Learning to fly, or thinking of learning? Post your questions, comments and experiences here

Moderator: AndyR

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By Sooty25
#1872173
@RobW use Google maps to identify a set of obvious ground features you can use as turning points, for example, fly around the edge of Spixworth, and the farm just to the east of Horsford. Get them on your wingtip as you turn.
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By Cessna571
#1872186
For the “never push the stick forward” debate.

I was taught that if I ballooned a little I could “relax the stick a little and start again”.

“You must not push it forward, but you can relax it forward a little”.

A proper balloon is a go around of course.

Like a lot flying it’s tiny nuances, the stick can travel slightly forward, but the invisible ratchet stops it being PUSHED forward.

Sounds like it’s just semantics, but I don’t think it is, I think the two different wordings make you act slightly differently.

I’m in the “never push it forward, but you can relax it” camp.
If you push it forward you’ll probably lose a nose wheel one day.


It’s like the stages of tightness of a nut on an old car, and the names for them. There’s about 5 stages of tightness a nut can be, and you have to learn them by feel.
People that don’t know them don’t believe they exist, or that there is a difference.
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By Rob P
#1872190
Cessna571 wrote:For the “never push the stick forward” debate.


For completeness only as it is not relevant to most students - This 'rule' does not apply when you ascend to the elevated status of taildragger skygod. :wink:

Rob P
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By RobW
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872197
Sooty25 wrote:@RobW use Google maps to identify a set of obvious ground features you can use as turning points, for example, fly around the edge of Spixworth, and the farm just to the east of Horsford. Get them on your wingtip as you turn.


Those are the turning points I am aiming for, not easy to see by the track I will grant you!

The turn on Spixworth is ok, I get that right most times, the pig farm is hit and miss depending on how sloppy my climb and level off to circuit height are performed, ie, pretty sloppy mostly!

Im pretty Zen with it to be honest, im only 8 hours in total so not expecting to be good, as long as I can still feel I am progressing I go home happy.
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872221
Cessna571 wrote:I was taught that if I ballooned a little I could “relax the stick a little and start again”.

“You must not push it forward, but you can relax it forward a little”.

A proper balloon is a go around of course.

Like a lot flying it’s tiny nuances, the stick can travel slightly forward, but the invisible ratchet stops it being PUSHED forward.

Sounds like it’s just semantics, but I don’t think it is, I think the two different wordings make you act slightly differently.

Well I think it is just semantics. The objective is to learn to control the aeroplane with sufficient finesse, and with sufficient intent, that you don't have to rely on the nebulous psychological impact of subjective word meanings to avoid stuffing the nose into the ground on landing.

Prohibiting a positive push forward is fine as a blanket rule to avoid ham-fisted students applying gross control inputs while they are still learning the finesse. But imagining that it's anything different from that is something that I think would actually mitigate against learning.

I also agree that for a really whopping great balloon due to a massive gust or just an overenthusiastic heave when rounding out, a go around is a good plan in the early days, but if you've got enough runway, there's nothing difficult, once you've learned some control, about pointing the nose down a bit, applying a bit of power if needed, and effectively repeating the round out.

Dumbing things down with the supposed intent of not confusing student pilots here, I think, is simply insulting. They may be inexperienced but they aren't stupid.
By Cessna571
#1872239
@TopCat
“The objective is to learn to control the aeroplane with sufficient finesse, and with sufficient intent, that <snip> you don't stuff the nose into the ground on landing.”

Yep, I agree with that.
I don’t think students are daft either.
I don’t think I was particularly daft.

But we’ve all seen people not controlling aircraft with sufficient finesse!
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By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872241
@TopCat - are you an instructor?
The "ratchet" analogy has been used in instruction for a long time, to avoid PIO as well as landing on & breaking nose wheels. The slight relaxing of pressure is a finesse for later, and students will be taught once to allow them to land on any length of runway.
Yes re-starting a flare is very possible on long runways, but you don't want to be teaching that to new students. They are dealing with enough at the beginning - it needs kept simple.

(I'm not an instructor).
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By lobstaboy
#1872244
The problem for the instructor is a simple one. No matter how daft or how brilliant the student is, if they do move the stick forward at the wrong time the instructor won't have time to save the nose wheel. If that happens the chances of that student going on to develop the required finesse are minimal.
It's important for students to moving forward successfully in their training. That means telling them what they need to know now and nothing else.

(And I can see @riverrock has beaten me to the same point. )
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872259
lobstaboy wrote:The problem for the instructor is a simple one. No matter how daft or how brilliant the student is, if they do move the stick forward at the wrong time the instructor won't have time to save the nose wheel. If that happens the chances of that student going on to develop the required finesse are minimal.
It's important for students to moving forward successfully in their training. That means telling them what they need to know now and nothing else.

(And I can see @riverrock has beaten me to the same point. )

For the record, I don't disagree with any of the above, and I don't disagree with the invisible ratchet as a teaching device.

In response to @riverrock, I do think it's funny how, even with the written word (let alone the spoken word, where the problem is much worse), people still imagine you've said what you haven't said. As I said above,

Prohibiting a positive push forward is fine as a blanket rule to avoid ham-fisted students applying gross control inputs while they are still learning the finesse.

and
I also agree that for a really whopping great balloon due to a massive gust or just an overenthusiastic heave when rounding out, a go around is a good plan in the early days

and (this time with the obviously invisible clauses in bold)
if you've got enough runway, there's nothing difficult, once you've learned some control, about pointing the nose down a bit, applying a bit of power if needed, and effectively repeating the round out


Not sure how any of this can be misinterpreted as advice on how to instruct new students.

I'm not a flying instructor (although I have decades of experience as a private tutor to young people aged 8 to 22), as anyone that reads my posts will know. My sole flying instructional experience consists of teaching someone to land once, after three qualified instructors had failed to, and given up on her. However that experience, and others over the years, not least seeing hundreds of very poor landings by dual students who are obviously not being taught to do it properly, has proved to me that being an instructor is not the same as being a good instructor.

But somehow, my instructor taught me (not a particularly quick or slow learner) to land without once telling me not to move the stick forward, or about invisible ratchets.

And that was in an AA5A which I'm still flying today - with its notoriously vulnerable nose leg, which I have still failed to land on, even once.

I tend to take the view that the student pilots on here are all intelligent adults, and are perfectly capable of reading and thinking about discussions of some of the more nuanced aspects of things, without assuming that they are to be immediately incorporated into their flying training.

To any stupid ones that I may have inadvertently led astray, I apologise.
By RobW
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872263
TopCat wrote:
lobstaboy wrote:
To any stupid ones that I may have inadvertently led astray, I apologise.


Accepted, now can you please tell me where I can buy the invisible sockets?
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872264
RobW wrote:
TopCat wrote:To any stupid ones that I may have inadvertently led astray, I apologise.


Accepted, now can you please tell me where I can buy the invisible sockets?

I have several that I can let you have at a good price.

20 quid each? :pirat:
Last edited by TopCat on Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By lobstaboy
#1872266
RobW wrote:
TopCat wrote:
lobstaboy wrote:
To any stupid ones that I may have inadvertently led astray, I apologise.


Accepted, now can you please tell me where I can buy the invisible sockets?


Careful with quoting posts that have quotes in them @RobW . I didn't say that.

@TopCat what you say is all fine of course, but we're just trying to offer what could be helpful ways to move forward for students who have bravely come on here and asked for help.

Of course we should be fourth on the list of sources for students to get help from:
1. Their instructor
2. Text books
3. Videos on line where the producer is clearly knowledgeable
4. Random others on line (us, well me anyway) or blokes down the pub

It does bemuse me that there seem to be folk who find it hard to get things explained well by their instructor. Where do they come from (the instructors I mean)?
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By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872269
lobstaboy wrote:
RobW wrote:
TopCat wrote:


Accepted, now can you please tell me where I can buy the invisible sockets?


Careful with quoting posts that have quotes in them @RobW . I didn't say that.


Oops sorry, my bad too. I missed that. My one now fixed.
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872274
lobstaboy wrote:It does bemuse me that there seem to be folk who find it hard to get things explained well by their instructor.

I think the sad fact must simply be that examining standards are a bit variable. Getting through the FI course doesn't prove that you're a good teacher.

Either that, or over time instructors forget what it was like when they were learning, so they confuse their own perception of what's going on with that of the student.

I was never particularly brilliant at any of the subjects I studied, but if there's one thing I believe I am quite good at, it's seeing things from the student's point of view, understanding what they're struggling with, getting inside their head and fixing it.

I suspect that is something that is common to teaching any subject not just flying.
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