hotrod180 wrote:

Hammer wrote:.......Anyone ever ride a Indian made Enfield motorcycle? The foot brake and the shifter are on opposite sides to US bikes.....

Lots of bikes had shifters on the right side back in the day, even Harley. Big twins were left foot shift, when they were "toe-tappers" that is, and Sportsters were right. Up til somewhere in the 1970's anyway. I believe at least some old Indians used a left-hand throttle and a right-side hand shifter, opposite of Harley. Generally speaking, US & Japanese bikes were left foot shift and European & British bikes were right.

Yep, have tapped the brake on old Sportys and kicked it down a gear on a couple occasions.

I love these never ending back and forth posts that you know no one will ever agree on. Just like the wheel/3pt discussion.
It's not a right or wrong discussion. Regardless of what your looking for, there is no definite "this way every time" answer. And be wary of those that tell you there is.
The more you learn the more you realize what you didn't know. It's often humbling. Being humble and realizing when one way you thought was gospel may not be will help you grow exponentially quicker.
I remember the day when I was younger and would say ignorant things like, " that was dumb, I'd NEVER do that". Ha!!!!
Watch out. Your about to get bit.
Every control is used in various ways on every flight. It's constantly changing. Therefore the eternal draw to flying and the eternal pursuit of doing it better next time.
If your looking for a safer way to do something in a controlled environment the same way every time, then you may should consider a different activity.
Nothing is constantly changing quite as much as aviating IMHO.
Learn from your mistakes and successes. Try better next time in both cases. And always retract your flaps at some point.
Most every pilot I respect uses never and always very very sparingly. They're response to my questions usually starts with. "Well that depends..."
As far as muscle memory. It has helped me in a jam and has also got me in some deeper.
Tired and driving home late a few nights ago I actually pushed forward on my steering wheel to dive my truck under an owl that got a little to close to my windshield. I had to laugh a little.
Few thousand hours of dodging Hawks and buzzards and ducks atlast second got me. Haha.

55wagon wrote:I love these never ending back and forth posts that you know no one will ever agree on. Just like the wheel/3pt discussion.
It's not a right or wrong discussion. Regardless of what your looking for, there is no definite "this way every time" answer. And be wary of those that tell you there is.
The more you learn the more you realize what you didn't know. It's often humbling. Being humble and realizing when one way you thought was gospel may not be will help you grow exponentially quicker.
I remember the day when I was younger and would say ignorant things like, " that was dumb, I'd NEVER do that". Ha!!!!
Watch out. Your about to get bit.
Every control is used in various ways on every flight. It's constantly changing. Therefore the eternal draw to flying and the eternal pursuit of doing it better next time.
If your looking for a safer way to do something in a controlled environment the same way every time, then you may should consider a different activity.
Nothing is constantly changing quite as much as aviating IMHO.
Learn from your mistakes and successes. Try better next time in both cases. And always retract your flaps at some point.
Most every pilot I respect uses never and always very very sparingly. They're response to my questions usually starts with. "Well that depends..."
As far as muscle memory. It has helped me in a jam and has also got me in some deeper.
Tired and driving home late a few nights ago I actually pushed forward on my steering wheel to dive my truck under an owl that got a little to close to my windshield. I had to laugh a little.
Few thousand hours of dodging Hawks and buzzards and ducks atlast second got me. Haha.

+100000

Brain inflexibility is so limiting. "I could be wrong" is so liberating. We are not fully prepared until we are spring loaded to the failure.

55wagon wrote:...
Every control is used in various ways on every flight. It's constantly changing. Therefore the eternal draw to flying and the eternal pursuit of doing it better next time.
...
If your looking for a safer way to do something in a controlled environment the same way every time, then you may should consider a different activity.

I think we as learners/logical beings constantly seek patterns and reference points we can rely on in the process of improving our skills. I know that my personal experience as a pilot is made up of "nodes" of knowledge, but learned first hand and stuff I've read. Some of these things are like the "last saved point" in a video game; I made it this far using this approach, it works. Some safer ways do work every time, by eliminating certain possibilities that you, the pilot, create. Choosing to remain open-minded and accepting that every flight is going to be different is, ironically, one of these approaches you can take every time... haha.

It's easy to look at these incessant back and forth discussions from years of working that flap lever and say "why can't you just accept the fact that IT DEPENDS?" But for a new guy, they're still collecting all those reference points. Why does it just depend? Until you've gone out and utilized flap technique in many different situations and wind conditions, it's all just going to be theory and second hand knowledge. One has to accept that certain knowledge and skills are only gained by doing it. And sometimes your flap position being different or retracting them didn't amount to a hill of beans one way or the other.

Those who are calling for structure and conservative approach to manipulation of controls on the ground aren't wrong either. It is true that if you limit your actions for some things, you can eliminate certain outcomes like accidental gear retraction. That's not wrong, it's just not totally right.

There have been some good points in this thread about the boundary between conscious action and conditioned action. It's probably time to admit to ourselves that 1) We all have different philosophies on this stuff and none of them is grounds for much excitement or emotion unless it's a clear danger to others. 2) There's always some new realm of aviating that's just beyond your current comfort zone, and pushing into that isn't necessarily bad, nor is avoiding it.

Yes, I dump the flaps often. Especially when I'm running out of room/floating, etc. Spoilers would be nice. I do it with my hippocampus and synapses usually, but sometimes I just use my hand.

wyomingiswindy wrote:Yes, I dump the flaps often. Especially when I'm running out of room/floating, etc. Spoilers would be nice. I do it with my hippocampus and synapses usually, but sometimes I just use my hand.

I just do it subconsciously. When I do it.

Hey Z. As you know of me by now, I'm horrible at expressing my thoughts on this format. Hell any format for that matter.
I'm not great at interpreting others either sometimes.
I really do enjoy watching these back an forths. More interesting to me than a lot of topics.
I don't give much advise and am NOT a good teacher not qualified to be. I envy those who are.
All I'm saying is be careful with always and never approaches to a lot of things in flying. The difference in this and a video game I think are way different. But I haven't gamed since Mario world.
There you could count on consistency. Here not as much. But maybe that's what you were saying.
Even if I'm helping a new guy there's not a lot of always or nevers. Although there will be more than usual followed by until you have more experience or are comfortable.
And the "it depends" are usually not dead ended but followed by a group of scenarios and advise with options by my mentors.

You always have an invitation to come fly with me and I'll never refuse you buying me a beer.

55wagon wrote:Hey Z. As you know of me by now, I'm horrible at expressing my thoughts on this format. Hell any format for that matter.
I'm not great at interpreting others either sometimes.
I really do enjoy watching these back an forths. More interesting to me than a lot of topics.
I don't give much advise and am NOT a good teacher not qualified to be. I envy those who are.
All I'm saying is be careful with always and never approaches to a lot of things in flying. The difference in this and a video game I think are way different. But I haven't gamed since Mario world.
There you could count on consistency. Here not as much. But maybe that's what you were saying.
Even if I'm helping a new guy there's not a lot of always or nevers. Although there will be more than usual followed by until you have more experience or are comfortable.
And the "it depends" are usually not dead ended but followed by a group of scenarios and advise with options by my mentors.

You always have an invitation to come fly with me and I'll never refuse you buying me a beer.

I wasn't disagreeing with you necessarily, only adding my spin.

55wagon wrote:I love these never ending back and forth posts that you know no one will ever agree on. Just like the wheel/3pt discussion.
It's not a right or wrong discussion. Regardless of what your looking for, there is no definite "this way every time" answer. And be wary of those that tell you there is.
The more you learn the more you realize what you didn't know. It's often humbling. Being humble and realizing when one way you thought was gospel may not be will help you grow exponentially quicker.
I remember the day when I was younger and would say ignorant things like, " that was dumb, I'd NEVER do that". Ha!!!!
Watch out. Your about to get bit.
Every control is used in various ways on every flight. It's constantly changing. Therefore the eternal draw to flying and the eternal pursuit of doing it better next time.
If your looking for a safer way to do something in a controlled environment the same way every time, then you may should consider a different activity.
Nothing is constantly changing quite as much as aviating IMHO.
Learn from your mistakes and successes. Try better next time in both cases. And always retract your flaps at some point.
Most every pilot I respect uses never and always very very sparingly. They're response to my questions usually starts with. "Well that depends..."
As far as muscle memory. It has helped me in a jam and has also got me in some deeper.
Tired and driving home late a few nights ago I actually pushed forward on my steering wheel to dive my truck under an owl that got a little to close to my windshield. I had to laugh a little.
Few thousand hours of dodging Hawks and buzzards and ducks atlast second got me. Haha.

Right on Jason. Ok, I'll fess up and admit I haven't read any of the rest of this thread but I was amazed as to how many pages of responses it has so I decided to take a look near the end of the thread. I did also read your response to the above Zzz, and I know what your saying. But I think Jason has nutted it.

I'll just add this thought, for you new pilots be extra careful when you reach around 250 hours, that's a dangerous time cause you think you know something now, but you don't, so be extra careful. Another benchmark will be around 1,000 hours when you suddenly realize "hell I don't know anything". That's when the real fun begins.

Oh and on the muscle memory thing "diving under the owl", I laughed outloud cause I can't tell you how many times I used my fingers on my laptop screen to zoom in or out, or move things.

I'm glad I could add nothing of value to this conversation, and you're welcome.

Barnstormer wrote:But I think Jason has nutted it.

Phrasing!

Barnstormer wrote:I can't tell you how many times I used my fingers on my laptop screen to zoom in or out, or move things.

I hate to admit but I did this to a magazine to read some fine print. Didn't work.

Well, after watching this topic roll by for so long, there is really only one thing left for me to say besides some of us need to find better things to do with our time:

I think we all just needed an excuse to get meta about something, anything. Flaps are as good as any.

You know, when I get my new 540, I'm going to cycle the prop by hand every few days when not flying to splash the oil around...

Yeah the oil wiper is always a good one. So is wheel landings verses 3 point, or squat to pee versus hooks, or certified planes vs experimentals, or 100ll vs Mogas, or....?

The value to these discussions isn't that someone will have the right answer, but rather that in hearing viewpoints from a large selection of aviators, people will pick and choose what resonates with them. The horse beating analogy is apt if two groups are arguing back and forth, each side insisting that their view is the correct one, but it's not applicable to an open discussion to the pros and cons of a given technique.

Most general discussions in aviation do not have one right answer, and most of us have settled on a way of doing things that works for us. But that doesn't mean nothing is to be gained from discussing the subject. I may not necessarily agree with what poster X has to say, but I also never learned a damn thing from listening to my own opinions...

CamTom12 wrote:

Barnstormer wrote:But I think Jason has nutted it.

Phrasing!

Barnstormer wrote:I can't tell you how many times I used my fingers on my laptop screen to zoom in or out, or move things.

I hate to admit but I did this to a magazine to read some fine print. Didn't work.

That's why I read magazines on line.

Just to poke the bear a bit on this thread;)

In my previous post I wanted to be careful about throwing around imperatives. The biggest issue, as I see it, is habit patterns. You have to be careful about bad habits... they can get you in real trouble.

That being said. I do raise the flaps in some airplanes after landing. In Cessna 100 series airplanes I do it all the time... especially with that great big Johnson bar. After all there are no gear to accidentally raise;) I will admit now that I always did it in the F-15. In that airplane you kept the nose up and did an Aerobrake to slow it down. The Aerobrake was FUN. I found that if I raised the flaps (a little dinky flip switch with at the base of the throttle quadrant, the gear switch was on the lower dash) that I could Aerobrake down to 60 knots and still have enough energy to lower the nose without slamming it. No brakes, easy on the jet. Oh, and I used to slip the by god F-4 in the final turn sometimes.... oh my! I did find a better technique for that problem though and still use it when appropriate.

So, the bottom line is rising the flaps is a pilot technique that has its place and risks. Do some of the pilot sh..! Keep Calm and Fly On!

gunny
YMMV

OK folks lets see if we can get this thread as long as the Bigrenna rebuild with as many hits. I have never quite understood that flap retraction leads to better breaking. In my mind at full flaps you get aerodynamic breaking plus it makes you lighter on your feet so the breaks have relatively less weight to bring to a stop during the process. Splane that to me

Coyote wrote:OK folks lets see if we can get this thread as long as the Bigrenna rebuild with as many hits. I have never quite understood that flap retraction leads to better breaking. In my mind at full flaps you get aerodynamic breaking plus it makes you lighter on your feet so the breaks have relatively less weight to bring to a stop during the process. Splane that to me

Flying a nose wheel airplane I dont think it really makes that much difference, but on a tailwheel it makes a big difference. Retracting the flaps on a tailwheel places more weight on the tail of the plane which in turn allows for more aggressive braking. My experience in 170B I could land using the tail low technique use the brakes to lift the tail to a normal wheel landing attitude and then would lower the tail back to tail low by dumping flaps. using this technique I could pretty consistently land in less then 300 foot on a stock plane. With out dumping the flaps the usage of brakes was limited because of lifting the tail to high I felt that dumping flaps took at least 50 ft off my landings.