{"id":5739,"date":"2014-05-08T19:21:07","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T02:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=2845"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:57","slug":"103-pilots-like-horses-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/103-pilots-like-horses-2\/","title":{"rendered":"#103 Pilots are Like Horses"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DSC04461\"<\/a>
A pilot and a horseman visit over the fence.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wasn\u2019t always a flier.\u00a0 As a kid, I spent most of my free time on a horse.\u00a0 It came naturally because my father was a renowned horseman.\u00a0 But he was always hesitant to teach.\u00a0 I think it was the result of having been the son of a compulsive lecturer!\u00a0 But I certainly did learn a few things from the old man.\u00a0 One of those little gems keeps popping up in my present role as a teacher of flying.<\/p>\n

\"Larry<\/a>
Pop and his trademark stunt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEvery time you get on a horse, you\u2019re schooling him\u201d, Pop once told me.\u00a0 He went on to explain that if you knew what you were doing, you would steadily improve that horse\u2019s performance every time you got on him.\u00a0 Conversely, he explained, you could easily \u201cde-train\u201d a horse.\u00a0 The same was true of dogs.\u00a0 If you allowed a horse to pull you with his mouth, you would be creating a \u201chard-mouthed horse\u201d.\u00a0 If you allowed your dog to pull against his leash, he\u2019d spend a lifetime pulling you along (both Pop and I believed that the modern spring-loaded dog leash is an abomination.\u00a0 Sorry\u2026 I know that most of you love \u2018em).\u00a0 Both horse and dog would benefit from a well-placed jerk.\u00a0 The horse would develop a more sensitive, responsive mouth and the dog would trot along beside you at heel with a slack leash.\u00a0 Both are very desirable results of positive training.<\/p>\n

Pilots are the same way.\u00a0 We train ourselves every time we take to the air.\u00a0 Do we depend on power to get ourselves dragged along the approach to a landing, or do we learn how to reduce the power to idle abeam the numbers and to turn base and final at just the right time to land where we want?\u00a0 Are we satisfied that \u201cany landing you can walk away from is a good one\u201d?\u00a0 Or do we demand that the airplane be landed gently astride the centerline at the point along the runway which we selected while on downwind?\u00a0 If altitude holding is our selected result, do we maintain that altitude within 20 feet, or do we let it wander around, satisfying ourselves that 200 feet is \u201cgood enough\u201d?<\/p>\n

\"Pop<\/a>
Pop exits a Cessna 120 years ago while filming wild horses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perhaps we were taught to use a stabilized approach and that \u201cthe key to a good landing is a good approach\u201d.\u00a0 It may be true that some learning is required in order to fly a stabilized approach.\u00a0 It may also be true that a good approach is likely to result in an accurate landing.\u00a0 But are either of them absolutely necessary?\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t a good pilot be able to perform a maneuver in more than one way?\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t a good pilot be able to make an accurate and good landing from a low, short approach?\u00a0 I think so.<\/p>\n

I also think that pilots are like horses. I think that every time we take off we have an opportunity to improve our performance.<\/p>\n

\"Wonder<\/a>
My career as an airshow pilot was only possible because of a dog… “Jessie”, who played the part of “Ace, the Wonder Dog” in my airshow act.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I think that if we simply demand more of ourselves, we will learn to become better pilots.\u00a0 And I think that if we rely on sloppy performance we will become sloppier pilots.\u00a0 Which one do you want to be?<\/p>\n

Oh, and lest you think that I\u2019m better than I am, you should have been at Sisters the day I landed in a turn and missed the runway entirely!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Happy Swooping!<\/p>\n

Brian<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We train ourselves every time we take to the air.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2852,"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":[35,67,100,171,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5739"}],"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=5739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}