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

Moderator: AndyR

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#1912775
It was interesting to read the views of ATC. So the ATCO expected you to say nothing after 'and Standby' regardless of anyhthing said before it. This was my (and my RT tutor/examiners) interpretation.

So do you have a date for the GST or are you going to have a little more practice?
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912799
FlyingBoot wrote:It was interesting to read the views of ATC. So the ATCO expected you to say nothing after 'and Standby' regardless of anyhthing said before it. This was my (and my RT tutor/examiners) interpretation.

It wasn't the ATCO's expectation, it was the instructor next to him.
ericgreveson liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912800
ericgreveson wrote:Me: "Cambridge Approach, G-CLNC, request basic service"
- Cambridge Approach: "G-NC, Squawk 6175 and standby" (!!!!)
- Me: (with forum conversations swirling through my head, and choosing Arguably Acceptable Option A): "Squawk 6175, G-NC"
- CFI (over the intercom): "No no no, Standby means don't say anything"
- Me: "Well yes, but Squawks are a mandatory readback item, aren't they?"
- CFI: "Hmm, well yes I suppose so... but still..."
- Me: "There was a forum thread about this..."

I think we left it there :-D

Brilliant. Especially my new favourite phrase, an "arguably acceptable option" :D
#1912801
Two thoughts:
- probably a bad idea to hint to your instructor that you're acting on advice you read on here
- we can now expect loads of atcos and frtol examiners to use the phrase, just to see what sort of a response they get
:)
But anyway it sounds like a good session...
ericgreveson liked this
#1912814
Well, I might have phrased it slightly differently to "advice on a forum"... maybe something like "There was a discussion about this..." ;-) also I would say I'm not necessarily following "advice" from here, merely drawing my own conclusions / approach from the discussion... if my own instructor had given specific advice on what to do for "Squawk X and standby" then I would probably have followed that! Anyway, it wouldn't be the first time that I have received different (and opposing) advice for what to do in a particular situation from different instructors, when this happens I usually ask for their rationale and then make my own decision for what seems best based on my understanding of the pros and cons! It usually turns out to be an edge case where neither option is going to be a total disaster...

I'm hoping that one day I will arrange a visit to the tower and then I can ask the ATCOs first-hand what they expect when they give that instruction... and if they see any ambiguity or if it seems obvious which is the "correct" response to them.

It was a good session overall - I'm booked in for some circuits revision a few days before the real skills test now, so I can hopefully use that to regain a bit of currency (as otherwise it would have been another almost 3 week break before the skills test). Looking forward to it!
Milty liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912818
ericgreveson wrote:...I usually ask for their rationale and then make my own decision for what seems best based on my understanding of the pros and cons! It usually turns out to be an edge case where neither option is going to be a total disaster...

That's way too sensible for this forum.

Student pilots capable of independent thought? Whatever next :shock:
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912972
ericgreveson wrote:sometimes I just take the option that will keep the instructor who happens to be sitting next to me happy!

That's often a sound plan. Reminds me of when I was asked to demonstrate a steep turn by a senior flying instructor and examiner who (and whose whereabouts) shall remain nameless.

So from cruising flight at 100 kt I rolled into a 60 degree banked turn, and rolled out again on the original heading.

I was somewhat surprised when me remonstrated with me for not adding power as I rolled into the turn. When I asked why he said "because your stalling speed doubles at 60 degrees of bank".

Some may find it surprising to learn that on that occasion, I elected not to argue.

Quiz question (students only please!):

Why might I have been justified in arguing, were it not for my uncharacteristic diplomacy? :wink:
ericgreveson liked this
#1913003
Go on then, I'll bite. If you're banking at 60 degrees and maintaining altitude, then you should have 1/cos(60) = 2G of lift. But double the G only translates to an increase in stall speed by a factor of sqrt(2) = 1.41 ie a 41% increase in stall speed. So, assuming you were in something like a C152 you should have still had a significant margin over the stall even if you did lose a bit of airspeed in the turn.

To be honest I would have been pedantic enough to argue with at least the rationale (if not the overall suggestion) if there was a blatant mistake ;)

And furthermore, even if you did have a doubling in stall speed, how would you decide how much more power was enough to be safe..? I would have thought the complaint would be about airspeed rather than a nebulous 'adding power'.... How much power?

Bait thoroughly taken :D
T6Harvard, TopCat liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1913011
ericgreveson wrote:Go on then, I'll bite. If you're banking at 60 degrees and maintaining altitude, then you should have 1/cos(60) = 2G of lift. But double the G only translates to an increase in stall speed by a factor of sqrt(2) = 1.41 ie a 41% increase in stall speed. So, assuming you were in something like a C152 you should have still had a significant margin over the stall even if you did lose a bit of airspeed in the turn.

Exactly correct. :thumleft:

My 1G clean stall at max weight is 55 kt, so at 60 degrees it's only 78. If I enter the turn at 100, I roll out at about 90, so there's plenty of margin there, and even more as I'm going to be well below max weight doing that sort of thing.

If I rolled in at 90, I'd probably roll out at about 80, so I might start hearing the stall warner bleeping in the turn, and of course preventing that loss of airspeed and hence possibly stalling in the turn is why they teach adding power as you roll in.

I suppose in a much draggier aeroplane that lost a lot more airspeed in a 2G turn it would be sensible to add some power.

T6Harvard wrote:... only need to add power as you pass 30° AoB :D

Even in a 45 degree banked level turn, where the load factor is 1/cos45 = 1.4, the increase in stall speed is only the square root of this, which is only about an extra 20%. Steep turns are usually taught starting from an airspeed where this 20% is of no consequence.

So adding power rolling to 45 degrees is pointless (other than the interests of maintaining peace with your instructor) unless you have either a particular reason for maintaining exactly the same airspeed, or if you're doing steep turns in slow flight. This in itself is an interesting exercise - pick a slowish airspeed and then roll into a turn, increasing the bank angle very gradually with the ball in the middle, and see how the controls start to feel.

ericgreveson wrote:And furthermore, even if you did have a doubling in stall speed, how would you decide how much more power was enough to be safe..? I would have thought the complaint would be about airspeed rather than a nebulous 'adding power'.... How much power?

Well, quite. In my case it would have to be a lot more than the nominal 100 rpm they teach if my stall speed had gone up to 110 kt.

Which it would, of course, in a 4G turn. But I don't do those in my aeroplane :)
#1913037
Mmm well I'm not sure about this. I'd argue that the extra power is used to provide more thrust to counteract the extra drag that happens because you need more lift to generate the turn. Greater Bank angles need more thrust unless you are happy to lose airspeed or height in the turn.
A well executed steeply banked turn should be exited at the same height and airspeed as it was entered at.
This is simply neat and elegant flying and shows you know what you're doing. Accepting a loss of airspeed because it doesn't matter because you started with sufficient margin above the (accelerated in the turn) stalling speed doesn't do it for me. Sorry, that's being lazy.
Learn to do it properly. The added bonus is with the power increase a good turn is actually easier to do.
How much extra? Well you have to practice to find out. A few lessons of your instructor saying "More bank, more back pressure, more power!" will sort you out.
Incidentally, as an aside, some early microlights wouldn't keep height in a turn at all without a power increase!

PS @T6Harvard is right. Don't add the power before entering the turn, but as the bank angle increases through about 30deg. This is for the reason @TopCat gave - it's more of a hindrance than a help at shallow bank angles.
My comments are about doing steeply banked turns as a flight exercise where you're learning to fly accurately (try doing several 360deg turns continuously round and round at 60deg Bank - lots of fun, it'll give you confidence in yourself and the aeroplane and it'll show you why you need more power (you can try it without increasing power but make sure you know how to recover from a spiral dive)).
If your turn is for emergency avoiding action then niceties are out the window - just Bank and Yank :)
Last edited by lobstaboy on Sun May 29, 2022 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ericgreveson, T6Harvard liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1913050
lobstaboy wrote:A well executed steeply banked turn should be exited at the same height and airspeed as it was entered at.

Well ok, if that's the requirement, then I'd agree with the added power, and if that had been the reason given when I didn't add it, I'd have quite happily accepted the criticism.

Fair point :thumright:
#1914261
Today's update - I have completed another 40 minutes of circuits revision this evening, since we couldn't do it on the day of the mock skills test due to wind. It was a pretty warm and calm day, with less than 5 knots of wind, from approximately 050° - which would be nice, since that's aligned with the runway, but ATC decided that 23 was the active runway as there was less than 5 knots of tailwind! I could of course have asked to use runway 05 instead, but we decided that we could live with 23, there wasn't that much wind, and it gave me a chance to learn a bit about how to adjust circuits for a slight tailwind.

We started off with a standard touch and go, it all went fine although was interesting to see just how low we were as we left the airfield boundary on climbout - normally we'd easily be above 500' with a bit of a headwind, but we were at about 350' with the gentle tailwind! After a week and a half off, I was pleased that everything came to mind fairly easily, and the landing was fine - no real crosswind to adjust for, just making sure I was a bit lower on the approach compared to a normal headwind circuit. Was a little bit fast early on final (70kt rather than 65kt) but easy enough to sort out.

Second circuit was for a flapless landing - to start with, I left a bit too much power on in the turn to downwind, and ended up at about 100kt before throttling back (this also brought me up to almost 1100'). Sorted it out on downwind, base was fine, although I overshot the turn to final a bit, but it was easy enough to get back on track while making my radio call for final. This time I thought I was too low at a couple of points on approach, but instructor reassured me that with the tailwind, we were at just the right height, and indeed we flared just over the threshold as required. Landing was fine again, although in common with all my landings today, there was not a peep of stall warner - but at least it was smooth (even if the lack of stall warner suggests it was a bit faster than it could have been).

Third was a high glide approach from 1500' - the climb all went fine, but then lots of other people turned up on frequency for the whole downwind leg, so I couldn't make a downwind report or hear my instructor easily! He ended up pulling the power as we came abeam the runway threshold, and made the radio call while I started my turn for the glide approach. This is where the tailwind made itself known - I could see I was very high and rapidly getting closer to the runway as soon as I started the turn, and despite putting all of the flap on as early as possible, we were still high on final and aiming for more than a third of the way down the runway, so went around. The go-around was not perfect, it took me a few seconds to raise the drag flap and then I didn't really leave enough time to get a positive rate of climb before removing the rest of the flap, but it was not too bad overall - I haven't done one of those for a month or more!

Fourth time round we did another glide approach, this time my instructor recommended continuing to fly downwind until descending to 1300' when there's a bit of a tailwind - I followed this advice and this time we came in at a much better height, landing was good.

Fifth circuit was to be a "bad weather" circuit at 600' with continuous turn to downwind (70kt, 2 stages flap) and then continuous turn for final with full flap from late downwind. We got a rather worrying "juddering" vibration for a few seconds in the first crosswind turn - at first instructor was worrying it might be the engine, but that seemed smooth to me and we both then decided it was almost certainly a flap briefly vibrating. This was quite unusual, we were only going an indicated 70-75kt (well below Vfe of 85kt), but decided that it was because we were doing a full power climbing turn and the combination of the airflow in the turn and propwash had caused the temporary judder. It went away as soon as I started to roll wings level for downwind, and so we decided to continue with this circuit and then see if it came back (which it didn't). The downwind leg of the bad weather circuit started off a bit tight to the runway, which was pointed out by instructor, but widening it a bit on downwind did the trick and the full-flap turn to final worked out nicely, ending the turn just as we came over the threshold at the right speed.

The final circuit was back to a normal one (also to check the flap wasn't wobbling) and this went fine with a smooth landing, although instructor pointed out that I could have pulled the power a bit earlier before the flare to land closer to the threshold. Still, we could get off at Charlie as usual so not too bad.

Overall a good refresher and especially good to have the glide approach and bad weather circuit practise, since I haven't done a huge amount of those to date. Benign weather conditions overall, so the landings themselves weren't so challenging with the lack of crosswind, but it was good to see how even a small amount of tailwind significantly changes the approaches.

Now I have a couple of evenings of chair-based revision (maybe with time for some Flight Sim practise) before the actual skills test on Saturday morning if all goes to plan... weather looks like it might be a bit windy but otherwise not too bad, looking forward to it!
Milty, T6Harvard, FlyingBoot and 1 others liked this
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