Coaches strive for the kind of readiness that produces a quick but not hurried athlete. Doctors are using artificial intelligence to program machines to enhance or replace dynamic proactive muscle movement for balance in disabled humans. I have taught this bracketing technique for longitudinal axis alignment and for pitch control, but what is the art of this wiggling control movement? Is it just random or does something influence quantity and quality of movement in the wrong direction this way and that way to achieve bracketing?

It is not random! Our brain, or less effectively artificial intelligence, controls the quantity and quality of movement in the wrong direction this way and that way to achieve bracketing. We don't see it and some don't even believe it, but the quantity and quality of movement is too much for our conscious brain to contemplate. Consciously, we just move the controls dynamically and proactively. Unconsciously, quantity and quality is affected as determined by our orientation and experience. Orientation=how much we are comfortable with. Experience=how much we have done. Flexibility and practice are necessary.

For me it started on a D-2 Caterpillar dozer when I was very young. I had covered my dad or an operator during lunch on various equipment for some time. But now dad let me take the little D-2to build a pond for Leonard Lehman, who owned a J-3 Cub. I traded six hours dozer time for six hours with him in the Cub.

A pond (tank in west Texas) is a pretty simple job, but I was expected to finish grade it the same as dad would. From there I moved on first to tees and then to fairway mounds and bunkers and finally to finish grading greens on the many golf courses we build in the South, Midwest, and West.

All grading requires dirt on the blade. We are either using the blade control to dig more or fill low areas or we can push the control to the maximum down or float position. Here the hydraulic pressure neutralizes so we can just move dirt to a distant point with just the weigh of the blade. With the advent of high speed earthmovers, this feature is seldom used anymore.

It is simply not possible to find the right blade pitch down to dig. We want a bit more to start and then less as dirt builds on the blade. It is simply not possible to find the right blade pitch up to fill. We use dynamic proactive blade control movement to bracket the right pitch down and pitch up as needed.

Now imagine a green, a big double mound mound in back, big single mounds on the sides, and smaller mounds in front. Finish grading the sand, peat moss, and topsoil mixture, we know we want to follow the rough in somewhat. But we also want every square inch to drain, we want a fluid transition from every mound onto the putting surface, and we want to maintain any levels and transitions between levels. So around and around we go either cutting or filling constantly moving the blade control dynamically and proactively. We don't break it down so much dig now, fill now. Rather, we just feel our way around keeping our hand moving and letting our subconscious follow the terrain.

Holding the nose of the Cub strait and not allowing it to wander or jump off the centerline is much easier. We simply move the rudder pedals dynamically and proactively and let the subconscious mind control the bit more movement one way or the other as needed. Constant movement is critical to stay quick but not hurried. The amazing brain will work out the smaller details. Conversely, waiting statically to react will make large details necessary. Or worse!

The same mind control is involved in the dynamic proactive stick movement to level the fuselage, hold the nosewheel just off, and maintain the fuselage level in low ground effect. We need to move the controls. We need to be quick but not hurried. We need to let the brain do it's work. We know what we want and are moving to dynamically and proactively bracket what we want. The brain will fine tune the quantity and quality of movement.

Speed makes a huge difference in the amount of movement required. We are comfortable with the smaller amount of movement necessary to cause the desired yaw, pitch, or roll change. We can spend more time practicing slow flight to get comfortable with the greater amount of movement necessary. To get comfortable with the grossest movement necessary in hover taxi, however, we need to practice hover taxi on long runways. As long as the control movement is dynamic and proactive, the amount of movement doesn't matter. More than necessary is weird, but works. Less than necessary looks cool in the cockpit, but is not effective.

Agree. My cousin is a new pilot but an old school dirt hand. He's a damned good stick. Same dynamic control input. The fellow that taught my dad to fly is an old ag pilot. I remember riding with him in the front seat of a cub when I was a kid. The airplane would land on one wheel, perfectly aligned with the airstrip. That stick was ALWAYS moving, dynamically.

I've been practicing off hand rifle shooting. Dynamic motion is key to hitting the target at extended ranges. I've tried to stay still, can't be done. Dynamic motion and nearly every shot on target.

Good post Contact. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

Gbflyer,

I was OIC on a training range where we taught what the Army called quick kill. It was point and shoot just like the Sundance Kid. With a BB gun and finally the M-14. Like you and your cousin know, we're better when we move.

A BB gun is terribly inaccurate. But we can see the BB in flight. The brain can quickly bracket multiple rounds onto the target. We have become too technology dependent. We need to give our brain opportunities to be artistic. Why are we amazed when it can outdo the technology?

Contact

John Boyd was a talker, not a writer. The only paper he wrote was "Destruction and Creation." He believed we had to destroy old ideas to create new ones with the old parts.

All my years as an instructor, I have had to destroy, many times, the idea that we have to move the controls carefully and slightly to learn the controls. Otherwise we create pilot induced oscillation. First we must destroy that idea and use the one piece: move. Move, not pressure. Pressure will get us there in time; a long, long, long long time.

The only way to beat, to get ahead of, to get inside the head of pilot induced oscillation is by creating it. Create it on our own terms, not wait for the aircraft. Westmoreland used to say, "move the control. If you don't like what happens, move it back. By moving the control too far and then moving it back too far, we immediately see what it does and to what extent. We don't have experience and reading the POH will not give us experience. But immediately, by moving the control enough to see what it does, we gain actionable intelligence. By dynamically and proactively moving the control, we gain the experience without pilot induced oscillation. Yes, we started pilot induced oscillation. But we also neutralized it dynamically. We bracketed the oscillation.

We can wait and react and eventually learn. The aircraft is in control for a long time. We can use dynamic proactive control movement and get in control immediately. Not pretty, but we are doing it. You don't remember when you first rode a bike with almost no wobble. You remember when you first got up and wobbled a lot.

Wobble a lot and learn fast. Then you can tell the chicks you hardy move the controls at all.

Do are you saying to just do this for training sake Contact? Or all the time?

Yes and no. Yes, it appears to disappear as we become more experienced. Much less wobble is now useful because we have a better idea about just enough. The too much that had so recently been so useful in finding just enough is not as necessary now. It may be necessary to go back to after a long absence from using controls.

No, it shouldn't go completely away. The little tail wiggle that most modern examiners don't like should always be there. It means we are on our toes. Just as the athlete should never be caught flat footed, so too the tailwheel or helicopter pilot. No control input or just a little pressure as needed is the same as flat footed. Fine on a long cross-country. Not good for takeoff, landing, and other maneuvering flight operations.

Autopilot and nose gear have made flying safer, but less artistic. That doesn't mean you can't turn the autopilot off and wiggle the tail a bit on a nose wheel airplane.

Helicopter: without computer control, we can't safely be flat footed, flat cyclic, flat collective or even flat on the motorcycle grip throttle.

A1, if you don't think you are moving enough, try removing your hands from the yoke while continuously moving the rudders to keep the nose (between your legs) on a distant target. You will find random fixes to be far less successful than continuously dynamically and proactively moving the rudders. Now do that on every final approach to landing. Do it in taxi and takeoff roll. Do it in low ground effect. How much should you move the controls dynamically and proactively? It doesn't matter, as far as control is concerned. You will find what is comfortable and then some will say you're not doing it. Tell them to watch your feet.

If I didn't answer your question, come at a different angle. Dynamically and proactively.

Contact

A1Skinner,

Airplanes are very stable and pretty much fly themselves. No need to be dynamic and proactive on the controls when we can just ride. But there are times and places where we want to be exacting, on our toes, and in control rather than just managing: taxi, takeoff, approach, landing, crop dusting, maneuvering between near obstacles, etc. We can put the airplane down anywhere on the runway because of the extra space. On the county road with close telephone poles, we need complete control.

But it is more satisfying to always put the airplane down exactly where we want it. Dynamic proactive rudder makes it happen. It is nice to stay at exactly six inches ground effect. Dynamic proactive elevator makes it happen.