Tue Jun 04, 2019 7:02 pm
#1698021
with a wet-behind-the-ears instructor (can you be a flying instructor at the age of 14?) trying to tell me to rotate at the correct speed.
This was the first thing to assault my ears when I came back to flying here.
Instructors insisting on rotate speeds, WTF!
Rotate speeds belong on 737s where control must be maintained following a single engine failure, and lift off and climb is assured rather than a high drag - go off the end of a runway.
They don’t seem to even want to keep the nose light as they accelerate!
Then they break their rule with the short and soft field takeoffs when the nose is lifted a little then a lot as soon as flying speed is achieved (or a lot for soft), and the aeroplane leaves the ground before ‘rotate speed’ is achieved.
As a student I never learned ‘rotate’, I learned to fly aeroplanes, and I‘ve never come unstuck letting the aeroplane fly when it is ready.
Another airline technique I’ve seen is to lower the nose after landing, apply the brakes, take the flaps up...
Wheel shimmy...
One aeroplane landed with a crosswind and as soon as weight was put on the nosewheel it steered the too fast aeroplane off the side of the runway.
The flight manual for this (Eagle) aeroplane stated that the nosewheel should be held off for as long as possible.
If you read the Cessna POH a forced landing is followed by lowering the nose and applying the brakes.
In a real forced landing the landing is thus stopped by a vertical 180 degree bunt turn to groove the ground with the top of the rudder.
In practice it results in other problems usually resulting in the attention of maintenance.
So we simulate harsh braking by stating it would be done while we take proper care of the aeroplane.
An interesting thing for me to deal with on my flight revalidation for my PPL was the rejected takeoff...
How often do we have this problem for real?
Certainly done enough EFATO practice, and rejected a takeoff at the go/no go decision point...
Had a rough engine and rejected a takeoff sometime in the distant past.
New thing to me, as a flight test exercise. I’ve discussed it (every pretakeoff safety brief), but not practiced a rejected takeoff before.
Like all emergencies, practice, and reality are often very different.
If the examiner shouts “engine fire” then the practice will be more realistic. Close throttle, shut the fuel off, mixture, mags, and master, brake, stop, and evacuate the aeroplane... Take the extinguisher if you can.
It is an unfortunate thing that the more regulations you create the more people will begin to ignore them to the point they even give a miss to the most basic regulations, and what we used to call basic airmanship.
Over regulation complication is the enemy of ‘common sense’ perhaps.
As for the out of control pilots who fly their own aircraft without contact with a flying school, I suppose it is up to all of us to watch out for them and attempt to improve their airmanship where necessary.
Even something as simple as insisting on pushing an aeroplane well clear of the open hangar before it started up will influence the pilot not used to considering such a thing (I did this recently).
The old adage “Safety is everybody’s business” applies.
As for someone’s licence validity, I don’t care half as much as ensuring what we do is as safe as practical.
I do remember those days of the thirteen month five hour stamp.
Pilots would come to me to get their time in, and in those days I could do this... But not stamp their logbooks.
It was not worth my while in the end, and I used to send them to the flying club to get dual in a Cessna.
Even then airline flight crew would sometimes get stamped in their logbooks with too little or no light aircraft time in the past 13 months... Not legal.
So this sort of thing is not new.
venteux, anglianav8r liked this
MichaelP
Wandering the World
Wandering the World