .4 to get back every day I did it fairly quickly, didn't have to perfect steep turns or spins before I did.

Now instructors have to check off all those items, and lots of training is done out of controlled airports with clearance delivery and tower, etc, so that takes extra time out of the flying part to learn the radios (which I support, cuz when I was instructing we used to get guys who'd never flown at a controlled airport come in for a type conversion or something and take FOREVER to be able to figure out the talking part!) Anyhow... don't imply that hz2p a liar.

[Right Seat Captain]

Exactly what chipmunk said. I soloed with 9 hours in 2000, and I didn't have my stalls steep turns and spirals up to snuff at the time. I did that after when I was far more comfortable in the airplane, and not distracted with keeping it in the air.

Also, no where does it say that all the exercises that must be checked off, like stalls, spirals, etc... must be shown to be consistently safe. You show the students the basics out in the Practice area, then you get them doing circuits. You are concerned with them being safe in the circuit, with incoming and departing traffic, and being to land and take off consistenly safe. That takes very little time. The faster you get them solo the faster people learn. I've always said that a student learns much more on his own than they will with an instructor, once they are taught the basics. And if flight test results are any indication, results are significantly better the more solo time one has, for having the same amount of time dual, or less.

I must agree that an uncontrolled quiet airport is far easier to learn at than the internation airport. I learnt at a moderately busy controlled airport, and now teach at an uncontrolled airport, big difference in how easy it is to learn.

[shitdisturber]

hey Flaperon... do you know how many pilots in the 2nd world war had 17h dual, 12 h solo, 45 h total before they shipped out? RIGHT........ And not only did they have to fly the machine, but use it to fight - precision flying for dropping bombs, and aeros for dogfighting.

Sorry chipper, hate to break it to you but you won't find a pilot from WW2 that had 45 hours and was in combat; it just didn't happen. In fact, the training was considerably more intensive than is the case now, and most pilots had a couple of hundred hours flying time before they were thrown to the wolves. Hell, quite a few of them would have 50 or more hours on type before facing the bad guys.

[Flaperons]

I was not implying that hz2p was lying. I was implying that his (and others') outdated expectations no longer apply (if they ever did), and that he WAS NOT ready for solo at 4.4 hours. Just 'cause your instructor signs you off doesn't mean you're ready. If you have anything go wrong at that level of inexperience, it's an even toss of the coin (at best) as to whether or not you'll do the right thing.

Right Seat: If those items in the PTR and te FIG aren't there to be checked off as SAFE (I don't mean perfect, that comes later) then what are they for? Do you actually need to be explicitly told that ensuring your student can recover from an incipient spin as he nervously cranks it onto final might be a good idea? If he doesn't and he dies, is it his fault or yours? Would you accept the responsibility? Or would you just stand there like an idiot, saying "He never did that with me in the plane!" I definitely agree with you that solo time is crucial in the learning curve, but not at 4.4 hours.

Chipmunk: If you're talking bombing runs, then we'd have to acknowledge the entire crew: pilot(s), navigator, radioman, bombadier, etc. I don't see your point. What was the survival rate of your WWII guys? I don't think I'd use them in this argument. No offence to any veterans. Seriously.

Cat: Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem!

[Tango01]

Is this a safe for solo thing or should I go with an instructor/senior pilot first?

Hey guys, let's not forget what this post is all about.

[Cat Driver]

Are you refeering to my solo in the 269A?

Cat: Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem

If so what would you suggest I should have done, it was a perfect warm calm summer day and everything was going real good doing short circuits on the grass at Wayne Major Airport in Detriot Michigan.

After about an hour of circuits the instructor said I want you to to do one circuit by yourself while I watch here on the ground.

Should I have refused?

By the way that was in 1965.

Cat

[mcrit]

Flaperon, oh might and wise one, just what have you done to make your opinion so valuable on this subject?

[Stan_Cooper]

So this one time I was at the bar, and this amazing looking girl was making eyes at me. I went over and spoke with her, and eventually it came to "so what do you do?" I said "I'm a pilot." She said "OOH WOW I find that extremely erotic. You look so young, are you allowed to fly by yourself?" I reply "Yes, of course. I have a commercial pilot licence, and I actually teach people to fly for a living." She said "That must be very rewarding, how old are you?" I say "I'm twenty, and yeah I love it." Then she says "ooh wow. Listen, do you have any tailwheel experience?" After a second of my 'deer in the headlights' look, she smiles and goes to sit down with Cat Driver.

[Wasn't Me]

How do you recognize a pilot in a bar. You don't have to - He'll tell you before you have a chance to sit down.

[chipmunk]

Do you actually need to be explicitly told that ensuring your student can recover from an incipient spin as he nervously cranks it onto final might be a good idea? If he doesn't and he dies, is it his fault or yours? Would you accept the responsibility?

The point of stall and spin training is avoidance. That's why you spend a good part of the lesson hammering in all the warning signs and how to prevent such things. If you get into a spin as you turn onto final, you will most likely not recover in time unless you are really really HIGH.

And yes, I got carried away with the WWII thing... I was frustrated at people thinking that to be reasonably safe solo you need more than 4.4 hours. ARGH!

[hz2p]

To the best of my recollection, during WWII some of the B-17 left-seaters had 120 hours total time.

I'll look it up.

[chipmunk]

That would be great, hz2p.

[Shiny Side Up]

Is this a safe for solo thing or should I go with an instructor/senior pilot first?

Hey guys, let's not forget what this post is all about.

Take an instructor, better yet rent an airplane to do it. I mean if you think that maybe the instructor might not know what he's doing then he isn't mowing grass with your prop. Either way a couple hundred bucks is worth the learning experience. It doesn't need to be a taildragger to be a good one either. In fact learning to do good soft fields in a nose dragger is good experience in itself.

[shitdisturber]

To the best of my recollection, during WWII some of the B-17 left-seaters had 120 hours total time.

I'll look it up.

Could very well be, but they were American and nobody cares about them.
But even at that, they had to take their abintio in yellow perils and then move on to multi conversion, then type training. I'd hazard a guess that 120 was the exception not the rule.

[Flaperons]

I'm sorry, but what the f*ck do WWII pilots have to do with anything?

These were guys who were pushed through the pipe as fast as possible to feed a machine. You can't possibly think that training standards were an issue back then, can you? If you could get it off the ground, keep it in the air, and then put it back down again you passed. Get it? There wasn't the time to make sure everyone was perfect. The machine was hungry, so we fed it.

F*cking rediculous to bring them into the frame.

Shut up.

[Cat Driver]

Flapperons.....

Your quote ::


" It's better to keep your mouth shut and let everyone think you're a fool, than to open it and prove them right. "

You are doing just fine demonstrating it.

[Flaperons]

Don't think so, Cat. But thanks for coming out.

[Cat Driver]

Flaperons :

Why do you think so many students and PPL's land 172's on the nose wheel?

Its not all that hard to correct their sloppy flying, but what do you think is the most common reason I find that causes this problem?

Take your time and think about your answer and I'll read it tomorrow.

Cat

[shitdisturber]

Sorry, I have to agree with Cat on this one. When you proclaim your arrogance by telling others to shut up; you're a fool. It doesn't help when you can't spell either.

[Tango01]

Why do you think so many students and PPL's land 172's on the nose wheel?

To get down faster . Seriously, few students are taught properly how to flare. Most either land flat or slam the nosewheel, and when they do hold the nose, they come down hard on the mains or bounce, but I think that if nosewheel a/c where available in your days Cat, students would have done the same thing. You have to realize that Flaperons has a point in terms of the "the times have changed" Aviation has been overtaken completely by rules and regulations and we forgot the essence of it all. The program these days is very limited. Basic training, meet the requirements, do as you are told and you pass. You're not ready for the real world where runways aren't always 5000' X 150' paved into the wind in VMC. Operationally, you know nothing. What separates the good from the bad is that the good guys will always try to learn and continue to improve themselves (float rating, aerobatics, bush, flying with an experienced guy like yourself, reading good books)

That's what I think...


T01