“High angle of bank increases stall speed”. \u00a0<\/strong>Nope.\u00a0 If you are making a LEVEL banked turn, you\u2019ll have to apply back elevator in order to hold altitude.\u00a0 That will increase \u201cG\u201d loading and it\u2019s \u201cG\u201d which increases stall speed, not angle of bank.\u00a0 That\u2019s why,<\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/IMG_1323-1024x682.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The Tailwheel Town Cessna 140 pulling \u201cG\u201ds in a climbing turn (The Lansburgh Collection, photo by Bert Garrison)<\/strong><\/h4>\nalthough we make a steeply banked turn in order to avoid terrain on some departures,.\u00a0 We usually make no effort to climb during that steep bank.\u00a0 As a result, we don\u2019t even come close to stall speed.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t bank steeply close to the ground\u201d is a refuge for the undertrained because it is assumed that you will haul back the stick AND stomp on the inside rudder pedal, setting yourself up for a classic spin to the ground..<\/h3>\n“A stall results in a spin”\u00a0<\/strong>is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.\u00a0 Most airplanes will simply buck when their stalling angle of attack is reached IF<\/strong> they are properly coordinated.\u00a0 Since most pilots are never taught proper coordination, they tend to skid their turns (too much inside rudder).\u00a0 That sets them up for a spin, since most airplanes will only spin if they are both stalled AND SKIDDING.<\/h3>\n“The key to a good landing is a good approach”.<\/strong>\u00a0 It\u2019s true that a good landing is best assured if a good (and often stabilized) approach is made.\u00a0 However, if you can\u2019t make a good landing out of ANY approach, including a short approach or an emergency descent, then you better go back to some fundamentals.\u00a0 A good pilot can make a good landing out of ANY approach. A marginal pilot needs a stabilized approach in order to\u00a0pull off a decent landing. There is a good reason that airliners almost always make a stabilized approach.\u00a0 It has nothing to do with the skill of their pilots.\u00a0 Are you flying an airliner?<\/h3>\n“Call every position in the pattern, even if you\u2019re the only one in it”.<\/strong> As with much of radio communications, this is a bit subjective.\u00a0 However, we should remember that many flights are instructional.\u00a0 Every radio call is heard in every aircraft within listening distance.\u00a0 So your multiple calls may be interfering with an instructor\u2019s guidance to his student.\u00a0 Keep \u2018em to a minimum, especially if they are un-needed or if English is your second, and marginally understandable, language.<\/h3>\n“Since you might end up flying an airliner, fly airliner-sized patterns”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Wrong again.\u00a0 Since the main purpose of a flying school is to be profitable, doesn\u2019t it stand to reason that fewer landings per hour will result in the most time and profit in order for a student to gain proficiency?\u00a0 That\u2019s just one reason why the pattern at Tailwheel Town is so small.\u00a0 If we combine our small pattern with multiple landings, it\u2019s possible for our students to get ten times the landings per hour as their counterparts at the Acme Flying School.\u00a0 And, as a bonus, they are gaining more proficiency because they are using a shorter, more difficult approach.<\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/D1_2473-Copy-1024x576.jpg\")
The Outlaw Aviation Cessna near Sisters, Oregon. A one-cfi, one-airplane flight school with the student’s best interests at heart. (Photo by Bert Garrison.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n“Use the stabilized approach in your little beater; that\u2019s what the airline guys do!”<\/strong>\u00a0 The airline guys have an average of 200 passengers in the back and a lot to lose if they screw up an approach and landing.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason they use a stabilized approach and have certain parameters to meet at certain distances and altitudes.\u00a0 If they are not at that altitude, airspeed and configuration, they must execute a go-around.\u00a0 That works for them, but they are not nearly as maneuverable as we are.\u00a0 Although every general aviation pilot should be able to make a stabilized approach, in the vast majority of cases, we should wad that technique up and toss it out the window.<\/h3>\n“Slow down five miles from the airport and don\u2019t bother learning how quickly your airplane can go from cruise to landing configuration”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Most pilots never figure out how long it takes their airplane to slow to approach speed.\u00a0 So, as a result, they slow down WAY out and then take forever to get to the runway.\u00a0 Do you know how long it takes to slow to approach speed from cruise descent at 500 fpm in the plane YOU fly?\u00a0 In the Cessna 140 it takes 15 seconds.\u00a0 In the 172 about 25 seconds.\u00a0 So we can descend like a bat out of hell until we have that much time to final power reduction.\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet we\u2019ll be having coffee in the airport caf\u00e9 while the Acme guy is entering the pattern!<\/h3>\n“Carry power until touchdown\u2026 after all, modern engines are very dependable and will never quit”<\/strong>. This one drives me nuts.\u00a0 Every power-off accuracy landing we do prepares our pilots for the day when that engine may quit.\u00a0 In addition, our power-off accuracy landing takes less time and gets us on the ground just that much sooner.\u00a0 I was taught a long time ago that once you are in the pattern, you should be able to glide to the runway.\u00a0 The average power-on approach, especially if you are number two or three and suckered onto a long downwind, will make that impossible.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m not falling for it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been accused of \u201ccutting people off\u201d in the pattern, but I\u2019ve never actually caused anyone to change their stupid, long approach\u2026 they just can\u2019t stand to see someone get in front of them.\u00a0 Human nature.<\/h3>\n“Never extend flaps in a turn”.\u00a0 <\/strong>I really don\u2019t know where this one came from but, as with the forward slip, if you wait to extend flaps until you are not turning, you may be unintentionally allowing yourself to land longer.\u00a0 The extension of flaps during a turn has absolutely no ill affect unless you\u2019re pulling max G\u2019s at the time, which is highly unlikely during normal operations.<\/h3>\n“If you\u2019re going to forward slip, do it with the upwind wing down”<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is one of my favorites.\u00a0 It actually seems to make sense\u2026 until you simply ask \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 The answer you\u2019ll always get is that if there is a crosswind, you\u2019ll already be set up with your upwind wing down, so that the wind won\u2019t get under it (by the way, \u201cthe wind getting under it\u201d is rarely a problem).\u00a0 The reason this is nuts is because you may not be in a position to put that wing down if you\u2019re way up there on base.\u00a0 Because the beginning of the base leg (which is the \u201ckey\u201d position) is where you first decide if you are high.\u00a0 That\u2019s when you\u2019ll want to start your forward slip.\u00a0 If you are in left traffic, your left wing needs to be down because you are banking that way and all you have to do is input top rudder.\u00a0 Then you\u2019ll be in a turning slip to final.\u00a0 You DO know how to turn and slip at the same time, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 If not, you\u2019re poorly trained.\u00a0 Even the slowest rolling plane I\u2019ve ever flown could easily change from one bank to the other at the last minute in order to land in a crosswind.\u00a0 So, \u201csorry, Acme\u201d.\u00a0 You\u2019re wrong again.<\/h3>\n“Don\u2019t use flaps in a crosswind”. <\/strong>This is a real popular one.\u00a0 The only time a crosswind messes with an airplane\u2019s heading is when the airplane is on the ground.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason not to use flaps in a crosswind.\u00a0 Just raise them toward the end of the flare in order to raise the stall speed and keep the durn thing on the ground.\u00a0 Is that too complicated for you?\u00a0 Then take up Parcheesi (don\u2019t bother sending me your objection to this one\u2026 I\u2019ve already heard most of them.\u00a0 My answer is \u201cdon\u2019t retract your landing gear on the ground\u201d).<\/h3>\n“Brian is nuts”.<\/strong> (I just slipped that one in).<\/h3>\nJeez, I gotta stop!\u00a0 I could just keep listing \u2018em!<\/h3>\nI guess my point is that the majority of items taught at the Acme Flying School (not the VAST majority) make sense and are useful.\u00a0 But not all.\u00a0 Intelligent student pilots must constantly question what they are taught and see if they can sift and sort the good stuff from the ridiculous (some of this philosophy is contained in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, but since very few people read it, I figured I\u2019d repeat it here).<\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Monte-in-Pivot-1024x768.jpg\")
Flying in the irrigation pivot.\u00a0 This exercise gets us comfortable in proximity to the ground and also teaches coordination while maneuvering (<\/strong>The Lansburgh Collection, photo of Sam Monte by Brian Lansburgh<\/strong>).<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\nalthough we make a steeply banked turn in order to avoid terrain on some departures,.\u00a0 We usually make no effort to climb during that steep bank.\u00a0 As a result, we don\u2019t even come close to stall speed.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t bank steeply close to the ground\u201d is a refuge for the undertrained because it is assumed that you will haul back the stick AND stomp on the inside rudder pedal, setting yourself up for a classic spin to the ground..<\/h3>\n“A stall results in a spin”\u00a0<\/strong>is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.\u00a0 Most airplanes will simply buck when their stalling angle of attack is reached IF<\/strong> they are properly coordinated.\u00a0 Since most pilots are never taught proper coordination, they tend to skid their turns (too much inside rudder).\u00a0 That sets them up for a spin, since most airplanes will only spin if they are both stalled AND SKIDDING.<\/h3>\n“The key to a good landing is a good approach”.<\/strong>\u00a0 It\u2019s true that a good landing is best assured if a good (and often stabilized) approach is made.\u00a0 However, if you can\u2019t make a good landing out of ANY approach, including a short approach or an emergency descent, then you better go back to some fundamentals.\u00a0 A good pilot can make a good landing out of ANY approach. A marginal pilot needs a stabilized approach in order to\u00a0pull off a decent landing. There is a good reason that airliners almost always make a stabilized approach.\u00a0 It has nothing to do with the skill of their pilots.\u00a0 Are you flying an airliner?<\/h3>\n“Call every position in the pattern, even if you\u2019re the only one in it”.<\/strong> As with much of radio communications, this is a bit subjective.\u00a0 However, we should remember that many flights are instructional.\u00a0 Every radio call is heard in every aircraft within listening distance.\u00a0 So your multiple calls may be interfering with an instructor\u2019s guidance to his student.\u00a0 Keep \u2018em to a minimum, especially if they are un-needed or if English is your second, and marginally understandable, language.<\/h3>\n“Since you might end up flying an airliner, fly airliner-sized patterns”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Wrong again.\u00a0 Since the main purpose of a flying school is to be profitable, doesn\u2019t it stand to reason that fewer landings per hour will result in the most time and profit in order for a student to gain proficiency?\u00a0 That\u2019s just one reason why the pattern at Tailwheel Town is so small.\u00a0 If we combine our small pattern with multiple landings, it\u2019s possible for our students to get ten times the landings per hour as their counterparts at the Acme Flying School.\u00a0 And, as a bonus, they are gaining more proficiency because they are using a shorter, more difficult approach.<\/h3>\nThe Outlaw Aviation Cessna near Sisters, Oregon. A one-cfi, one-airplane flight school with the student’s best interests at heart. (Photo by Bert Garrison.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n“Use the stabilized approach in your little beater; that\u2019s what the airline guys do!”<\/strong>\u00a0 The airline guys have an average of 200 passengers in the back and a lot to lose if they screw up an approach and landing.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason they use a stabilized approach and have certain parameters to meet at certain distances and altitudes.\u00a0 If they are not at that altitude, airspeed and configuration, they must execute a go-around.\u00a0 That works for them, but they are not nearly as maneuverable as we are.\u00a0 Although every general aviation pilot should be able to make a stabilized approach, in the vast majority of cases, we should wad that technique up and toss it out the window.<\/h3>\n“Slow down five miles from the airport and don\u2019t bother learning how quickly your airplane can go from cruise to landing configuration”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Most pilots never figure out how long it takes their airplane to slow to approach speed.\u00a0 So, as a result, they slow down WAY out and then take forever to get to the runway.\u00a0 Do you know how long it takes to slow to approach speed from cruise descent at 500 fpm in the plane YOU fly?\u00a0 In the Cessna 140 it takes 15 seconds.\u00a0 In the 172 about 25 seconds.\u00a0 So we can descend like a bat out of hell until we have that much time to final power reduction.\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet we\u2019ll be having coffee in the airport caf\u00e9 while the Acme guy is entering the pattern!<\/h3>\n“Carry power until touchdown\u2026 after all, modern engines are very dependable and will never quit”<\/strong>. This one drives me nuts.\u00a0 Every power-off accuracy landing we do prepares our pilots for the day when that engine may quit.\u00a0 In addition, our power-off accuracy landing takes less time and gets us on the ground just that much sooner.\u00a0 I was taught a long time ago that once you are in the pattern, you should be able to glide to the runway.\u00a0 The average power-on approach, especially if you are number two or three and suckered onto a long downwind, will make that impossible.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m not falling for it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been accused of \u201ccutting people off\u201d in the pattern, but I\u2019ve never actually caused anyone to change their stupid, long approach\u2026 they just can\u2019t stand to see someone get in front of them.\u00a0 Human nature.<\/h3>\n“Never extend flaps in a turn”.\u00a0 <\/strong>I really don\u2019t know where this one came from but, as with the forward slip, if you wait to extend flaps until you are not turning, you may be unintentionally allowing yourself to land longer.\u00a0 The extension of flaps during a turn has absolutely no ill affect unless you\u2019re pulling max G\u2019s at the time, which is highly unlikely during normal operations.<\/h3>\n“If you\u2019re going to forward slip, do it with the upwind wing down”<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is one of my favorites.\u00a0 It actually seems to make sense\u2026 until you simply ask \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 The answer you\u2019ll always get is that if there is a crosswind, you\u2019ll already be set up with your upwind wing down, so that the wind won\u2019t get under it (by the way, \u201cthe wind getting under it\u201d is rarely a problem).\u00a0 The reason this is nuts is because you may not be in a position to put that wing down if you\u2019re way up there on base.\u00a0 Because the beginning of the base leg (which is the \u201ckey\u201d position) is where you first decide if you are high.\u00a0 That\u2019s when you\u2019ll want to start your forward slip.\u00a0 If you are in left traffic, your left wing needs to be down because you are banking that way and all you have to do is input top rudder.\u00a0 Then you\u2019ll be in a turning slip to final.\u00a0 You DO know how to turn and slip at the same time, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 If not, you\u2019re poorly trained.\u00a0 Even the slowest rolling plane I\u2019ve ever flown could easily change from one bank to the other at the last minute in order to land in a crosswind.\u00a0 So, \u201csorry, Acme\u201d.\u00a0 You\u2019re wrong again.<\/h3>\n“Don\u2019t use flaps in a crosswind”. <\/strong>This is a real popular one.\u00a0 The only time a crosswind messes with an airplane\u2019s heading is when the airplane is on the ground.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason not to use flaps in a crosswind.\u00a0 Just raise them toward the end of the flare in order to raise the stall speed and keep the durn thing on the ground.\u00a0 Is that too complicated for you?\u00a0 Then take up Parcheesi (don\u2019t bother sending me your objection to this one\u2026 I\u2019ve already heard most of them.\u00a0 My answer is \u201cdon\u2019t retract your landing gear on the ground\u201d).<\/h3>\n“Brian is nuts”.<\/strong> (I just slipped that one in).<\/h3>\nJeez, I gotta stop!\u00a0 I could just keep listing \u2018em!<\/h3>\nI guess my point is that the majority of items taught at the Acme Flying School (not the VAST majority) make sense and are useful.\u00a0 But not all.\u00a0 Intelligent student pilots must constantly question what they are taught and see if they can sift and sort the good stuff from the ridiculous (some of this philosophy is contained in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, but since very few people read it, I figured I\u2019d repeat it here).<\/h3>\nFlying in the irrigation pivot.\u00a0 This exercise gets us comfortable in proximity to the ground and also teaches coordination while maneuvering (<\/strong>The Lansburgh Collection, photo of Sam Monte by Brian Lansburgh<\/strong>).<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
“The key to a good landing is a good approach”.<\/strong>\u00a0 It\u2019s true that a good landing is best assured if a good (and often stabilized) approach is made.\u00a0 However, if you can\u2019t make a good landing out of ANY approach, including a short approach or an emergency descent, then you better go back to some fundamentals.\u00a0 A good pilot can make a good landing out of ANY approach. A marginal pilot needs a stabilized approach in order to\u00a0pull off a decent landing. There is a good reason that airliners almost always make a stabilized approach.\u00a0 It has nothing to do with the skill of their pilots.\u00a0 Are you flying an airliner?<\/h3>\n“Call every position in the pattern, even if you\u2019re the only one in it”.<\/strong> As with much of radio communications, this is a bit subjective.\u00a0 However, we should remember that many flights are instructional.\u00a0 Every radio call is heard in every aircraft within listening distance.\u00a0 So your multiple calls may be interfering with an instructor\u2019s guidance to his student.\u00a0 Keep \u2018em to a minimum, especially if they are un-needed or if English is your second, and marginally understandable, language.<\/h3>\n“Since you might end up flying an airliner, fly airliner-sized patterns”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Wrong again.\u00a0 Since the main purpose of a flying school is to be profitable, doesn\u2019t it stand to reason that fewer landings per hour will result in the most time and profit in order for a student to gain proficiency?\u00a0 That\u2019s just one reason why the pattern at Tailwheel Town is so small.\u00a0 If we combine our small pattern with multiple landings, it\u2019s possible for our students to get ten times the landings per hour as their counterparts at the Acme Flying School.\u00a0 And, as a bonus, they are gaining more proficiency because they are using a shorter, more difficult approach.<\/h3>\nThe Outlaw Aviation Cessna near Sisters, Oregon. A one-cfi, one-airplane flight school with the student’s best interests at heart. (Photo by Bert Garrison.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n“Use the stabilized approach in your little beater; that\u2019s what the airline guys do!”<\/strong>\u00a0 The airline guys have an average of 200 passengers in the back and a lot to lose if they screw up an approach and landing.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason they use a stabilized approach and have certain parameters to meet at certain distances and altitudes.\u00a0 If they are not at that altitude, airspeed and configuration, they must execute a go-around.\u00a0 That works for them, but they are not nearly as maneuverable as we are.\u00a0 Although every general aviation pilot should be able to make a stabilized approach, in the vast majority of cases, we should wad that technique up and toss it out the window.<\/h3>\n“Slow down five miles from the airport and don\u2019t bother learning how quickly your airplane can go from cruise to landing configuration”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Most pilots never figure out how long it takes their airplane to slow to approach speed.\u00a0 So, as a result, they slow down WAY out and then take forever to get to the runway.\u00a0 Do you know how long it takes to slow to approach speed from cruise descent at 500 fpm in the plane YOU fly?\u00a0 In the Cessna 140 it takes 15 seconds.\u00a0 In the 172 about 25 seconds.\u00a0 So we can descend like a bat out of hell until we have that much time to final power reduction.\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet we\u2019ll be having coffee in the airport caf\u00e9 while the Acme guy is entering the pattern!<\/h3>\n“Carry power until touchdown\u2026 after all, modern engines are very dependable and will never quit”<\/strong>. This one drives me nuts.\u00a0 Every power-off accuracy landing we do prepares our pilots for the day when that engine may quit.\u00a0 In addition, our power-off accuracy landing takes less time and gets us on the ground just that much sooner.\u00a0 I was taught a long time ago that once you are in the pattern, you should be able to glide to the runway.\u00a0 The average power-on approach, especially if you are number two or three and suckered onto a long downwind, will make that impossible.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m not falling for it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been accused of \u201ccutting people off\u201d in the pattern, but I\u2019ve never actually caused anyone to change their stupid, long approach\u2026 they just can\u2019t stand to see someone get in front of them.\u00a0 Human nature.<\/h3>\n“Never extend flaps in a turn”.\u00a0 <\/strong>I really don\u2019t know where this one came from but, as with the forward slip, if you wait to extend flaps until you are not turning, you may be unintentionally allowing yourself to land longer.\u00a0 The extension of flaps during a turn has absolutely no ill affect unless you\u2019re pulling max G\u2019s at the time, which is highly unlikely during normal operations.<\/h3>\n“If you\u2019re going to forward slip, do it with the upwind wing down”<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is one of my favorites.\u00a0 It actually seems to make sense\u2026 until you simply ask \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 The answer you\u2019ll always get is that if there is a crosswind, you\u2019ll already be set up with your upwind wing down, so that the wind won\u2019t get under it (by the way, \u201cthe wind getting under it\u201d is rarely a problem).\u00a0 The reason this is nuts is because you may not be in a position to put that wing down if you\u2019re way up there on base.\u00a0 Because the beginning of the base leg (which is the \u201ckey\u201d position) is where you first decide if you are high.\u00a0 That\u2019s when you\u2019ll want to start your forward slip.\u00a0 If you are in left traffic, your left wing needs to be down because you are banking that way and all you have to do is input top rudder.\u00a0 Then you\u2019ll be in a turning slip to final.\u00a0 You DO know how to turn and slip at the same time, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 If not, you\u2019re poorly trained.\u00a0 Even the slowest rolling plane I\u2019ve ever flown could easily change from one bank to the other at the last minute in order to land in a crosswind.\u00a0 So, \u201csorry, Acme\u201d.\u00a0 You\u2019re wrong again.<\/h3>\n“Don\u2019t use flaps in a crosswind”. <\/strong>This is a real popular one.\u00a0 The only time a crosswind messes with an airplane\u2019s heading is when the airplane is on the ground.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason not to use flaps in a crosswind.\u00a0 Just raise them toward the end of the flare in order to raise the stall speed and keep the durn thing on the ground.\u00a0 Is that too complicated for you?\u00a0 Then take up Parcheesi (don\u2019t bother sending me your objection to this one\u2026 I\u2019ve already heard most of them.\u00a0 My answer is \u201cdon\u2019t retract your landing gear on the ground\u201d).<\/h3>\n“Brian is nuts”.<\/strong> (I just slipped that one in).<\/h3>\nJeez, I gotta stop!\u00a0 I could just keep listing \u2018em!<\/h3>\nI guess my point is that the majority of items taught at the Acme Flying School (not the VAST majority) make sense and are useful.\u00a0 But not all.\u00a0 Intelligent student pilots must constantly question what they are taught and see if they can sift and sort the good stuff from the ridiculous (some of this philosophy is contained in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, but since very few people read it, I figured I\u2019d repeat it here).<\/h3>\nFlying in the irrigation pivot.\u00a0 This exercise gets us comfortable in proximity to the ground and also teaches coordination while maneuvering (<\/strong>The Lansburgh Collection, photo of Sam Monte by Brian Lansburgh<\/strong>).<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
“Since you might end up flying an airliner, fly airliner-sized patterns”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Wrong again.\u00a0 Since the main purpose of a flying school is to be profitable, doesn\u2019t it stand to reason that fewer landings per hour will result in the most time and profit in order for a student to gain proficiency?\u00a0 That\u2019s just one reason why the pattern at Tailwheel Town is so small.\u00a0 If we combine our small pattern with multiple landings, it\u2019s possible for our students to get ten times the landings per hour as their counterparts at the Acme Flying School.\u00a0 And, as a bonus, they are gaining more proficiency because they are using a shorter, more difficult approach.<\/h3>\nThe Outlaw Aviation Cessna near Sisters, Oregon. A one-cfi, one-airplane flight school with the student’s best interests at heart. (Photo by Bert Garrison.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n“Use the stabilized approach in your little beater; that\u2019s what the airline guys do!”<\/strong>\u00a0 The airline guys have an average of 200 passengers in the back and a lot to lose if they screw up an approach and landing.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason they use a stabilized approach and have certain parameters to meet at certain distances and altitudes.\u00a0 If they are not at that altitude, airspeed and configuration, they must execute a go-around.\u00a0 That works for them, but they are not nearly as maneuverable as we are.\u00a0 Although every general aviation pilot should be able to make a stabilized approach, in the vast majority of cases, we should wad that technique up and toss it out the window.<\/h3>\n“Slow down five miles from the airport and don\u2019t bother learning how quickly your airplane can go from cruise to landing configuration”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Most pilots never figure out how long it takes their airplane to slow to approach speed.\u00a0 So, as a result, they slow down WAY out and then take forever to get to the runway.\u00a0 Do you know how long it takes to slow to approach speed from cruise descent at 500 fpm in the plane YOU fly?\u00a0 In the Cessna 140 it takes 15 seconds.\u00a0 In the 172 about 25 seconds.\u00a0 So we can descend like a bat out of hell until we have that much time to final power reduction.\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet we\u2019ll be having coffee in the airport caf\u00e9 while the Acme guy is entering the pattern!<\/h3>\n“Carry power until touchdown\u2026 after all, modern engines are very dependable and will never quit”<\/strong>. This one drives me nuts.\u00a0 Every power-off accuracy landing we do prepares our pilots for the day when that engine may quit.\u00a0 In addition, our power-off accuracy landing takes less time and gets us on the ground just that much sooner.\u00a0 I was taught a long time ago that once you are in the pattern, you should be able to glide to the runway.\u00a0 The average power-on approach, especially if you are number two or three and suckered onto a long downwind, will make that impossible.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m not falling for it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been accused of \u201ccutting people off\u201d in the pattern, but I\u2019ve never actually caused anyone to change their stupid, long approach\u2026 they just can\u2019t stand to see someone get in front of them.\u00a0 Human nature.<\/h3>\n“Never extend flaps in a turn”.\u00a0 <\/strong>I really don\u2019t know where this one came from but, as with the forward slip, if you wait to extend flaps until you are not turning, you may be unintentionally allowing yourself to land longer.\u00a0 The extension of flaps during a turn has absolutely no ill affect unless you\u2019re pulling max G\u2019s at the time, which is highly unlikely during normal operations.<\/h3>\n“If you\u2019re going to forward slip, do it with the upwind wing down”<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is one of my favorites.\u00a0 It actually seems to make sense\u2026 until you simply ask \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 The answer you\u2019ll always get is that if there is a crosswind, you\u2019ll already be set up with your upwind wing down, so that the wind won\u2019t get under it (by the way, \u201cthe wind getting under it\u201d is rarely a problem).\u00a0 The reason this is nuts is because you may not be in a position to put that wing down if you\u2019re way up there on base.\u00a0 Because the beginning of the base leg (which is the \u201ckey\u201d position) is where you first decide if you are high.\u00a0 That\u2019s when you\u2019ll want to start your forward slip.\u00a0 If you are in left traffic, your left wing needs to be down because you are banking that way and all you have to do is input top rudder.\u00a0 Then you\u2019ll be in a turning slip to final.\u00a0 You DO know how to turn and slip at the same time, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 If not, you\u2019re poorly trained.\u00a0 Even the slowest rolling plane I\u2019ve ever flown could easily change from one bank to the other at the last minute in order to land in a crosswind.\u00a0 So, \u201csorry, Acme\u201d.\u00a0 You\u2019re wrong again.<\/h3>\n“Don\u2019t use flaps in a crosswind”. <\/strong>This is a real popular one.\u00a0 The only time a crosswind messes with an airplane\u2019s heading is when the airplane is on the ground.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason not to use flaps in a crosswind.\u00a0 Just raise them toward the end of the flare in order to raise the stall speed and keep the durn thing on the ground.\u00a0 Is that too complicated for you?\u00a0 Then take up Parcheesi (don\u2019t bother sending me your objection to this one\u2026 I\u2019ve already heard most of them.\u00a0 My answer is \u201cdon\u2019t retract your landing gear on the ground\u201d).<\/h3>\n“Brian is nuts”.<\/strong> (I just slipped that one in).<\/h3>\nJeez, I gotta stop!\u00a0 I could just keep listing \u2018em!<\/h3>\nI guess my point is that the majority of items taught at the Acme Flying School (not the VAST majority) make sense and are useful.\u00a0 But not all.\u00a0 Intelligent student pilots must constantly question what they are taught and see if they can sift and sort the good stuff from the ridiculous (some of this philosophy is contained in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, but since very few people read it, I figured I\u2019d repeat it here).<\/h3>\nFlying in the irrigation pivot.\u00a0 This exercise gets us comfortable in proximity to the ground and also teaches coordination while maneuvering (<\/strong>The Lansburgh Collection, photo of Sam Monte by Brian Lansburgh<\/strong>).<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
“Use the stabilized approach in your little beater; that\u2019s what the airline guys do!”<\/strong>\u00a0 The airline guys have an average of 200 passengers in the back and a lot to lose if they screw up an approach and landing.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason they use a stabilized approach and have certain parameters to meet at certain distances and altitudes.\u00a0 If they are not at that altitude, airspeed and configuration, they must execute a go-around.\u00a0 That works for them, but they are not nearly as maneuverable as we are.\u00a0 Although every general aviation pilot should be able to make a stabilized approach, in the vast majority of cases, we should wad that technique up and toss it out the window.<\/h3>\n“Slow down five miles from the airport and don\u2019t bother learning how quickly your airplane can go from cruise to landing configuration”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Most pilots never figure out how long it takes their airplane to slow to approach speed.\u00a0 So, as a result, they slow down WAY out and then take forever to get to the runway.\u00a0 Do you know how long it takes to slow to approach speed from cruise descent at 500 fpm in the plane YOU fly?\u00a0 In the Cessna 140 it takes 15 seconds.\u00a0 In the 172 about 25 seconds.\u00a0 So we can descend like a bat out of hell until we have that much time to final power reduction.\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet we\u2019ll be having coffee in the airport caf\u00e9 while the Acme guy is entering the pattern!<\/h3>\n“Carry power until touchdown\u2026 after all, modern engines are very dependable and will never quit”<\/strong>. This one drives me nuts.\u00a0 Every power-off accuracy landing we do prepares our pilots for the day when that engine may quit.\u00a0 In addition, our power-off accuracy landing takes less time and gets us on the ground just that much sooner.\u00a0 I was taught a long time ago that once you are in the pattern, you should be able to glide to the runway.\u00a0 The average power-on approach, especially if you are number two or three and suckered onto a long downwind, will make that impossible.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m not falling for it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been accused of \u201ccutting people off\u201d in the pattern, but I\u2019ve never actually caused anyone to change their stupid, long approach\u2026 they just can\u2019t stand to see someone get in front of them.\u00a0 Human nature.<\/h3>\n“Never extend flaps in a turn”.\u00a0 <\/strong>I really don\u2019t know where this one came from but, as with the forward slip, if you wait to extend flaps until you are not turning, you may be unintentionally allowing yourself to land longer.\u00a0 The extension of flaps during a turn has absolutely no ill affect unless you\u2019re pulling max G\u2019s at the time, which is highly unlikely during normal operations.<\/h3>\n“If you\u2019re going to forward slip, do it with the upwind wing down”<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is one of my favorites.\u00a0 It actually seems to make sense\u2026 until you simply ask \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 The answer you\u2019ll always get is that if there is a crosswind, you\u2019ll already be set up with your upwind wing down, so that the wind won\u2019t get under it (by the way, \u201cthe wind getting under it\u201d is rarely a problem).\u00a0 The reason this is nuts is because you may not be in a position to put that wing down if you\u2019re way up there on base.\u00a0 Because the beginning of the base leg (which is the \u201ckey\u201d position) is where you first decide if you are high.\u00a0 That\u2019s when you\u2019ll want to start your forward slip.\u00a0 If you are in left traffic, your left wing needs to be down because you are banking that way and all you have to do is input top rudder.\u00a0 Then you\u2019ll be in a turning slip to final.\u00a0 You DO know how to turn and slip at the same time, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 If not, you\u2019re poorly trained.\u00a0 Even the slowest rolling plane I\u2019ve ever flown could easily change from one bank to the other at the last minute in order to land in a crosswind.\u00a0 So, \u201csorry, Acme\u201d.\u00a0 You\u2019re wrong again.<\/h3>\n“Don\u2019t use flaps in a crosswind”. <\/strong>This is a real popular one.\u00a0 The only time a crosswind messes with an airplane\u2019s heading is when the airplane is on the ground.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason not to use flaps in a crosswind.\u00a0 Just raise them toward the end of the flare in order to raise the stall speed and keep the durn thing on the ground.\u00a0 Is that too complicated for you?\u00a0 Then take up Parcheesi (don\u2019t bother sending me your objection to this one\u2026 I\u2019ve already heard most of them.\u00a0 My answer is \u201cdon\u2019t retract your landing gear on the ground\u201d).<\/h3>\n“Brian is nuts”.<\/strong> (I just slipped that one in).<\/h3>\nJeez, I gotta stop!\u00a0 I could just keep listing \u2018em!<\/h3>\nI guess my point is that the majority of items taught at the Acme Flying School (not the VAST majority) make sense and are useful.\u00a0 But not all.\u00a0 Intelligent student pilots must constantly question what they are taught and see if they can sift and sort the good stuff from the ridiculous (some of this philosophy is contained in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, but since very few people read it, I figured I\u2019d repeat it here).<\/h3>\nFlying in the irrigation pivot.\u00a0 This exercise gets us comfortable in proximity to the ground and also teaches coordination while maneuvering (<\/strong>The Lansburgh Collection, photo of Sam Monte by Brian Lansburgh<\/strong>).<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
“Carry power until touchdown\u2026 after all, modern engines are very dependable and will never quit”<\/strong>. This one drives me nuts.\u00a0 Every power-off accuracy landing we do prepares our pilots for the day when that engine may quit.\u00a0 In addition, our power-off accuracy landing takes less time and gets us on the ground just that much sooner.\u00a0 I was taught a long time ago that once you are in the pattern, you should be able to glide to the runway.\u00a0 The average power-on approach, especially if you are number two or three and suckered onto a long downwind, will make that impossible.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m not falling for it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been accused of \u201ccutting people off\u201d in the pattern, but I\u2019ve never actually caused anyone to change their stupid, long approach\u2026 they just can\u2019t stand to see someone get in front of them.\u00a0 Human nature.<\/h3>\n“Never extend flaps in a turn”.\u00a0 <\/strong>I really don\u2019t know where this one came from but, as with the forward slip, if you wait to extend flaps until you are not turning, you may be unintentionally allowing yourself to land longer.\u00a0 The extension of flaps during a turn has absolutely no ill affect unless you\u2019re pulling max G\u2019s at the time, which is highly unlikely during normal operations.<\/h3>\n“If you\u2019re going to forward slip, do it with the upwind wing down”<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is one of my favorites.\u00a0 It actually seems to make sense\u2026 until you simply ask \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 The answer you\u2019ll always get is that if there is a crosswind, you\u2019ll already be set up with your upwind wing down, so that the wind won\u2019t get under it (by the way, \u201cthe wind getting under it\u201d is rarely a problem).\u00a0 The reason this is nuts is because you may not be in a position to put that wing down if you\u2019re way up there on base.\u00a0 Because the beginning of the base leg (which is the \u201ckey\u201d position) is where you first decide if you are high.\u00a0 That\u2019s when you\u2019ll want to start your forward slip.\u00a0 If you are in left traffic, your left wing needs to be down because you are banking that way and all you have to do is input top rudder.\u00a0 Then you\u2019ll be in a turning slip to final.\u00a0 You DO know how to turn and slip at the same time, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 If not, you\u2019re poorly trained.\u00a0 Even the slowest rolling plane I\u2019ve ever flown could easily change from one bank to the other at the last minute in order to land in a crosswind.\u00a0 So, \u201csorry, Acme\u201d.\u00a0 You\u2019re wrong again.<\/h3>\n“Don\u2019t use flaps in a crosswind”. <\/strong>This is a real popular one.\u00a0 The only time a crosswind messes with an airplane\u2019s heading is when the airplane is on the ground.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason not to use flaps in a crosswind.\u00a0 Just raise them toward the end of the flare in order to raise the stall speed and keep the durn thing on the ground.\u00a0 Is that too complicated for you?\u00a0 Then take up Parcheesi (don\u2019t bother sending me your objection to this one\u2026 I\u2019ve already heard most of them.\u00a0 My answer is \u201cdon\u2019t retract your landing gear on the ground\u201d).<\/h3>\n“Brian is nuts”.<\/strong> (I just slipped that one in).<\/h3>\nJeez, I gotta stop!\u00a0 I could just keep listing \u2018em!<\/h3>\nI guess my point is that the majority of items taught at the Acme Flying School (not the VAST majority) make sense and are useful.\u00a0 But not all.\u00a0 Intelligent student pilots must constantly question what they are taught and see if they can sift and sort the good stuff from the ridiculous (some of this philosophy is contained in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, but since very few people read it, I figured I\u2019d repeat it here).<\/h3>\nFlying in the irrigation pivot.\u00a0 This exercise gets us comfortable in proximity to the ground and also teaches coordination while maneuvering (<\/strong>The Lansburgh Collection, photo of Sam Monte by Brian Lansburgh<\/strong>).<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
“If you\u2019re going to forward slip, do it with the upwind wing down”<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is one of my favorites.\u00a0 It actually seems to make sense\u2026 until you simply ask \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 The answer you\u2019ll always get is that if there is a crosswind, you\u2019ll already be set up with your upwind wing down, so that the wind won\u2019t get under it (by the way, \u201cthe wind getting under it\u201d is rarely a problem).\u00a0 The reason this is nuts is because you may not be in a position to put that wing down if you\u2019re way up there on base.\u00a0 Because the beginning of the base leg (which is the \u201ckey\u201d position) is where you first decide if you are high.\u00a0 That\u2019s when you\u2019ll want to start your forward slip.\u00a0 If you are in left traffic, your left wing needs to be down because you are banking that way and all you have to do is input top rudder.\u00a0 Then you\u2019ll be in a turning slip to final.\u00a0 You DO know how to turn and slip at the same time, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 If not, you\u2019re poorly trained.\u00a0 Even the slowest rolling plane I\u2019ve ever flown could easily change from one bank to the other at the last minute in order to land in a crosswind.\u00a0 So, \u201csorry, Acme\u201d.\u00a0 You\u2019re wrong again.<\/h3>\n“Don\u2019t use flaps in a crosswind”. <\/strong>This is a real popular one.\u00a0 The only time a crosswind messes with an airplane\u2019s heading is when the airplane is on the ground.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason not to use flaps in a crosswind.\u00a0 Just raise them toward the end of the flare in order to raise the stall speed and keep the durn thing on the ground.\u00a0 Is that too complicated for you?\u00a0 Then take up Parcheesi (don\u2019t bother sending me your objection to this one\u2026 I\u2019ve already heard most of them.\u00a0 My answer is \u201cdon\u2019t retract your landing gear on the ground\u201d).<\/h3>\n“Brian is nuts”.<\/strong> (I just slipped that one in).<\/h3>\nJeez, I gotta stop!\u00a0 I could just keep listing \u2018em!<\/h3>\nI guess my point is that the majority of items taught at the Acme Flying School (not the VAST majority) make sense and are useful.\u00a0 But not all.\u00a0 Intelligent student pilots must constantly question what they are taught and see if they can sift and sort the good stuff from the ridiculous (some of this philosophy is contained in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, but since very few people read it, I figured I\u2019d repeat it here).<\/h3>\nFlying in the irrigation pivot.\u00a0 This exercise gets us comfortable in proximity to the ground and also teaches coordination while maneuvering (<\/strong>The Lansburgh Collection, photo of Sam Monte by Brian Lansburgh<\/strong>).<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
“Brian is nuts”.<\/strong> (I just slipped that one in).<\/h3>\nJeez, I gotta stop!\u00a0 I could just keep listing \u2018em!<\/h3>\nI guess my point is that the majority of items taught at the Acme Flying School (not the VAST majority) make sense and are useful.\u00a0 But not all.\u00a0 Intelligent student pilots must constantly question what they are taught and see if they can sift and sort the good stuff from the ridiculous (some of this philosophy is contained in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, but since very few people read it, I figured I\u2019d repeat it here).<\/h3>\nFlying in the irrigation pivot.\u00a0 This exercise gets us comfortable in proximity to the ground and also teaches coordination while maneuvering (<\/strong>The Lansburgh Collection, photo of Sam Monte by Brian Lansburgh<\/strong>).<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I guess my point is that the majority of items taught at the Acme Flying School (not the VAST majority) make sense and are useful.\u00a0 But not all.\u00a0 Intelligent student pilots must constantly question what they are taught and see if they can sift and sort the good stuff from the ridiculous (some of this philosophy is contained in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, but since very few people read it, I figured I\u2019d repeat it here).<\/h3>\nFlying in the irrigation pivot.\u00a0 This exercise gets us comfortable in proximity to the ground and also teaches coordination while maneuvering (<\/strong>The Lansburgh Collection, photo of Sam Monte by Brian Lansburgh<\/strong>).<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Every two years I must renew my Flight Instructor Certificate.\u00a0\u00a0 I do the online Flight Instructor Renewal Course and every time I do one, I find myself tearing my hair and seriously considering hanging it up.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in all of these courses there is next to nothing about teaching a person how to fly an airplane.\u00a0 Instead, the FIRC is filled with regs (think about who decided that we had to DO a FIRC), Crew Resource Management and other subjects which are designed to teach the pilot how to think.\u00a0 I believe they already know how to think.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to teach them to fly.\u00a0 But the FIRC epitomizes how the modern CFI is taught to teach\u2026 and WHAT he is taught to teach.<\/h3>\nA strip of tape covers the ball of the turn coordinator in the Tailwheel Town 140.\u00a0 Very\u00a0few of my students have ever seen the ball.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this before and I\u2019ll write about it again.\u00a0 Virtually 100 percent of my tailwheel students report that their first flight instructor told them that, to coordinate their turns they should learn to \u201cstep on the ball\u201d.\u00a0 That advice is crap and it is symbolic of all the other misconceptions that are taught at the modern flight training institution.\u00a0 The upper body of the pilot will tell him if he\u2019s coordinated\u2026 and he can use that while looking out the window, where his attention needs to be.\u00a0 That tape in our airplane is more than a training aid\u2026 it is a symbol of how we fly at Tailwheel Town.<\/h3>\nJust as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
Just as the number of CFI s who can teach Tailwheel Flying is steadily shrinking, the number of those instructors who inject a generous amount of common sense and who teach power-off approaches is also increasingly tiny.\u00a0 My heart goes out to the person who wants to learn to fly and must find a teacher.\u00a0 Good luck to you\u2026.<\/h3>\n\u2026and Happy Swooping<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A stall results in a spin” is one of the most popular aviation misconceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4337,"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":[35,38,67,165,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331"}],"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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}