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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)

#41

Post by mseebach »

slazaro wrote: post #38
userbinator wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also: our understanding of physics has evolved:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Alternative_expla...

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

#42

Post by mannykannot »

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…

The airplanes people first learn to fly have hardly changed since then, with, I would say, tricycle undercarriage being the biggest change, followed by more docile stall/spin characteristics, in particular in being less likely to drop a wing in a stall. After that: engine reliability.

I occasionally read accounts of flying the first generation of airplanes (or replicas), and it does seem to have been rather different then, not so much in first principles as in the craft of making it work.

If I am remembering this correctly, some pilots of piston-engined transport aircraft had difficulty transitioning to jet airliners, a problem addressed by an influential and well-regarded book (Davies, "Handling the Big Jets", 1967?)[1] which, among other things, recommended putting aside the "throttle for height, stick for speed" principle.

[1] See, for example, https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1967/1967%20-%...

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

#43

Post by oldcynic »

mseebach wrote: post #41
slazaro wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Also: our understanding of physics has evolved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Alternative_expla...

That explanation hasn't exactly died out these days even if you won't find it in official sources.

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

#44

Post by mannykannot »

unoti wrote: post #35
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.

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…

Yet canards can be made stable in pitch as well. In either case, the 'trick' is that the forward plane, whichever one it is, should be rigged at a higher angle of incidence than the rear plane.

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

#45

Post by JasonFruit »

js2 wrote: post #28

Seems like this might be a good place to link to The Turn (1993): > At the very heart of winged flight lies the banked turn, a procedure that by now seems so routine and familiar that airline passengers appreciate neither its elegance and mystery nor its dangerously delusive character. The author, a pilot, takes us up into the subject. https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/langew/turn.ht...

That is a great article --- he had the knack of making difficult concepts not only clear but enthralling.

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

#46

Post by phkahler »

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…

Currently a student. I was having a rough day getting my approaches right. Paying too much attention to my speed and such and coming in too fast anyway. On the next round, still in the downwind, my instructor reached over and turned the brightness on the display down to zero. It's an all in one Garmin setup so I was instrument blind - no altimeter, airspeed, tachometer, nothing. I pulled my eyes up, looked out the window, said "thanks" and flew the approach correctly. VFR flying is mostly about the V. Look out the window, feel what's happening, hear and feel the engine power setting, know where you are in relation to everything. It's supposed to be a visceral experience. Instruments are important, but so is knowing how to fly in the sense that a bird knows.

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

#48

Post by ubermonkey »

My understanding is that this book is still basically the bible of aviation.

Of additional potential interest to smart folks who like to read is the fact that the author's son is of note as well; he's written a lot of really great long-form journalism, often but not exclusively about aviation as well, both in high-profile magazines and in book form. He's on the short list of authors whom I read automatically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Langewiesche

Seek out "The Crash of EgyptAir 990," which ran in the New York Review of Books in 2002. It's STELLAR, but then his work across the board is especially solid.

Of his books, I think my favorites are "Inside the Sky," about flight, and "The Outlaw Sea," about shipping. "The Atomic Bazaar" is also great, if terrifying.

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

#49

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

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…

Yes.Actually all Private Pilot students spend a fair amount of time under the hood (a device that prevents you from being able to see outside the airplane) practicing unusual attitude recoveries.

Basically, you close your eyes while the instructor tosses the airplane all over the sky for a couple minutes in an attempt to get your inner ear fluid sloshing around to disorient you, then puts the airplane into a state where, e.g., you're in a deep stall, nose up, turning left, then instructs you to open your eyes and determine the airplane's attitude from reading the instruments. Once you have the attitude correctly described, then you return it to straight & level using instruments.

This was actually some of the most fun I had during pilot training. It was like a puzzle under stress (you only have so long before you hit the ground) figuring out what the airplane was doing and describing how to get out of the situation.

The point of teaching this to VFR students is to prevent the "178 seconds" situation so you will hopefully have enough instrument experience and calmness to turn the airplane around and get back into clear air.

The point of the article is to drive home the point that using your normal human instincts and feelings will kill you in that situation. You can be completely inverted and feel just fine. Only trusting what the instruments say will get you out of trouble (edit: and cross checking them to be sure you don't rely on a failed instrument).

And actually, the situation can deteriorate faster than you realize. I recall days with my instructor where, while it was technically VFR flight, it was so hazy that I spent a lot of time using instruments because I couldn't see the horizon very well.

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

#50

Post by upofadown »

topspin wrote: post #21

I'm not a pilot. My father flew small planes for a time and obtained a commercial license. This is just me reminiscencing about two experiences I've had as a passenger in small aircraft. I hopped on a six or eight passenger tour plane operating from the grass field at Grand Marais Airport in Michigan around 1993. I was in the first row behind the pilot. There were high, gusty winds off Lake Superior and the pilot had…

Gliding is more or less all the stick and rudder stuff with actually staying up and going places a whole other layer on top.
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