> > >and assuming the nose is lowered to the normal approach attitude >
"Assuming" being my point exactly. The airspeed is fine so the pilot looks to see what the attitude is and uses that as the starting point for the turn. >At least that was exactly the situation that I experienced following a 200 >ft aero tow rope break in a Blanik a few weeks ago. > How how did you "know" what the "normal approach attitude" was? How come you decided to continue to lower the nose even though the airspeed was already higher than 1.5vs? Yes it's a serious question, stop and think about the process of learning the correct attitude. You lowered the nose because you "knew" from familiarity with that aircraft what the required attitude was. Now think about flying an unfamiliar aircraft....or from the other seat. How can you possibly know what the correct attitude looks like? I can fly my Ka6 to within a few knots of the desired speed on attitude alone because I've got hundreds of hours in it, but once or twice a year flying the Motor Falke I start out thermalling ok because I'm confirming the attitude by the ASI, but then I start to balls it up because I stop monitoring the ASI and start reverting back to what "feels" right, the result is the speed gets too slow because I hold the nose too high, I.E I habitually hold the nose in the postion that looks the same as the Ka6. Mind you this is only when thermaling to the right from the left hand seat, thermaling to the left I do fine, Hmmm I wonder why...... Anyway the point I want to make is I think that covering up the ASI and teaching students to fly without it is bad. Sure covering up the ASI and vario for a couple of flights to break a student of a head down habit is fine, but there is a lot of infomation in the cockpit that needs to be collected. GPS, chart, compass, radio, altimeter, averager, camera, (oil temp & pressure & taco for us motor enabled pilots) did you check the placard when you put the wheel down (or was that up?) Learning to collect that information in a quick glance and return to scanning outside makes better pilots because when things get unfamiliar and stuff in the cockpit needs attention, the pilot that is used to dealing with things in the cockpit and maintaining an effective heads out, will cope much better than the one who usually never looks at the panel. (And they'll never be allowed to fly my motor glider if they don't monitor the Taco and temperature gauges!) And besides all that, looking out all the time doesn't necessarily mean "seeing" all the time, re-focusing from short to distance can help the eye detect that speck that is about to ruin your whole day. So I suggest you think long and hard about what you are actually indoctrinating into your students, don't swap one problem for another. It won't look too good on the old resume when the pilot crashes on their first flight in the single seater because they held the nose at the same attitude as the trainer and didn't bother to check the ASI. rgds Pete -- * You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list. * To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message * or with "help" in the body of the message for more information.
