{"id":5747,"date":"2016-10-21T13:07:15","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T20:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=4062"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","slug":"166-nosepicker-control-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/166-nosepicker-control-2\/","title":{"rendered":"#166 Nosepicker Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we were younger and had been driving for a few very short years, my brother and I often found the habits of other drivers to be infuriating. \u00a0Like the old duffer who comes out of his garage in the morning and leaves his blinker on for the day of driving, only to turn it off that evening when he\u2019s all done driving.\u00a0 People who drove slowly in the fast lane, signaled left, and then turned right, those who turned in front of us and then slammed on the brakes, leaving us to stew in their exhaust\u2026 all of them were sent to screw with us.\u00a0 And who dispatched them?\u00a0 Why, \u201cNosepicker Control\u201d of course!\u00a0 We imagined a huge tower somewhere with controllers watching those drivers and dispatching them just to screw with us!<\/h3>\n
\"nosepicker-control-tower\"
Looks like an air traffic control tower, doesn’t it? Don’t be fooled! It’s actually a Nosepicker Control tower located somewhere on the west coast!<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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It\u2019s occurred to me that we in aviation have a version of nosepicker control.\u00a0 It\u2019s called the \u201cAcme Flying School\u201d.\u00a0 Students of \u201cAcme\u201d fly huge patterns, put their flaps down early, slow to approach speed about twenty miles out and generally get in our way.\u00a0 After all, we at Tailwheel Town fly tiny patterns, short approaches and know how long it takes to slow to approach speed from cruise.\u00a0 As a result, our flights are extremely efficient.\u00a0 And when one of those \u201cAcme\u201d types gets in front of us in a pattern, you can hear us grumbling clear down at the FBO! Y\u2019see, some of us were taught a rule early on in our aeronautical training.\u00a0 That rule is that once you are in the pattern, you MUST be able to glide to the runway.\u00a0 I guess none of the aeronautical nose-pickers have heard of that rule.<\/h3>\n

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But should we really grumble about someone who has devised a test for our ability?\u00a0 Do we grumble when a CFI or a DPE fails an engine or creates a simulated emergency just at the most awkward of times?\u00a0 Of course not.\u00a0 So maybe we should look at the Acme fliers a bit differently.\u00a0 Maybe we should view their sudden appearance in our pattern as a test.\u00a0 Instead of cursing their attempt to sucker us into extending our downwind\u00a0so that we don\u2019t have a hope in hell of gliding to the runway in the event of an engine failure, perhaps we should take advantage of that interruption to deal with it creatively.<\/h3>\n

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Let\u2019s take the most common way in which they mess with us. \u00a0It’s the big pattern.\u00a0 Let\u2019s say we\u2019re number two in the pattern with both of us on the downwind.\u00a0 The Acme guy is number one, but just keeps his power up and keeps on going, passing that point abeam the numbers when we\u2019d have closed our throttle and started to think about turning base.\u00a0 Before very long at all, neither of us will be able to glide to a landing\u2026 we\u2019re simply too far downwind.\u00a0 He\u2019s in worse shape than we are because he started extending his flaps on downwind.\u00a0 Before very long, he\u2019s dependent on power to make it to the runway.\u00a0 We can follow him, grumbling all the way about the fact that he\u2019s forced us into this dangerous position\u2026 or we can deal with it and stay safe!\u00a0 Hmmm, how can we do that?\u00a0 Two ways: we can slow to minimum controllable airspeed and we can climb.\u00a0 One thing that Acme will NEVER do is slow to VMC at pattern altitude!\u00a0 That would be inviting catastrophe!!!\u00a0 And considering that we normally fly our downwind leg significantly lower than they do, it\u2019s a double \u201cdon\u2019t do\u201d!\u00a0 We do it anyway because we are capable of it.\u00a0 One or both of those moves can keep us within gliding distance to the runway, one by increasing our altitude and the other by slowing our groundspeed.\u00a0 We can even do both of them simultaneously, increasing the complexity of the maneuver and calling upon us to exercise even greater skill.\u00a0 And, if we can maneuver so that we are right on his butt, when we land, we can then make an early turn on the \u201cgo\u201d and end up in front of him!\u00a0 That\u2019s kinda fun!\u00a0 It\u2019s always a good idea to talk to him on the radio and assure him that we\u2019re not really interfering with his chosen pattern at all.<\/h3>\n

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I once had an airline captain who, when asked to get right on someone\u2019s butt on final, said, \u201cGee, I always wanted to do this, but can\u2019t get away with it on the job!\u201d<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

Using such a method, we\u2019ve changed a frustrating situation into one which we can take advantage of in order to increase our skills.\u00a0 And with the extra time we often have on the downwind, we can crane our necks and search for the \u201cNosepicker Control Tower\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s gotta be around there somewhere!<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I once had an airline captain who, when asked to get right on someone\u2019s butt on final, said, \u201cGee, I always wanted to do this, but can\u2019t get away with it on the job!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4065,"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":[38,120,173,174,192],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747"}],"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=5747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}