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Date: Mon, 01 May 2006 20:00:34 -0400
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From: "terrence o'neill" <troneill@charter.net>
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Subject: Re: [LML] AOA
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John Halle writes:

>A bit smug, don't you think?

Sorry, John.  I'm  poor at tact ... and feel bad about it. I'm kind of 
'tact-challenged'.Should not have capitalized the word 'bad'.  I was just 
trying to say what you said much better...

>the hypothetical situation you pose in which things are "already BAD", by 
>which I assume you have in mind someone who is, without knowing it, very 
>close to a stall or who has, to his complete surprise, just stalled, there 
>may be some marginal advantage to having an AOA ...

Yes.  These are the guys  who get killed, John, and are listed in the NTSB 
reports,.  A  study of them shows that these 'plumbers' have experience all 
across the board, including some very high time, very professional pilots.
I did read your comments, like ...

>The essential ingredient, both to avoid getting into BAD situations and to 
>get out of whatever BAD situations you find yourself in anyway is good 
>airmanship which, in turn is the result of flying knowledge and experience.

You're right, that's one of the essential ingredients, but this 'attitude 
and experience' is not the only one preferred for safety.  I'm not perefect, 
and have made mistakes,a nd have watched other very careful, experienced 
professionals make mistakes.  It's  a result of our being very complex, 
vulnerable, caring persons, our judgement gets affected by our families, 
friends, working associates and even traffic controllers.  I had the 
opportunity to be a passenger in a very, v ery  long takeoff run out of 
SeaTac in a P2V piloted by one of the best pilots I knew, a green-card 
holder, who for a number of reasons midjudged the effect of a little frost 
on the wings.  Probably an AOA wouldn't have helped that. But my point is 
that training is sometimes irrelevant; stuff has already happened,  and --  
Now what?  Survive.

>in an inadvertent stall/spin, the illusion that advanced gadgetry can make 
>up for poor flying skills (so it's OK to be a plumber as long as you have 
>AOA) the concept is quite simply dangerous.

But obviously I think the opposite is true... to - not - have an AOA is 
dangerous.  An AOA enables an air-blind pilot to see-and-avoid a stall, or, 
once in it,  enables him to see just how little he needs to reduce his 
wing's AOA to unstall and recover with minimum altitude loss.
    The 'gadgetry' isn't an illusion.  It won't replace airmanship.  It will 
aid airmanship=.  An AOA is not 'advanced', but was used -- a simple string 
against a scale -- by Orville and Wilbur. / I agree that you're right --  
that skills are something to be proud of--  but I also think it's okay to 
offer someone who is less of an expert a simple device so he can see how to 
avoid porblem's he's more likely to confront, and if he should make a 
mistake, be able to easily recover.  I'd like everyone to be able to enjoy 
flight, not just the ones who want to be very, very good, but the ones who 
just want to enjoy flight, the scenery, the speed and convenience.  My 
experience is that a simple AOA vane greatly reduces anxiety in tense 
circumstances like landing or taking off hot, high and short... or having to 
maneuver at low altitude, or when stuff happens.  I guess that's where I'm 
coming from.  It's not a replacement for good airmanship or a crutch.  It's 
a tool the Navy was overjoyed to discover and implement, so that twice as 
many of the  men with the golden wings,  who were already excellent in 
airmanship, very highly trained, could survive their carrier deployment, as 
before AOAs.
Terrence N211AL

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