What if a student accelerated in low ground effect on a normal takeoff on a flight test? Would the explanation that he/she wanted to bank the extra kinetic energy based on Task F. Performance and Limitations/Risk Management/Possible difference between calculated performance and actual performance work?

What if a student released back pressure on the stick in the turn to crosswind at 400' AGL on a flight test? Would the explanation that he/she was applying Task A. Normal Takeoff and Climb/Risk Management/Low altitude maneuvering including stall, spin, or CFIT work?

Of course neither explanation would work in a world where low altitude maneuvering is not a risk so long as we try to turn while climbing at the very near stall airspeed of Vx or Vy as appropriate. What if neither Vx nor Vy is as safe as a bit more airspeed in rough air? What if neither Vx nor Vy is appropriate where egress down drainage would be much safer?

It is interesting that CFIT is grouped in with stall or spin while maneuvering at low altitude. Stall or spin would be uncontrolled flight into terrain, every time, at low altitude. Zoom reserve makes climbing over terrain safer and energy management turns make going around safer, but neither is mentioned as appropriate. Are we still in avoidance orientation? Are we still demanding Vx or Vy when a bit faster would get us over with room to spare and zoom reserve in the bank? Which is more likely to result in UFIT, uncontrolled flight into terrain??

I understand that the school solution is training to minimums. I had no desire to lengthen the PPL training nor to make it more expensive. Safe maneuvering flight techniques are actually easier and they decrease the time to safe solo. The problem with the abstinence approach is that it is unfair and dangerous to intimidate instructors into refusing to teach safer ways to manage the low altitude maneuvering, the maneuvering flight, necessary to fly a training pattern. Students cannot learn safe maneuvering flight techniques if we will not admit they will have to engage in maneuvering flight in the pattern.

Please keep on asking and answering that question Jim .
Thanks !

You may not recall my previous responses in your thread topics, so I'll just state up front that I did a CFI reinstatement ride last spring using the private and commercial ACS standards. So I follow your recent queries with interest even if I don't speak up.

I was going to say that as long as the pilot candidate explained what they were doing in advance (avoiding surprises) and successfully answering any questions the examiner had, they should be okay.

But thinking back on not only my own check rides but the ones I sent candidates for, I'm not sure I would suggest it.

What is the goal? To impress the examiner by demonstrating a non typical application of physics? Change their ways?

I don't have the ACS handy nor memorized but I think "normal takeoff" may have reference to Vy or the POH recommended climb speeds. And certainty soft and short field technique is mired in tradition. That is what the examiner is expecting from you.

You start talking zoom reserve and maneuvering in ground effect and the examiner will likely send you for a pee tests or psych evaluation.

I guess I'm saying that examiners are expecting the same thing that occurred in the last 150 check rides they gave for a given rating. It's not really the place to draw attention to yourself if the end goal is a pass.

Remember the old joke about "what do you call the guy that finished in the bottom of his class in med school? Doctor". It applies here. Your student will be nervous enough and you want them to do something that will make the examiner's seat cushion disappear with a "phup" sound?

If you want to get positive attention then produce a runway diagram for taxi, and use checklists like you've never seen one before.

I don't see the ACS as the opportunity that you do. I see that it was written to take us where people are even more about processes and procedures and less about tactile inputs and maximising performance.

aftCG,

I had you and courierguy mixed up. If there is a 50-50 chance, I will choose wrong 100% of the time.

I am speaking to instructors more than to schools and the FAA even though I know and have flown flown for and with highers in the FAA. You are correct that the student is in no position to change anything. He should cooperate and graduate. He should in no way, however, believe that takeoff and departure stall practice at 3,000' AGL has anything to do with the risk of stalling at 400' AGL. That is where the his instructors can head off high altitude orientation that says only climbing will avert the danger of low altitude maneuvering. The instructors can teach safer techniques while prepping for the test. The instructors can teach using the Vx or Vy tolerance toward the faster for takeoff and not add so much dangerous extra airspeed over 1.3 Vso on approach. The instructors can teach that perfect circle and perfect Ses have less to do with wind management than putting the airplane where we want, especially in low altitude maneuvering like in the traffic pattern.

You guys will have to teach the stabilized airspeed approach to round out over the numbers and hold off down the runway for the test. Teaching the much safer, easier, and quicker apparent brisk walk rate of closure short final to touchdown on the numbers slowly and softly is not a waist of time, however, in my experience. Those I soloed in tailwheel in six hours and did a zero electronic dual cross country with before turning them over to the regular instructors completed in forty hours. They could handle the round out and hold off better after learning the value of the throttle as a descent rate control.

Bureaucrats changes incredibly slowly, but the ACS terms energy management and risk management reflect the embarrassment that takeoff stall fatalities have not improved with intimidating against teaching low altitude maneuvering.

What if the sun came up in the west?
The possibilities are endless.

x2 on what Aft CG said.

The sun doesn't make low time students pitch up when slow in low level turns.

When the statistics started looking bad on the climbing turn to crosswind, the FAA called for climb to 400' AGL first. That turned out not to be high enough to recover from a stall. Next they limited bank to 20 degrees. That put the circuit way out there to make it around with shallow turns. Still no change in fatalities. How about just not pulling back on the stick and get all the climbing done wings level? So what if you don't get to 1,000' AGL in a dual C-152 at Flagstaff in the midday summer? Meybe we .can recover from a stall at 1000', but why should we almost stall trying to get there? Meeting all the bank, climb, and altitude requirements puts training airplanes all over the sky, which probably increases midairs.

Overloaded spray planes don't stall trying to get up fast. Could that be because they don't try to get up fast?

I was taught to use the whole runway and only climb as fast as needed.

Vy and Vx should be taught as max performance numbers, not for every day use.
My car does 0-60 in nearly 4 seconds. Doesn't mean I should do that every time I get on the highway. Even tho I do... bad example....

Agreed. Perhaps we could use the terms safe climb, emergency Vx, emergency Vy. As you say, maximum performance is using the entire runway.

contactflying wrote:Perhaps we could use the terms...?

I think this sums up your efforts here.

The kind of work I did gave me thousands of hours of safe maneuvering flight, their term, not mine. Many of the pilots doing that work safely wish they could help others during the dangerous low altitude portions of every flight. Help them learn to do it more safely than currently taught these many years.

And words, terms, ideas matter in the process of indoctrination. We do have to cooperate to graduate, but we don't have to continue less efficient and less safe technique. Avoidance of maneuvering flight is possible at altitude, but is not possible on takeoff and landing. As aftCG said, low altitude training is not happening with the new ACS. I am encouraged that some of the terms like energy management and low altitude maneuvering are showing up. They indicate some movement toward the goal of low altitude training, a slight change in orientation that allows students to think about low altitude maneuvering as a risk. No, they haven't admitted that students cannot just avoid that risk. Management is an acceptable term, however.

At the end of motoadve's video in his original post, "Approaches in bad weather, " there is an Accident Case Study video: Traffic Pattern Tragedy.

The lady trying to get her Cirrus down at Houston Hobby , after three go arounds, stalled in the pattern. Three fatalities resulted. Improper manipulation of the flaps was cited as a contributing factor, but there was no official acceptance of responsibility for lack of low altitude maneuvering flight training. Distraction was also cited, but she had plenty of vertical space available to allow the nose to go down naturally in all turns without pulling back on the stick so hard. The lack of flaps didn't stall the airplane. The pitch attitude in the turn to crosswind stalled the wing. The elevator caused that pitch attitude. She caused the stall by pulling back on the yoke in the turn. Muscle memory of simply allowing the nose to go down naturally in all turns would have saved her.

But allowing the nose to go down naturally in all turns is a low altitude maneuvering flight concept and therefore taboo. Therefore, without low altitude orientation, the three in the Cirrus at Houston were acceptable loss.