Seat Of The Pants?

Aviation Safety

Wednesday, January 01, 2025 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By: Omar Filipovic

Key Takeaways:

Pilots can improve coordinated flight by using the "small of their back" to sense subtle yaw (slips or skids), as this area is highly sensitive to lateral movement, and practicing to associate these sensations with corrective rudder inputs.
Annual editorial indexes for Aviation Safety magazine, categorizing content by subject and title, have been consistently published in each December issue since June 2004 and are available as complete PDFs on the magazine's website for subscribers.
To prevent uncontrolled porpoising landings and their associated risks, it is strongly recommended that pilots execute a go-around immediately after the first bounce where the main wheels leave the ground.

See a mistake? Contact us.

I couldn’t agree more with Jim Wolper in his excellent November 2024 article, “Using The Rudder,” that without some kind of yaw indicator, we can’t trust the seat of our pants. I take that literally.

As a long-time ag aviation pilot, where aggressive and repetitive stick and rudder inputs are part of the job, my suggestion to all pilots for keeping the ball centered is to fly by “the small of our backs.”