#flying techniques

What are your #Hacks for long #FLIGHTS? Here are mine...

How to survive a long flight… Have you ever thought about that? I wasn’t even though I knew flying from London to Bali will take me “ages”. But I think it’s all gonna be fine. It’s just a regular flight but a bit longer. Well, it was an experience… So now I would like to give you my experience, together with some research, and offer you 10 tips on how to survive those long flights.

1. Rest before…

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Instrument flying is actually hard when the pilot's workload is too great. This article shows you, the pilot, tips on how to lessen your cockpit workload and greatly simplify instrument flying. The truly positive side effect is you will fly more precisely and then make fewer mistakes.

All students pilot is aware that the most fundamental 'instrument' is outside the airplane. It will be the horizon. Any time you fly in a cloud the horizon disappears. But the airplane will continue to fly just like it did outside the cloud. This tells you that you can fly the airplane on instruments equally you probably did visually but somehow you have to compensate for the lost horizon. On instruments you are doing exactly the same thing you do visually except you employ the attitude indicator (a.k.a. artificial horizon) as opposed to the real horizon to be alert to the aircraft's attitude.

All flying is surely an iterative process. You fly by changing some parameter, maintaining a constant attitude, letting the airplane return to a steady-state condition, monitoring the flight instruments, adjusting a parameter, maintaining consistent attitude, letting the airplane resume a steady-state condition,... The parameters you change might be attitude, power, a principal flight control, flaps, etc. The ONLY difference is always that attitude must be consciously monitored since your peripheral vision cannot monitor attitude for you.

Since attitude have to be monitored inside a is neither intuitive nor as simple as visual flying, you will need a disciplined scan for instrument flying. By 'scan' After all how you would evaluate instruments, which instruments also in what order.

Beyond question, the attitude indicator is a very useful instrument. Ironically it is not required nor is it the principle instrument in almost any situation. It is very useful because it substantially minimizes the workload of instrument flying.

The attitude indicator should be the pivot point of your scan. By way of example, in straight and level flight... Well then, i'll interrupt myself today and inquire you if you agree the primary instruments are during straight and level flight? By primary instruments, I mean the 'must have' instruments. Which instrument absolutely, positively informs you of that a pitch attitude is correct? Which instrument tells you that a bank is correct? Which instrument tells you that your particular rudder is incorporated in the proper position? Don't look at the next paragraph before you allow the resolution to these questions.

Here come the surprising answers. The altimeter is primary for pitch, the gyrocompass is primary for bank and also ball is primary for rudder.

For instance the idea about primary instruments, believe that you're flying an airplane which consists of wing-leveler engaged. You were assigned an altitude of 8,000 feet. With regards to this discussion, solutions do is discover the pitch attitude right. Examining the attitude indicator, everything looks fine. The little airplane is exactly on the horizon. Does that tell you you will have the pitch attitude nailed? You need ideas of. You need to glance at the altimeter. Consider good enough to respond two questions: Just what does it say? What is it doing? Whether it reads 7,960 feet and it's moving up slowly, it lets you know that your particular pitch attitude is just too high! If your altimeter reads 7,960 feet and is not moving, congratulations, your pitch attitude is perfect. Your altitude tells you almost nothing about pitch attitude.

Your scan includes the key instrument(s) and also attitude indicator. The movement associated with a primary instrument provides feedback relating to your attitude. If ever the gyrocompass were moving it could inform you that you're turning. When you're turning and the ball consistantly improves center, then this wings are usually not level. You should look at the attitude indicator sufficient time to level your wings. Continue to scan.

You may ask, "Why not the rate-of-turn indicator?" The reason is that monitoring the rate-of-turn contributes to your workload; it is advisable to examine your heading; and also the gyrocompass gives you the turning important information.

In straight and level flight with no artificial stabilization, your scan might follow this sequence: attitude indicator, altimeter, attitude indicator, gyrocompass, repeating for perhaps two or three cycles. An instant glance at the ball followed with a compensating rudder trim would suffice, then forget about the ball.

You need to figure out which instruments are primary in just about every region of flight or perhaps you will not be able to always settle on the appropriate scan. For example, when you find yourself climbing, your airspeed indicator will probably be your primary pitch instrument and gyrocompass is primary bank. When you find yourself inside of a level standard rate turn, your rate of turn is primary bank and altimeter is primary pitch. If you are in the 30° bank, the attitude indicator is primary bank and altimeter could be the primary pitch instrument, etc. Adjust your scan almost every situation.

By now you happen to be thinking that you may have other instruments to bother with than others I mentioned inside your scan. You're right. Bear in mind your most vital cockpit task is usually to fly the airplane. Once that's unquestionably under control then you can definitely start adding other items to each third or fourth scan. Bear in mind that during an instrument approach, an ILS or VOR could easily become one of the primary instruments.

So that the fundamental principles that you have to understand and apply to your instrument flying are:

1. Notice both an instrument's reading and movement. 2. Use an instrument's movement to offer feedback regarding current attitude. 3. Go through the attitude indicator when adjusting attitude. (Unless there is tumbled!) 4. Work with the attitude indicator as the base from your instrument scan, moving your focus from attitude indicator to primary instrument, to attitude indicator to other primary instrument, etc. 5. Impact the selection of primary instruments as part of your scan because region of flight changes; dropping some out of your scan, adding others.

About-shoot, below-shoot, reduction of directional control, wing suggestion strikes... are all signs or symptoms of blunders produced In advance of the pilot touches down. Errors that are simply to proper - but not always in a way you may possibly feel.

I landed at the Nuttree Airport in a Cessna 172 in 1968. I felt quite smug. It was a very clean landing, a single of people landings that you could listen to but not sense. Then a wind gust picked me up and I landed a second time on a parallel taxiway. The pilot taxiing in the reverse path was type sufficient (or possibly shocked plenty of or frightened sufficient) to hold quick of a flip-off so I could transfer over to the parking apron. I couldn't search him in the eye as we went prior. Red-faced, I mumbled some excuses to my passengers that I didn't feel. I had just created the 3 most important (and most common) mistakes a pilot can make when landing.

Determined to never permit that come about all over again, I devote a wonderful offer of time in the intervening forty years thinking about how to prevent these blunders. The NTSB claims that a total 45% of the temperatures-linked accidents are brought about by crosswinds and gusts. I believe that it. It is time to introduce some small identified approaches that help protect against these mishaps. But first, we really should search at their causes.

Landing way too fast is induced by flying the tactic as well rapid or trying to pressure the airplane on the runway prior to it is ready. The resolution is to fly a consistent strategy at the identical airspeed, selecting a protected projected glide level (or PGP), and controlling the PGP right up until you land. But hold the airplane a foot or so off the runway until finally the airplane nose has rotated up to the landing attitude. Maintain that frame of mind until finally the airplane lands. That way you will land at the right pace.

Failing to cross management in a crosswind qualified prospects to floor loops, being blown off the aspect of the runway (the MOST typical trigger of accidents in the United States), wing suggestion damage, or, in my case, flying around the infield and landing on a taxiway. To set it only, cross controlling is utilizing the rudder to preserve the lengthy axis of the airplane parallel to the prolonged axis of the runway and using the ailerons to hold the airplane positioned above the runway. This guarantees that you will maintain the airplane going straight down the runway following the wheels contact.

Stop flying the plane just before the airplane is as a result of flying is one particular of the most unsafe faults that a pilot could make. Its trigger is absence of concentration. Its option is good flying behavior.

I was lucky at the Nuttree. If the crosswind had been coming from the opposite side, I could have been blown into a canal. Don't forget that just simply because the major gear is on the ground does not indicate that there is no 'fly' left in the airplane. Also don't forget that if you retain the airplane just previously mentioned the runway till it definitely, positively will not fly any far more, then it will an unusually sturdy gust to set it in the air once more.

It is simple to be lulled into the undesirable behavior that lead to these blunders. When the wind is light and the runway is long, all will be forgiven. So the concern is: how to preserve these negative routines from creating?

I want to inform you about two workouts that have assisted pilots a lot more that I could have actually imagined. They are the 'very slow Dutch roll' and the 'controlled projected glide' position. Neither is tough or hazardous. The two simplify and reinforce any pilot's potential to land.

The extremely gradual Dutch roll is a uncomplicated workout carried out at a risk-free altitude. It teaches two really essential capabilities. Initially the pilot learns to continually transfer the stick and rudders to manage the airplane as circumstances modify, and 2nd, the pilot learns how to cross control the airplane in the most excessive circumstances.

The following is how to do a very sluggish Dutch roll. Decide on a position on the horizon and hold it constant as you modify the angle of financial institution, airspeed and flap configuration. Keep continual altitude. Modify your lender incredibly slowly. Carry on to boost the angle of lender until eventually either the aileron or the rudder is pushed to its limit. This is the angle of bank for the greatest crosswind that the airplane can tackle. The cross managed airplane little by little accelerates to the side for a minute or two. During this time, the pilot ought to transfer the flight controls continually as the airplane accelerates to the aspect - an unanticipated gain of this physical exercise.

Let me inform you about the projected glide level or PGP. When you strategy the runway your eye will naturally gravitate toward a stage on the runway that does not transfer in your subject of eyesight. The phenomenon is much like when you are on a collision class with one more airplane: it stays nevertheless in your discipline of eyesight but just will get even larger. Very well, there is constantly a stage on the ground where just the same factor takes place. This is the point that you would glide to if you in no way produced that final very little flair to land. This is an really precious idea that can help you save you a lot of hours of landing apply. I never heard another flight instructor discuss about it but I am confident that many pilots use this technique.

You can manage the PGP with electrical power and drag although holding the airspeed continuous. To transfer the PGP closer to you, lessen the engine's energy or increase the airplanes drag - normally with flaps. To shift the PGP absent from you, raise the engine's strength or lessen the airplane's drag.

Use the two ideas with each other to make constant, protected landings. When proven on closing, use the middle line of the runway as your reference level for extremely sluggish Dutch rolls. Use the ailerons to place the airplane on the extended centerline, the rudder to retain the prolonged axis of the airplane parallel to that extended centerline. Shift the PGP to the similar place each and every time. I advocate the runway threshold. Consciously continue on cross managing until finally the airplane slows to a taxi.

These two uncomplicated methods will get you to the exact same put on the runway each time in a landing configuration that compensates for crosswinds or gusts until eventually the airplane is heading so gradual that you can taxi to parking.

There are two ways to know if a crosswind is too strong. One is to land and see if you skid off the side of the runway or ground loop. The other is to cross control the airplane before landing to see if you can align the airplane with the runway. I prefer the second technique. 

When you use your rudder to align the airplane with the runway and the ailerons to move the airplane laterally over the runway, you are cross controlling the airplane. This is a technique not used often in flight, but a very useful one to master.

Some pilots advocate flying wings level in a crosswind and kicking the rudder pedal vigorously the instant before touchdown to get the airplane pointed in the right direction. I have even seen this technique described in how-to-fly books. But frankly, this is one of those ideas that sound good if you say them fast. With this technique, you just don't know if you can get the nose pointed down the runway until you land, nor do you know if the crosswind will blow you off the runway before you're on the surface and under control. So if your life insurance is paid up and you don't have an aviation exclusion clause, you might try the old kick-and-hope trick.

There is an exception. If you are flying a nose wheel equipped airplane with liftkilling spoilers - which means you are flying a heavy airplane, not a light plane - then you can deploy the spoilers fully the instant you touch down and let the plane swivel

toward the far end of the runway. I would refer you to that now famous Lufthansa crosswind landing. Its URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z42fchrzhHY . As you can see, even that technique requires some rather precise timing. I have seen some videos of the A380 and some B474s successfully using this technique. They were flown by multi-thousand hour test pilots. I don't think it is in the cards for someone flying a light plane.

Passengers find cross controlling disconcerting. All of us like the floor to be directly beneath us and the seat to feel level. Cross controlling to align the wheels with their direction of travel requires that the upwind wing go down and that the pilot press -sometimes vigorously - on the downwind rudder pedal. Suddenly the floor is no longer level and the seat sits at an angle. This is all very upsetting to the passengers.What to do?

I recommend practicing entering the cross controlled state just as you start to raise the nose to land. This is the optimal technique and only requires slightly more skill than the procedure I describe a little further on. 

The wing loses lift when it is cross controlled raising the airplane's stall speed slightly. If the airplane cannot be cross controlled enough to get the airplane properly aligned, applying power immediately and returning to a wings-level, coordinated flying condition will lower the stall speed again and get the airplane climbing. This would not be a good time to botch a go-around.

This technique minimizes the passengers' exposure to cross controlled flight. Nevertheless, it is better to have a disconcerted passenger than a bent airplane. So if you are not the compete master of the cross control at the last minute technique, cross control while you are still in your pre-landing glide. If you cross control when you are a hundred feet above the surface, you have enough time to see if the airplane can be aligned with the runway before you have to start concentrating on the landing itself. If not, then you have plenty of time to smoothly transition back to wings level and execute an un-hurried go-around. This technique is the easiest and therefore the safest. But it is the most disconcerting to the uninitiated.

So let your passengers know before you do it, that this is a necessary and safe procedure. An important point here is that you should keep cross controlled all the way through the landing and during the roll out.

A lot has been said and written over the years about crosswind landings. It all boils down to having your wheels pointed in the same direction you are traveling before you touch down and knowing if you can while you have enough time, altitude and airspeed to easily make a safe go-around.