Seat Of The Pants?

Aviation Safety

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

Verified

Edited By: Omar Filipovic

Key Takeaways:

A pilot suggests using the "small of the back" as a more sensitive indicator for sensing yaw (slip or skid) to achieve coordinated flight, instead of relying on the less sensitive "seat of the pants."
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To prevent dangerous porpoising during landing, it is strongly recommended that pilots initiate a go-around immediately after the first bounce.

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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.”