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C. Craig Morris
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from C. Craig Morris
wrote 9 years 45 weeks ago
from C. Craig Morris
wrote 9 years 45 weeks ago
CJ,
I saw that and went to the websites posted there too. Very interesting stuff. Seems the Newtonian account may be more correct than the Bernoulli one, but I'm not qualified to take a position on the scientific arguments either way, although I find the posted arguments favoring Newtonian principles convincing. This is an interesting debate.
Craig
I saw that and went to the websites posted there too. Very interesting stuff. Seems the Newtonian account may be more correct than the Bernoulli one, but I'm not qualified to take a position on the scientific arguments either way, although I find the posted arguments favoring Newtonian principles convincing. This is an interesting debate.
Craig
from C. Craig Morris
wrote 9 years 45 weeks ago
Hey, Jim, hope you're having a nice July 4th weekend. My instructor taught me something that has served me well: pitch controls airspeed, power controls altitude. That plus the stuff in Langewische's Stick and Rudder about "buoyancy", and Kerschner's more technical discussions, has given me all I'll ever need to fly. Still, I want to know the scientific truth, once they figure it out. -Craig
from C. Craig Morris
wrote 9 years 45 weeks ago
Jim, I think pilots often forget important stuff, like airspeed, altitude, heading, or not trying to fly a sick airplane, even though they "know" what to do. I think distress causes this kind of forgetting and temporary mental blockage, too, whether due to unexpected anxiety-provoking events, worsening weather, low or night IFR, mechanical problems, personal problems, illness, etc. We train for thin margins, like 1.3 Vso, with little room for error, but need to recognize stress instantly and adjust for it to keep risk down.
About a month ago, for example, I forgot to drop my gear even with the horn blasting in my ears - I had mentally blocked the noise out and only "heard" it after my wife told me to drop the gear. What happened was a series of distressing events where I was arriving back to HEF IFR after a 3 hour flight at 13,000 (on O2) and was taking vectors I assumed to be for the Rwy 16L ILS, which I've gotten 50 times before. One controller gives me a vector and says expect the visual and report field in sight, then another controller cuts in and says - urgently - there's traffic there and gives me a different vector, perpendicular to the previous one - this got me anxious, suddenly. Now this is the Washington DC area where the Potomac Approach controllers are usually very busy. I'm in a thick haze with visibility of about 1/2 to 1 mile or so, just under a solid overcast, they're keeping me at 3000 though the field elevation is only 200 msl, and I'm about to overfly the field (according to my GPS) which I can't see, so I say I need to get down to see the field, but ATC can't let me, so ATC gives me a climb to go back around (about 10 miles) for the ILS, then suddenly I see the field, so I say I have the field and can get down, they again clear me for the visual, then I see a plane circling at about 1000 msl below, through the haze, so I go to the tower, ask about the traffic below, lay out full flaps and speed brakes (but not the gear!), descend making wide S turns, and reach short final, when my wife says, "Craig, put the gear down." I flip the switch and hear the tower say, "231LU, gear check". I say, calmly, "we just put it down" - knowing I'd forgotten! Suddenly, I was aware of a strong sense of anxiety that had distinctly begun with the controller's apparent vectoring error and that grew progressively worse as I neared the field but couldn't see it, etc. During the approach, not only had I blocked out the anxiety, I had blocked out the gear horn, too, and would have failed to notice my error of omission. Luck was with me that day, however, in the form of my lovely wife, Pamela. Now I'm trying to find a chip that says "Warning, Gear Up" to replace that horn - I think the words would be impossible to block out. Ditto for other important indicators, like airspeed.
Craig
About a month ago, for example, I forgot to drop my gear even with the horn blasting in my ears - I had mentally blocked the noise out and only "heard" it after my wife told me to drop the gear. What happened was a series of distressing events where I was arriving back to HEF IFR after a 3 hour flight at 13,000 (on O2) and was taking vectors I assumed to be for the Rwy 16L ILS, which I've gotten 50 times before. One controller gives me a vector and says expect the visual and report field in sight, then another controller cuts in and says - urgently - there's traffic there and gives me a different vector, perpendicular to the previous one - this got me anxious, suddenly. Now this is the Washington DC area where the Potomac Approach controllers are usually very busy. I'm in a thick haze with visibility of about 1/2 to 1 mile or so, just under a solid overcast, they're keeping me at 3000 though the field elevation is only 200 msl, and I'm about to overfly the field (according to my GPS) which I can't see, so I say I need to get down to see the field, but ATC can't let me, so ATC gives me a climb to go back around (about 10 miles) for the ILS, then suddenly I see the field, so I say I have the field and can get down, they again clear me for the visual, then I see a plane circling at about 1000 msl below, through the haze, so I go to the tower, ask about the traffic below, lay out full flaps and speed brakes (but not the gear!), descend making wide S turns, and reach short final, when my wife says, "Craig, put the gear down." I flip the switch and hear the tower say, "231LU, gear check". I say, calmly, "we just put it down" - knowing I'd forgotten! Suddenly, I was aware of a strong sense of anxiety that had distinctly begun with the controller's apparent vectoring error and that grew progressively worse as I neared the field but couldn't see it, etc. During the approach, not only had I blocked out the anxiety, I had blocked out the gear horn, too, and would have failed to notice my error of omission. Luck was with me that day, however, in the form of my lovely wife, Pamela. Now I'm trying to find a chip that says "Warning, Gear Up" to replace that horn - I think the words would be impossible to block out. Ditto for other important indicators, like airspeed.
Craig
from C. Craig Morris
wrote 9 years 45 weeks ago
Oh, I've got a couple of stories for Never Again, from pre-instrument scud-running days over dark night mountain terrain, but I've got to get in the mood to tell them. Maybe we need a topic, "scary pilot tales."
Craig
Craig
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Flying's always going to be an art based on, but not fully explained by, science - we can't even adequately explain what creates lift yet, but we can sure fly. Numbers like 1.3 Vso aren't sacrosanct - they're just someone's idea of a reasonable standard based on many considerations, some of which aren't even relevant anymore. And there's a style to flying, like anything else, so different opinions aren't necessarily right or wrong, even if one means more risk of one sort while another means more risk of a different sort. The main thing is don't hit anything too hard, too fast. Now I can't say when I'll be back in the desert, but I will.
Aveator - no doubt that the higher minimums are both the law and common sense for higher speed maneuvering, but the minimums don't apply until after the final approach fix anyway, so until then, it doesn't matter. I'm saying that erring on the high side is preferable to the low side, especially at night or in IMC or both, where it's easy to become disoriented and let the plane tumble if the airspeed and/or pitch aren't maintained carefully, as experience shows, they sometimes aren't.
Craig