David,
A sticky subject to say the least.
I whole heartedly agree with your points...Warning systems are great,
but practice makes perfect.
Train like you fly, fly like you train is the pilot motto we instilled
in our military training crews.
Just emphasizing your points:
This means going up three mistakes high and practicing maneuvers, better
yet, with an experienced pilot or even better yet with an experienced
instructor on your proficiency check rides. My preference is that you
take your aircraft and you, to the edge of the envelope, in slow flight
maneuvering, stall feel, accelerated stall, deep stall, turning stalls
both clean and dirty, simulated engine out approaches, loaded (level
turn) and unloaded turns (max turn rate with alt loss), unusual
attitude recoveries such as: nose low and nose high recovery
techniques, min altitude loss maneuvers (aka high and low speed dive
recoveries). Since some aircraft will snap inverted in a deep stall or
aggressively acted stall, how to recover means getting help on how to
recover from inverted flight in this case. I can tell you that keeping
the plane loaded up (positive G) while trying to roll back is not the
answer.
Today in the US we only teach approach to the stall and our patterns or
circuits are cross country excursions. Spin training is non existent.
Our pilots don't look out the window and understand the concept that
your eyes fly the plane where it is supposed to go. All of which is a
disaster waiting to happen. All aircraft, Cessna 150-152, Pipers,
Diamonds, and all experimentals can be put into a post stall snap or
stall spin quite easily. I even demonstrated that in an Ercoupe. Our
FAA has decided to go conservative. My FAA FSDO (Flight Standards Duty
Officer) knows on test flights I max perform the aircraft looking for
flaws, but does not like to see this type maneuvering I practice as it
could become a disaster for an inexperienced pilot if he were to attempt
to copy what he has seen rather than practicing in a controlled
environment to gain proficiency in baby steps under direct supervision.
And he is right.
The recognition of a stall is important. But the concept of the proper
or min altitude recovery is often taught as a mechanical action by our
new instructors and rarely practiced later... I routinely fly with
owners and others who smack the stick forward, hit full power and gently
recover losing significant altitude. They commonly misjudge the engine
out glide distance or partial power flight operations. Stall warning
equipment, AOA systems alert you of a high angle of attack situation via
some warning (Bitching Betty we called them). Aerodynamic feel such as
stall strips (rumble strips) give us a feel/sound that is a stall
warning. That is great provided we are not distracted by the rough or
dead engine in front of us and the overwhelming feeling to try to save
the aircraft from harm... If you don't practice these type of
situations and chair fly the situations based on your observations, then
you will have a disaster rather than a war story. (Chair fly is a
concept that once a maneuver is practiced or tested, such as an engine
out glide maneuver at altitude, it is then translated to sitting in a
quiet area and mentally (or animated via body language and voice) flying
the maneuver how you believe it should be flown in an inflight
emergency.) Once the knowledge hits the pilot that from my position
(and experience) I can't make the airport, I must commit to a forced
landing to save my life and fill out the insurance paperwork.
Put the Europa at 4000 rpm and 17 inches of power and see how far you
can go. What is the minimum power I can fly with. I have shut the
engine down and done 360s well above the airfield (pre-arranged with the
airport) and checked the glide distance, min sink, altitude loss in
30/60/max bank unloaded turns. 30 degree coordinated turns at idle
loose nearly 700 feet in 180 degrees of turn, clean. That's a lot of
altitude. If you attempt to get back to the field with an engine at
idle, you won't make it unless you plan and fly your approach
accordingly. A simple exercise is to practice pulling the power back to
idle at various points in the pattern, and soon you develop a picture of
where you need to be, to fly a safe engine out pattern based on your
position (altitude and airspeed included) in the pattern. Once you have
the picture, one can make sound decisions.
Further, with the mono, lowering the gear (and flaps) when landing is
assured in an engine emergency must be practiced as the glide ratio and
picture change is pretty large.
A few years ago, a mono wheel pilot had a fuel pressure regulator
failure, and could not get above 26 inches and 4600 RPM. He still was
in takeoff configuration with gear down and was sinking. I was airborne
and heard his distress and asked him to raise his gear so as to climb
and accelerate. The plane responded well and climbed briskly. He just
needed to change his focus from "I have to get back to the runway mode
to I can fly with the available power and take my time to set up a good
simulated engine out and safe landing" with the power I have.
Practice like you fly, fly like you practice. Once the brain sees how
to do something, gains experience, it can translate that experience to
an emergency situation. Bitching Betty and flashing lights allow you to
die all tensed up unless you put them to use in your flight practice.
The rules of any emergency are: maintain aircraft control, analyze the
situation and then take proper action. Maintaining aircraft control
requires practice. Know your plane and know yourself.
Nice job on your article.
Best Regards,
Bud Yerly
----- Original Message -----
From: David Joyce<mailto:davidjoyce@doctors.org.uk>
To: europa list<mailto:europa-list@matronics.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2012 5:43 AM
Subject: Europa-List: Stall/spin
Dear All, Rather at the last moment, it has occurred to me
that it is only right & proper to show you the article I
have written & had accepted by Brian Hope, since the
Europa gets a degree of slightly dubious star billing. I
hope you will feel that the overall flavour does not do
anything to cast doubts about the flying qualities of our
planes, particulaly if 'made in UK' Regards, David
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