zero.one.victor wrote: However, judging from "if you're in that position you're gonna get what you deserve and I for one won't shed a tear" and a couple of your other comments, I guess you've never,ever screwed up. You must be the only one here who can make that brag-- I've screwed up many a time, just not to that extent. A64 had it right,"except for the grace of god...".

Eric

The "if you're in that position" comment came from finding yourself in a narrow canyon with clouds covering the top so you couldn't just simply climb out, you had to make a narrow turn. There's simply no reason for that for the average pilot. You screwed up long before you found yourself in that canyon.

BM (interesting call sign)

Most of us on this website are human. We make mistakes. As I get older I try not to make the same mistakes. I continue to make new and different mistakes.

I always internally shed a tear whenever one of our brothers or sisters die even if it was because of a mistake. Maybe their time was up. All of our clocks are running.

Our best and most experienced pilots make mistakes. Even Bonanza pilots make mistakes. I think we lost one several years ago at Johnson Creek.

Fate is the Hunter

flyer

I agree with you flyer. I am on the other end of the spectrum as a relatively new pilot who is just beginning my journey as an aviator. We all do make mistakes. No one is perfect. The best we can do is try to minimize the impact of thoes mistakes. This can be done in a thousand different ways. I have always tried to leave myself an out, no matter where I am and what kind of flying conditions exist. I tell myself that I dont really have to get there before I start a journey, therefore I am not dissapointed when my trip is cut short or I have to turn arround. It is the same in the mountains, I always am looking for a way out. As for a minimum radius turn there are several effective ways. I practice both wingovers and tight slow turns and have managed to get the radius of both down to a hundred feet or so(my wingovers may be slightly more extreme than some others. The big question is why are you in the situation that requires that type of turn? I would like to think I would have turned arround before I had reached that point. But then again, we all make mistakes.

Renegade

It is a good thing that you are cautious, that you practice your tight radius turns and realize that mistakes happen.

All of us pilots have a sort of defense mechanism. When we see or hear of an accident, we do the following. We tell ourselves that we would not have made that mistake and if we had, we would have done a Chandelle or some other thing to get out of it. We would never have crashed as they had.

Those pilots told themselves the same things when they viewed previous accidents. It could not happen to them. They were good pilots.

The truth is that it can happen to any of us, even the best.

We do the best that we can. We are as cautious as possible. Sometimes that is not enough. A severe downdraft, while invisible, can make it impossible to climb, even in a Bonanza.

When it does happen, and it will again, I think we should be supportive and be very careful of what we say. We should think of the affect our words might have on the survivors and relatives.

Be careful out there

flyer

I guess by Bonanza Man's assessment, ANY kind of proficiency training or training to expand our skills is simply a waste, because it's very simple to completely avoid these risks:

Don't fly.

BM--You are wrong. We all make honest mistakes. If you've never done that, then I guess you're a whole lot better than the rest of us.

I've stuck my nose in places they shouldn't have been both as a working pilot and as a recreational one--more than once, so I guess by your assessment, I deserve whatever I get, and I guess I couldn't argue with that.

Aviation is all about risk. There are risks we can control, there are risks we can avoid. But, occasionally, we will all run into one that we exposed ourselves to inadvertantly.

And THAT is where skills and proficiency MAY save our sorry butts.

That is what this discussion is about.

Your arguement is like saying we shouldn't bother to learn any weather avoidance skills, like blind 180's, cause we're never going to fly on a day where there's a cloud in the sky.

There's a couple problems with that logic as well, by the way.

MTV

Mistakes:

good judgement comes from the lessons you learn by using bad judgement.
------
aviation is a harsh school, where the test often comes before the lesson.
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learn from other's mistakes, you don't have time to make them all yourself.
----
be humble, the next ground loop (or worse) you see may be your own.

Eric

Rocky TFS

Your original question was how to make a minimum radius turn. The answer to your question is: IT DEPENDS

There are many variables.

A 60 degree bank turn maintaining constant airspeed and altitude requires 2 gs and additional power.

To be realistic these turns should be practiced at or above 7,000 feet msl.
Our mountains are higher than that but that would be a good altitude for canyon turns.

Turn radius will be determined by groundspeed and bank angle. At these higher altitudes your true airspeed and ground speed will be much higher than the lower altitudes. You will also have less power.

You want to be as close to your stall speed as possible. As you increase your g s, your stall speed will increase. It is like increasing the weight of your aircraft. This is somewhat like the stall/spin scenarios that we have seen when final is overshot and the turn is tightened.

Make sure that when you practice these slow tight turns that you have plenty of altitude below you to recover if you make a misjudgement.

All of this assumes that you have extra energy like airspeed, altitude or power. It assumes that you do not have a significant downdraft.

It is still prudent to practice these turns and find the limits of yourself and your aircraft. We should all be able to make 60 degree bank, level, slow speed turns.

An angle of attack indicator is a great tool in these situations. Like a stall warning it will compensate for weights and g forces. Indicated airspeed is not a good source in these situations. What is your stall speed in a 60 degree bank 2 g turn? How about if you have to pull 3 gs?
How do you know how many g s you are pulling?

This is really getting complicated. How can I remember all of this?

Fly Safe

flyer

Flyer,

Be careful of those civilian Angle of Attack Indicators that seem to be gaining popularity lately.

Remember, the AOA on the inside wing in a turn is substantially different than the AOA on the outside wing. On a landing approach, these things may have merit.

In a canyon turn, I'd ignore them and FEEL what the airplane is telling you.

There's a reason the Navy relies on AOA indictators. There's also a reason that their sensors are not just on one wing.

MTV

mtv,
Have you seen the trim indicator that is used on the F-14?

I agree with BM. You should do your best to avoid situations that require superior flying skill to avoid a crash.

Tito

Daah. Of course, we all try to avoid that type of situation. That is fairly obvious. I think we all agree on that. If you continue flying, you will at some time find yourself in that situation. It will take some fancy flying and maybe some luck to get out safely. When it happens, remember that I told you that it would. It has happened to me more than once.


MTV

Do you have a lot of experience flying with AOA?

flyer

flyer wrote:Do you have a lot of experience flying with AOA?

Bit hard to fly without it.

Student Pilot

Smart aleck kids. You are kind of correct. It must be a flyable angle of attack. What I should have said was: MTV Do you have a lot of experience with flying using AOA information instead of airspeed.

flyer

Flyer,

No, but I do have a little experience with the "reserve lift indicator" that is being pimped nowadays, and I'm not impressed. My point was that it is not really a valid AOA indicator, such as some military aircraft use.

I'd be the biggest fan ever of a good, reliable multi point AOA indicator for GA aircraft, if one were practical and available.

I guess the point is that the best AOA indicator we have in most GA aircraft is the interface between our jeans and the seat cushions. Unfortunately, it does take some time in an airplane to get a feel for the plane and where its happy, but I guarantee you that pilots working really tough places for a living ain't staring at any gauges on short final.

MTV

MTV

I did not think that you had much experience using angle of attack information. Not too many general aviation pilots do.

I have used AOA information for many years. The one that I have now I have been using for over 8 years. I check my airspeed before I lower my flaps. That is the last time during an approach that I look at my airspeed gage.

I agree that you should not be looking inside at any gage during an approach. I do not look inside.

I believe that AOA information could have prevented many GA accidents. General Aviation is somewhat resistant to change. Can we really trust those pesky satellites for navigation information?

Do you know what type of information the Wright Brothers had when they first flew. But what do they know?

flyer

Flyer,

Again, I wasn't knocking AOA as a tool. It works fine. My point was that the "Reserve Lift Indicator" that's being touted now really isn't a reliable AOA indicator. I do have some experience with it in a couple of airplanes.

There are two problems with that device, the biggest of which is that it only samples lift at ONE point on the entire 35 or 36 or 48 foot airfoil, and it's biased to one side significantly. Therefore, if you are turning, that device will NOT provide accurate AOA information for the entire wing, and the direction of the error will depend on which way you're turning.

Now, for approach, that style device is fine, but frankly, in every airplane I've flown, I could do a LOT better by just flying the plane. Those devices are keyed to keep you at 1.3 and I don't use 1.3 in a lot of places.

Waaaayyyyy back, I had a little exposure (not as a pilot) to some fairly sophisticated AOA indicators, which sampled AOA at the wingtips, and then computed a solution that would work best. I don't know if that's what the current Navy aircraft are doing, but it seemed to me to be a very straightforward, reliable and excellent solution.

Airspeed indicators are unreliable at most speeds, but certainly in the low end of the airspeed range we operate at. The "Reserve Lift Indicator" doesn't do any better in my opinion, but they mount the gauge on top of the instrument panel.

What that means to me is I now have an additional piece of irrelevant junk blocking my view of the landing surface and of other traffic while in flight.

Other than that, I think they're fine.

More sophisticated "actual" AOA sensors I think would be a great thing to have in many aircraft.

And "General aviation is resistant to change"??? We don't want to trust those pesky satellites for navigation???? Criminy, I don't think I know a singe GA pilot that DOESN"T use "Those pesky satellites" for navigation. I don't know many that still navigate via VOR, or heaven forbid NDB, if they can possibly avoid it.

It isn't General Aviation that resists change--it's the FAA. There were literally thousands of panel mounted GPS units installed in GA aircraft LONG before the first one was installed in an airline cockpit.

In fact, general aviation is the one that's forced the FAA to move forward on "using those pesky satellites" for primary navigation, not the airlines, who already had long range nav solutions, and for whom the other GPS features were already handled by DME, RNAV, etc.

MTV

mtv wrote:Flyer,
I don't know many that still navigate via VOR, or heaven forbid NDB, if they can possibly avoid it.
MTV

Hey that be me. Still have the ADF, duel VOR, DME. Yes and a GPS is in the panel. However my paranoia about big brother turning off the switch sticks in the back of mind, however little of it there is. After the internal battery failure of a couple months ago and GPS sidelined for two weeks VOR worked well. I also have the map in my lap most if the time Sometimes it's even current.

Hey if the $4.00 or $5.00 bucks a gallon doesn't do us in, then when uncle says hey, we need someone to pay for this Satillite system, how about all you GA pilots kick in $50. per month, oh and by the way we are going to chip your GPS to know when your out there using it.

I suppose I'll just keep those Banana cream pies loaded.

Wow talk about off track?

See ya, Bub

mtv

You are correct. It is the FAA that is resistant to change and not GA. I take that part back.

I still love me AOA setup. I think the Wright brothers were on the right track and were brilliant.

flyer

Back to this AOA sensor thing for GA. Out of curiosity where do you get one? What do they cost?
Not to be a know it all, but I think my Maule came factory equipped with one 24 years ago. The stall warning switch works by sensing AOA, doesn't it? I don't put much faith in the thing, even though I have adjusted it, mostly because it can only tell me what the middle portion of the left wing is doing so therefore in a left turn it's not much use. I usually fly left traffic because I can see the landing zone better, Whose idea was it to put the thing on the left wing anyway?

But, A64, in that case, the left wing would be the one with the higher AOA, right?? So that's the one you'd want warning of.

Safe Flight International is the one that was written about recently. They are NOT certified, and you may or may not get the FAA to bless an installation.

I've seen a couple people install them as a minor, but that's like installing a PFD as a minor. And that's the answer we got in Alaska, when we wanted to install one as a test in Alaska. Installed it anyway as a "Public Aircraft", and a whole bunch of experienced pilots played with it. I never talked to anyone who thought it was worth the 2 or so pounds of extra weight.

Again, this is NOT an AOA indicator. Frankly, it is NO BETTER than that which you describe on your left wing. And in fact, the company calls it a "reserve lift indicator".

MTV