Pitch? Or Power?

I thoroughly enjoyed Dave Higdon’s article “Pitch? Or Power?” in the October issue. For years I argued vehemently against separating pitch and power.

Editorial Staff

Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

One perspective suggests that for beginning students, teaching pitch for airspeed and power for climb/descent simplifies learning to land, while the editor advocates for teaching integrated pitch and power from the start.
Humidity reduces aircraft performance because water vapor is lighter than dry air, decreasing overall air density.
There's an argument for mandatory formal ground school in the U.S. to provide a more comprehensive knowledge base for student pilots, citing differences with Canadian training.
A military veteran refutes criticisms of military pilot training, emphasizing its modern selectivity, discipline, and effectiveness in developing skilled aviators.

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I thoroughly enjoyed Dave Higdon’s article “Pitch? Or Power?” in the October issue. For years I argued vehemently against separating pitch and power.

A little background: I learned to fly in the USAF and was lucky enough to fly a lot of different stuff—helicopters, pistons and jets (/H). From a T-28 to a C-141 with the H-19, H-3, H-1 and T-38 in between. So I have experienced the “set the pitch on final and fly the throttles” as well as the helicopter thing, where all controls are jealous of each other and you must move them all together.