Hang in there, Jim. Your contributions always appreciated.
Best,
Tommy

I would love to come fly with you Jim. Unfortunately, there is a large distance between here and there. I regret not getting down to see you when you were in Grande Prairie. Hope to get the chance again.

Keep sharing your message.

Rod
UpNorth

I flew with the newest instructor at Aurora Aviation here at K2H2 today. He is not married yet so I might be able to get him to tag along when I can get back out to fly with folks and do seminar/clinics. We will use airlines for long trips when we all get vaccinated. Course I got to get him trained up first. To get him completely indoctrinated we might take the 172 down Ozark and Plains All American pipeline to Midland Texas or Explorer Pipeline to Huston.

My signature box is broke and Zane told me how to fix it, but I am just too inept with computer stuff. Email me at [email protected] and I will send Contact Flying Revised ebook, Safe Maneuvering Flight Techniqeus ebook, and How to Fly Airplanes aerodynamics ebook by Robert Reser with his permission.

I have been flying a couple hours weekly with Shiv, the new instructor at Aurora 2H2, and I now have a new protege. We finally got some good winds, 30 gusting to 40, today. They we nearly straight down the N-S runway but trees 200' east and 200' west of the runway with gaps at various locations make it dicey. On short final at about 20 mph groundspeed, we occasionally were moved half a runway width one way or the other. I caution all I fly with about my bum right leg, but on one shift I actually found the floor before Shiv did. We got a fair workout on the throttle, but gust spread wasn't really bad. Change in relative wind due to the trees, and an east west road on short final was much more of a problem. When in a thirty degree unintentional bank, or a sideways jump, I couldn't help but remember "the wind just picked up a wing" given as contributing factors in accidents. That is what the rudder is for...yes all of it when necessary. Aileron here, with considerable relative wind even though near zero groundspeed, will mostly just put a parachute out into that big wind to further pull that wing back the wrong way. Really good workout.

My son is fully vaccinated now and is bringing my grandson here. He will get a couple hours instruction daily for this week with Shiv. He is only 12, but is as big as me. I like to get the grandsons going before cars and girls dominate.

Rod, Mike Edgar will try to get a group together again to have me and possibly Butch Washtock back up to Grande Prairie when things open up again.

Rained all day Wednesday but my grandson flew today. Zero timer. Practiced dynamic proactive rudder to taxi and hold centerline on takeoff, takeoff, climb out, level turns, climbing and descending turns, turns about a point, and energy management turns of ninety degrees heading change, pattern and landing. He did well with all but had the least problem with energy management turns as the airplane pretty much does those on its own with a little zoom up to start and leveling the wing before pull up.

contactflying wrote:Rod, Mike Edgar will try to get a group together again to have me and possibly Butch Washtock back up to Grande Prairie when things open up again.

Rained all day Wednesday but my grandson flew today. Zero timer. Practiced dynamic proactive rudder to taxi and hold centerline on takeoff, takeoff, climb out, level turns, climbing and descending turns, turns about a point, and energy management turns of ninety degrees heading change, pattern and landing. He did well with all but had the least problem with energy management turns as the airplane pretty much does those on its own with a little zoom up to start and leveling the wing before pull up.

We are doing our best to get you up here Jim! We have a pretty big group of guys who want to come to the clinic. Just gave Mike a box of your books to distribute as well. When you come I'm going to fly with you this time.

I look forward to it David. And I have talked my wife into coming with me this time. She has never done so on clinics, but staying home so long has perked her interest in getting out more. Like I told Mike, we will get the airline fare this time.

Thanks Jim,

I will certainly do my best to get down and fly with you the next time you are up this way. Would be great to meet you and spend some time learning.

Rod
UpNorth

I look forward to it Rod. Last time Mike/David had me scheduled several days and I flew with several pilots before and after the seminar. Butch Washtock also presented and flew with pilots. I hope to get to fly with him next time. I had never done one so thorough and organized but I am from the lower colonies.

In the past working with instructors instructing a primary student, I have sat up with my head almost between the two. Not being as flexible now, I sat normally in the back right seat with Zack left front and Shiv right front. Pitch up attitude on takeoff is much more scary from that position. Shiv was teaching Zack normal stuff and also some of my stuff including energy management turn (not as scary.) I have always been uncomfortable with the high takeoff deck angle of airliner takeoff, but never thought 172 from passenger seat would be almost as bad. The last hour of Zack's instruction was with an instructor I had only flown with once in the past. Very scary from the back seat. Vy climb from back there really looks unnecessary and dangerous. What, in flat country especially, warrants such extreme pitch up so close to the ground and not coming into ground effect as on short final? Yes, I did exactly that pitch attitude pull up out of the crop field, but for a very limited time and knowing that back pressure would be released immediately upon slowing to Vy airspeed not upon pitching to Vy attitude.

It is the idea/reality of staying in that Vy pitch attitude for an extended period of time that is really scary. What, out there, makes that necessary? What is the harm in going up slower. With wide patterns, we actually can get up to such high pattern altitude without climbing at Vy and especially climbing and turning at Vy. Shiv was kind enough to have Zack make all pattern turns energy management or descending turns.

I just looked at Dan Gryder's "N9936T Ice Road Truckers" fatal accident in Montana in 2016 video analysis of the NTSB's lack of any finding of probable cause about an obvious go around lack of pitch and airspeed control in a 182. Dan was getting ready to do a flight test for Commercial in 182 and set the student's airspeed indicator up with some stuck on markings of Vref and Vy. Those markings and DMMS, which he has marked on other videos help. Staying within the first two on go around would have helped the Ice Road Trucker, but DMMS would have helped more.

Where do I come up with such a low pitch attitude, not referencing airspeed indicator, as I am desiring while sitting in the back of the 172 with my grandson taking instruction up front? I spent ten thousand hours flying pipeline in 172s never even looking at the airspeed indicator on takeoff and never going higher than 200' AGL on takeoff, on climb out (not), on cruise, on approach to landing, all day long. So I got this crazy perspective, by looking out the front windscreen, that pitching up to Vy pitch attitude (whatever the airspeed was showing which I didn't look at) was just not necessary. Not necessary in ten thousand hours at various airports all over the Midwest and West.

Why, either on takeoff or go around, do we need to pitch up to Vy pitch attitude or Vy airspeed? What is up there that draws so many good pilots to their death? Yes, I understand that climb out and high cruise altitudes are common among my fellow pilots, but just how immediate is the need to get up? Could getting up a bit slower, say DMMS, on every normal takeoff and every normal go around save lives?

I understand high altitude orientation. That is where most pilots live most of the time. But most that die are on takeoff or go around. That happens around the airport where we are never high enough to safely recover from any stall with or without spin following. Why is there no, absolutely no sanctioned, low altitude orientation? Ground reference maneuvers, while doing a good job teaching wind management, have dangerous objectives. We don't want to recon a point on the ground from a level turning attitude. A level turning attitude is very likely going to degrade to a seriously too slow for low altitude airspeed, well below DMMS. Energy management turn to target as many times as necessary to recon the necessary information is much, much safer. It is what is used by crop dusters and pipeline pilots, who have iterations equal to hours.

I will be at the Hotel Albuquerque in Old Town from Sep 1 through Sep 6. I will be at DEN 0640 to 1000 on Monday 6 Sep. I would like to meet some of you if possible. [email protected]

Hello all. In this video (thanks CFOT), do you see the moment the rate of closure changes (speeds up)? I have a hard time sensing the rate of closure sometimes looking at the numbers. In this video, I tried watching the ground go by just above the cowling. My thought is that the rate of closure speeds up at 0:45+/- and is back at a brisk walk rate by 0:48+/ . What do you think? Am I on the right track?

https://youtu.be/xnkHcsaiEV4

Flyer 1,

Thanks for working on the apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach. As you see with Shannon's Champ, some of us don't really get far enough out to really think about a stabilized 1.3 Vso approach up to short final around 40 or so. At that point, Shannon is anticipating the speed up of the apparent rate of closure soon. He doesn't want it to speed up so he starts cheating a bit of back pressure on the stick and adds power to control sink if necessary. At 45 the speed up of apparent rate is very obvious, but has already started back at 43, He was controlling that with power/pitch so that slight but obvious speed up was a slight mistake. He was just a bit too fast. He got it back under control quickly, but as the numbers go out of sight (sooner on modern airplanes with high instrument panels) he looks on down the runway just a bit. He still gets down on the numbers, but if we look out the side at the numbers the apparent rate is very fast.

What do you fly and have you tried the apparent rate of closure approach? Everybody lands too fast at first. Take that speed up of apparent rate bit by bit on many, many tries. Slow flight at altitude helps, but the airplane is a lot more stable and capable in ground effect, especially if we are blasting extra relative wind over the wing with power. 65 hp doesn't make a lot of noise, even wide open.

What the visual cue of the apparent brisk walk rate of closure all the way down allows us to do is perform a soft field on the numbers. Elevator gets us slow enough to sink, power controls the sink rate and blasts some extra air. If you have not decelerated enough, the rate of closure speeds up, don't cut the power. Just touch down slowly with power a bit further down. Heavier airplanes are going to sink more at slow airspeed and require more power to stabilize rate of descent.

The safety advantage of landing slow is that we seldom have to pull off the statistically more dangerous go around.

Happy flying, a dog along helps,

contact

Hello Contact. Thanks for the reply. I'm flying a 1947 Aeronca L-16A. And yes, I've been spending some time on the apparent rate of closure approach. I must say, I have a hard time judging just when the approach appears to speed up. I've also tried to see changes from different altitudes and distances from the landing spot. Wolfgang states, "You simply slow up your approach glide when you get within 50 feet or so of the ground and keep on slowing it up". You wrote in Contact Flying, "The apparent brisk walk rate of closure will work with any approach speed until about one quarter mile out where things appear to speed up". What I understand from all this is that the landing spot appears to speed up as you get closer to it. My problem is, while looking at my landing spot, recognizing the moment the speedup begins. Any advice?

I taught a young couple in that model airplane that his uncle owned. The beginning of the speed up of the apparent rate of closure is suttle. You have to anticipate it a bit. If you start deceleration too early, you will sink too much (mush possibly) and have to add power to maintain less rate of descent. So this time you go a little long and soft field with power. Next time adjust.

Buy fuel for your L-16 but pay attention when driving your automobile. The apparent rate of closure with the stop sign, way back, is a brisk walk. As you decelerate into the intersection, the apparent rate of closure will stay at a brisk walk. Next one do what my wife does and stabilize ground speed (the speed limit) right up to a couple hundred feet out and then ride the brake. At a couple hundred feet out the apparent rate of closure will be really scary. When my wife drives, only when I have issues with my bad leg, I can't look. Anyway, some cheap iterations that are going to be made anyway. The airplane is no different. The physical optical illusion is no different.

I will not be making the trip to Albuquerque 01 Sep and on up to Denver 06 Sep for health reasons.

Double post , deleted

Good Luck and get well soon , Jim