John Boyd designed the F-16 light with a powerful engine to enable it to achieve rapid transitions. He also taught energy maneuvering flight techniques. These helped the F-16 pilot get inside his enemy's OODA loop. We use the same techniques in crop dusting or any low altitude maneuvering, especially with less power to weight advantage.

Mental rapid transitions from VMC to IMC or vice versa, while desirable and sometimes necessary, are just as dangerous as aerial combat. The absolute safest way to transition from VMC to IMC or vise versa is with one pilot flying contact and the other on the gauges.

The transition from visual horizon to terrain without horizon, part of every steep energy management turn, needs to be practiced and accommodated. Level altitude maintenance in turns, on the other hand, rejects the law of the roller coaster and creates wing loading. We are not in an instrument turn to heading. Orientation is to the target on the ground. Wings level zoom climb reduces radius while the release of elevator back pressure unloads the wing in the banked part of the turn. The ground rush part, in low altitude work like crop dusting or close air support, has to be accommodated as well. Stall or graveyard spiral too often results from startle pull up while still in a bank. A very necessary muscle memory for low altitude maneuvering is never to pull back on the stick without wings level and zoom reserve in airspeed.

Ending the nose down and banked part of the steep energy management turn is similar to ending the rotation part of the spin. It is mostly rudder that gets the down wing up and level before pull up. Back to back spraying requires wind management to make every steep return to target into a headwind component, while pipeline patrol requires a grab bag of various bank angles. There are no standard rate (airplane) or half standard rate (helicopter) level turns to heading IFR. All turns are turns to target, even the offset downwind turn from the long ground effect swath in the crop field. The offset target is determined by the velocity of the crosswind component. Low altitude work is too continuously active for distraction to become a safety issue.

So while rapid transitions are mentally disruptive to instrument flying, they are necessary to low altitude maneuvering flight. Maintenance of airspeed rather than altitude means zoom reserve is available for climb or maneuvering with or without engine thrust. Because altitude is not there, we need not fear its loss. We should train for rapid transitions to near landing zones left, right, or straight ahead with engine failure. Diagnosis is not an issue as we will be on the ground in six seconds. Living low so many years for so many hours with so many engine failures has convinced me that the only way to die in a simple small airplane is to come unglued.

OODA loop... Can I pitch up aggressively? Yes, because I have both zoom reserve in airspeed and wings level. Can I stay pitched up indefinitely or make level turns? No! No! No! The law of the roller coaster. Stall.

OODA loop...Can I bank aggressively? Yes, if I release back pressure in the turn to unload the wing. Can I stay in the resulting dive indefinitely? No! No! No! The law of the roller coaster. CFIT or Vne.

OODA loop...Can this aggressive maneuvering continue indefinitely? No, I will get lower and slower with each repetition unless ground effect acceleration or at least level or down drainage acceleration is available to reestablish zoom reserve in airspeed. Airspeed here is life. A little bit of altitude is just used as another form of airspeed.

Can an airplane climb indefinitely? Not in my world. Don't even think it. Heart attack would get me before safety in altitude. Sitting in the airliner on takeoff and climb out, I have to continuously think rocket power...rocket power...to keep from having the big one. Relaxation of back pressure to begin the turn is automatic muscle memory in my world. Potential energy soon becomes return of kinetic energy by allowing the nose to go down in all turns. Am I saying a crop duster or pipeliner approaching an uncontrolled airport at 200' AGL and giving way to any other traffic will fly a safer pattern? Yes, the 1,000' pattern is pretend high altitude orientation.

Just a though for you to consider ContactFlying, when using an accromym defining it may help other follow your logic. So what the heck is an OODA loop, Out Over Down Around !!!

Your definition is a good one. Observe Orientate Decide Act out over down and around pretty much like you said. They guy liked to destroy one idea in order to get to the next. Boxers call it bob and weave.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a long transition from flying out of ground effect on final to flying in ground effect to flying in low ground effect to not flying when only one inch from the surface. Since I don't use the long final, I don't know if the long transition causes pilots to forget that we have to decelerate to get to the very slow airspeed at which the airplane will quit flying in low ground effect. I find the rapid transition from a quarter mile out with continuous deceleration keeps my students oriented on the mission: to decelerate to in ground effect stall airspeed one inch above the surface.

I have a somewhat different concept of the helicopter approach because it can safely slow up to actually shaking and give the pilot a lot of time to observe the landing zone. Power pitch deceleration on short final, slowing to stabilize the apparent rate of closure, is a controlled transition similar to the helicopter approach. Round out and hold off and waiting for kinetic energy to dissipate is an uncontrolled transition, and therefore a bit disconcerting.

Lookin forward to tomorrows sermon Brother Jimmy !

The wind has come up and the crop duster finishes the liquid hopper load carefully. Coming back into the uncontrolled field, he looks up into a completely uncluttered sky for any traffic. He circles if necessary to wait for any traffic to land. He makes no call as it would just disrupt the high traffic that he is purposely having nothing to do with. The last aircraft lands. From a downwind downwind leg at 200' AGL, he makes a teardrop turn to angle across to land on an angle from the downwind corner to the upwind big airplane touchdown zone marking. He pulls into his operation to quit for the day or to remove the booms and install the spreader for windy but workable spreader operations. No one on the airport except his crew has observed his downwind to final teardrop move with both vertical and horizontal aspects (energy management turn). If they had they would likely call what he has already done a hundred times this morning a "cowboy" move. Yes, it is a rapid transition from a downwind flown purposely downwind of the runway to a 160 degree or so course reversal and landing. His work is time sensitive. While certainly not a good judgement practice for student pilots, the wind management and energy management turn principals might be useful to them in their study and practice of flying. While at 1,000' in the pattern and making 90 degree turns requiring far less bank angle, they could also use wind management and energy management to make 1g turns of whatever bank angle they use. That includes the 20 degree bank angle the school might limit them to. Yes, it too can be an energy management 1g turn. The pitch up required would be almost unnoticeable but the turn would be 1g instead of 1.1g. It would develop much safer muscle memory.