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Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

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Re: Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

#31

Post by chopin »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #17

I don't recall ever reading this book, but as a student pilot, I was given a copy of "You have 178 seconds to live" and it had a tremendous impact on me. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/fai/...

I do not hold a license but have plenty of simulator experience. Do they not teach how to use an attitude indicator even for a VFR license? Or how to do an instrument scan? I thought this is pretty basic. Even with a good forecast, you can get caught badly by weather. The linked document indicates that invertion can happen with no visibility, but can't this being prevented bay paying attention to the attitude indicator.

Re: Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

#32

Post by chopin »

ChristianGeek wrote: post #26
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #17

I don't recall ever reading this book, but as a student pilot, I was given a copy of "You have 178 seconds to live" and it had a tremendous impact on me. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/fai/...

It’s a shame JFK Jr. didn’t read this.

When that happened I saw a photo of his plane with doors open so that you could see the cockpit panel. From the glance it was equipped with everything you could wish for. Afair he was caught by darkness but otherwise reasonable visibility. I had a hard time to understand why he failed this (but I admittedly have only simulator experience).

Re: Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

#33

Post by hblanks »

chopin wrote: post #32
ChristianGeek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a shame JFK Jr. didn’t read this.

When that happened I saw a photo of his plane with doors open so that you could see the cockpit panel. From the glance it was equipped with everything you could wish for. Afair he was caught by darkness but otherwise reasonable visibility. I had a hard time to understand why he failed this (but I admittedly have only simulator experience).

It'd be hard to understand without feeling it for yourself, but in actual instrument conditions (IMC), it's easy for your sense of balance to mislead you into thinking you're level, when in fact you're turning.

There's some physiology to explain this, but one key point is that once you're in a coordinated turn, even a descending one, your weight is still going straight down the vertical axis of the seat. So, you'll think you're doing fine, and possibly even pull the turn tighter (the graveyard spiral), and fixate on things other than the attitude indicator and your plummeting altitude.

Re: Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

#34

Post by unoti »

chopin wrote: post #31
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #17

I don't recall ever reading this book, but as a student pilot, I was given a copy of "You have 178 seconds to live" and it had a tremendous impact on me. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/fai/...

I do not hold a license but have plenty of simulator experience. Do they not teach how to use an attitude indicator even for a VFR license? Or how to do an instrument scan? I thought this is pretty basic. Even with a good forecast, you can get caught badly by weather. The linked document indicates that invertion can happen with no visibility, but can't this being prevented bay paying attention to the attitude indicat…

To get a VFR license, yes, you have to know about everything you mentioned. You must learn about all the instruments. What kind of instrument scans to do in various kinds of situations. Ascent/descent, climbing turns, level turns into a heading, etc. VFR pilots do learn about reading the instruments, but at the same time they learn about the dangers that come with focusing too much on the instruments— such as not watching for traffic or other awareness issues. They also must learn a ton about weather.

So a VFR pilot is trained in some of the basic instrument reading things needed for low visibility flight. But there’s a lot more expertise involved in safely flying instruments than in visual flight. Precise, mentally demanding procedures, multitasking. VFR pilots are also required to learn about why instrument flying is so much more difficult. A big part of the reason is spatial disorientation[1]. Your senses tell you one thing while the instruments tell you another. And the scary part is that when the equipment fails, sometimes it’s your senses that are more correct. Pilots either blindly following their senses when their senses are wrong, or ignoring their senses when their instruments are wrong— both of those kill people.

To compare flying in a real small plane versus a simulator: When you go into a stall in a small plane, the feeling of dropping feels a lot like a roller coaster, with your stomach coming up into your mouth. That woozy feeling is much the same. And certain kinds of weather can cause a similar rapid change in elevation even without you changing the attitude of the plane. The small plane is so much more (potentially) wild than a big jet, it’s a bit more like being in a flying lawnmower. A simulator does teach lots of the skills you need to know, and is especially useful for establishing muscle memory for things like instrument scans and other procedures. Then doing that in a real plane is like doing the same thing, but on a wild roller coaster, and with the full knowledge that if you mess up you’ll die.

You should go for a ride! Tons of places offer very cheap introductory flights where you get to take the controls for a bit during that first flight.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_disorientation

Re: Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

#35

Post by unoti »

hyperpallium wrote: post #25
travisjungroth wrote: post #3

I have no idea how it ended up on the front page of HN, but this is an amazing book. Highly recommended for any pilot, especially those flying small airplanes. Don't let the date scare you, it holds up incredibly well. Wolfgang figured out how to describe things that good pilots do unconsciously in a way I've never seen matched. I'd like to share one passage that because of a small aside in the middle of a sentence h…

An example from hang gliding: the wings form a shallow "V", with you at the centre. If it tilts left, there's more lift area downwards on the left (and less on the right), so it tends to tilt back, righting itself. I'm not sure what prevents oscillation; nor how pitch is stablized (pointing downwards vs pointing up), but I've found hang gliders very stable.

Pitch is stabilized by the tail. When the nose points down, air hits the top of the tail and pushes the tail down, bringing the nose up. And when the nose is pointing up, air hitting the bottom of the tail pushes the tail up.

The V shape thing you mentioned for hang gliders is also true for most light planes. It’s a self stabilizing thing. I think what prevents th oscillation is that as it comes to level, the amount of upward force from the other wing equalizes.

Re: Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

#36

Post by snt »

hyperpallium wrote: post #25
travisjungroth wrote: post #3

I have no idea how it ended up on the front page of HN, but this is an amazing book. Highly recommended for any pilot, especially those flying small airplanes. Don't let the date scare you, it holds up incredibly well. Wolfgang figured out how to describe things that good pilots do unconsciously in a way I've never seen matched. I'd like to share one passage that because of a small aside in the middle of a sentence h…

An example from hang gliding: the wings form a shallow "V", with you at the centre. If it tilts left, there's more lift area downwards on the left (and less on the right), so it tends to tilt back, righting itself. I'm not sure what prevents oscillation; nor how pitch is stablized (pointing downwards vs pointing up), but I've found hang gliders very stable.

The "projected area" theory is a common misconception of how dihedral works (that I also subscribed to for many years). All things being equal, the port and starboard wings create the the same amount of roll torque, no matter which one is 'facing' the ground better (of course, dihedral does still work, because all things are not equal).

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/26759/how-does-...

Re: Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

#37

Post by F00Fbug »

mastazi wrote: post #13

It's amazing how literally everything in this book is still relevant in 2018, it really is the bible of flying. Take for example this line: > The so-called "elevator" is really the airplane's speed control, the throttle is really its up-and-down control. This is hard to believe but is one of the keys to the art of piloting.

That is one of the most important facts about flying; it is also one of the most misunderstood.

When I read it as a student pilot, I found the book to be oddly written, but so applicable. That one sentence will do wonders for final approach and landings!

Re: Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

#38

Post by slazaro »

userbinator wrote: post #20
travisjungroth wrote: post #3

I have no idea how it ended up on the front page of HN, but this is an amazing book. Highly recommended for any pilot, especially those flying small airplanes. Don't let the date scare you, it holds up incredibly well. Wolfgang figured out how to describe things that good pilots do unconsciously in a way I've never seen matched. I'd like to share one passage that because of a small aside in the middle of a sentence h…

Don't let the date scare you, it holds up incredibly well. Indeed, the laws of physics have not changed. It seems like a lot of people are turned off by old books, when I've found that my experience has often been the exact opposite --- for subjects like maths and electricity, the very old books had a way of explaining things that makes them quite easy to understand and perhaps even better than the new ones which sim…

> Indeed, the laws of physics have not changed.

That's not the reason people might be hesitant to read a book from the 1940s. Technology changes a lot, and maybe things changed in airplanes to make it obsolete, maybe not. That's why that comment was necessary.

Re: Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

#40

Post by dTal »

snt wrote: post #36
hyperpallium wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An example from hang gliding: the wings form a shallow "V", with you at the centre. If it tilts left, there's more lift area downwards on the left (and less on the right), so it tends to tilt back, righting itself. I'm not sure what prevents oscillation; nor how pitch is stablized (pointing downwards vs pointing up), but I've found hang gliders very stable.

The "projected area" theory is a common misconception of how dihedral works (that I also subscribed to for many years). All things being equal, the port and starboard wings create the the same amount of roll torque, no matter which one is 'facing' the ground better (of course, dihedral does still work, because all things are not equal). https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/26759/how-does-...

Check out page 126 of Stick And Rudder for an intuitive illustration of why dihedral works.
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