{"id":3340,"date":"2015-04-24T19:12:10","date_gmt":"2015-04-25T02:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=3340"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:56","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:56","slug":"128-the-bare-bones-of-flight-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/128-the-bare-bones-of-flight-training\/","title":{"rendered":"#128 The Bare Bones of Flight Training"},"content":{"rendered":"

(posted on 4-24-15)<\/p>\n

Learning to fly is an incredibly complex process.\u00a0 There is simply so much to learn and, for the CFI, so much to teach.\u00a0 The feds don\u2019t help with their Practical Test Standards written in predictably obtuse \u201cfed-eze\u201d.<\/h3>\n
\"DSCN3421\"<\/a>
A student pilot at Tailwheel Town heads for home, the Sisters Airport 6K5.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve long felt that the student and teacher need to divide this process in two parts.\u00a0 One is to satisfy the reg requirements.\u00a0 They don\u2019t always make sense, but they are the idiots in charge of the asylum, so we have to know what the regs require.\u00a0 The other is to actually learn to fly.\u00a0 That seems to be what we specialize in here at Tailwheel Town.\u00a0 Increasingly, I find that I\u2019m working to teach a person to simply avoid rolling that cute little tailwheel airplane into a ball of scrap metal with accompanying damage to the pilot\u2019s soft, pink body.\u00a0 Here\u2019s where it can get a bit simpler.\u00a0 Since damage to airframe and pilot normally occur with impact with the ground, the landing is the operation which requires most of our attention.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I think can do the most to keep you out of trouble:<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

Keep it straight<\/strong>.\u00a0 Ground loops and other losses of control are usually the result of failing to simply touch down with course, heading and runway heading all identical.\u00a0 Just remember that where you look is really important. Keep those peepers focused on infinity from short final on. \u00a0Remember all that work on coordination that the ol\u2019 Head Squirrel did with you?\u00a0 Wad it up and throw it out the window on short final. At that point, rudder is used for heading control and aileron for position relative to the center line. If a crosswind requires a slip, it\u2019ll be automatic.<\/h3>\n

If you’re doing a three-point in a tailwheel airplane or a full stall in a trike, learn to control a bounce without depending on power<\/strong>. \u00a0Hold it off, not allowing the mains to touch the ground until the stick or control wheel is all the way back. \u00a0If you should touch down prematurely and bounce, the odds are that you already have an excess of speed, so use that instead of power in order to control the bounce and turn it into another touchdown without the landing-lengthening use of power that they taught you at Acme (and if you ever wondered why I place so much importance on the dead-stick landing\u2026 think about it).<\/h3>\n

Keep it close to the ground<\/strong>.\u00a0 I teach everyone to swoop that plane to five feet above the numbers, then gradually get that altitude lower as you work on the flare for a three-point or the sink rate for a wheelie.\u00a0 Never, never, never allow that jerking on the elevator to result in a zoom up to more than that original five feet.\u00a0 If you do, you\u2019ll experience every flight instructor\u2019s nightmare:\u00a0 the stall at thirty feet!<\/h3>\n

There\u00a0are\u00a0more, but these are the basics. \u00a0I haven’t even mentioned the wheel landing! \u00a0All tailwheelers should master it. \u00a0Come to Tailwheel Town for the details!<\/h3>\n

Many of my students have heard me say that a particular landing style is \u201csimple in explanation but incredibly complex in execution\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s because we\u2019re doing several things at the same time.\u00a0 But with practice, it\u2019ll become easier.\u00a0 And practice is the key to so much of what we do as pilots.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“…Odds are that you already have an excess of speed, so use that instead of power in order to control the bounce and turn it into another touchdown without the landing-lengthening use of power that they taught you at Acme (and if you ever wondered why I place so much importance on the dead-stick landing\u2026 think about it).”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[35,67,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}