I will not disagree with your statements. I am
only posing questions to make people think. I can refute and support
every claim that you stated. The problem is I read emails where people
are talking in absolutes. There are no absolutes in aviation.
I dodge turkey vultures quite frequently in Florida, in a
helicopter at low altitude, and every single time for the past 10 years, they
dive away. When you say low altitude, what is low, 100, 50,
1000ft? Not saying they can not climb, maybe they did not read the
documented observation you speak of. I’ve not personally seen a bird
climb out of the way of rapidly approaching aircraft. I’ve witnessed
them fold their wings and dive like a missile. I don’t have to ask Bill,
I avoid them every time I fly. Now in a helicopter, I can roll much
faster than climb, so we bank out of the way, but some pilots do not like to
bank over 30 degrees, so they instinctively climb. Lancair’s can climb
remarkably faster than any bird. If you want to descend, keep on doing
what you do.
Tell the pilot of a bonanza I saw, was coming over the
threshold, controller told him to go around because the controller saw that
his gear was not down at the last minute. When the pilot applied power,
the nose pitched up, tail hit the runway and the aircraft cart wheeled and
blew up. Unfortunately, you can’t ask him, because he’s dead, and I
watched it happen from 100 yards away as I was waiting to take the
runway.
Wind shear, I agree completely yet you state is so
simply and it is not. Does everyone keep their speed up and have a good
grasp of the weather pattern and winds around them? Hence why we have
accidents and that is all I am trying to say.
Speaking in absolutes as though every pilot knows how
to react to every situation is simply not true. We all learn through
mistakes, if we make it. I want to express that saying, “I will not fly
the airplane below a 110 knots”, except in the flair, is not a good training
method or going to save yourself from a stall. Knowing how the aircraft
feels approaching a stall and how to recover before entering the stall in
these situations is paramount to not entering the stall.
As pilot
in command, you have control over real flight. In PP 2, you are not
quite correct. At low altitudes, birds climb (this is a documented
observation) -- BTW, Ask Bill.
PP3, You should know
your plane's slow speed handling characteristics and you can tell the
controller that you "cannot comply" and request a go-around. No one here
has ever suggested that you shouldn't know and practice slow speed flight, you
need not stall. After all, the 320/360 emergency gear extension
procedure requires that you slow to 87
KIAS.
PP4 - How about wind
shear - keep your speed up and remember that it is not against the rules to
push the stick forward even when near to the
ground.
It is clear to me
that one must learn not to try and fix every problem by pulling back on the
blessed stick.
In a message dated
10/5/2008 3:41:56 P.M. Central Daylight Time, lalcorn@natca.net
writes:
I would like to
add to this discussion on stalls and slow flight handling of aircraft.
One thing I see discussed by pilots is that, they do not need to practice
stalls or slow flight because they know the speeds and simply stay faster
than those speeds close to the "slow realm" of flight, which I would infer
is also the region of reverse command and just above. This is a great
safety idea in ideal conditions, your familiar airport, standard traffic
patterns, no controllers, etc. Unfortunately real flight is nothing
like this.
One good example is bird avoidance. The
proper method of avoiding birds is to climb and turn, since birds will
typically dive away. So you are on a downwind, gear extended, flaps
slightly out, and there is a 10lb turkey vulture and you pull and
turn. Sounds close to an accelerated stall, doesn't it. If you
do not know what your plane feels like at slower speeds, how will you know
how hard to pull or when to recover. Add this during a base to final,
and you have a stall spin accident. How many of these accelerated
stall base to final crashes have happened in the last year alone?
Next example is when you add those pesky controllers trying to fit
your 120 knot aircraft behind a 150 in the downwind at an airport with a
3500 foot runway. They ask you to slow, you do the best you can, but
still eating this guys lunch. Your busy configuring etc, then the
tower controller sees its not going to work and orders a go around when you
are crossing the threshold with full flaps and gear hanging out, starting to
round out. Do not think they won't do that either. Especially
with the new generation of controllers being hired off the street, many are
not familiar with aircraft characteristics and are only concerned about
having an error. How many of the "don't practice slow flight/stalls"
practice full landing configured go-arounds at high rates of descent.
Again, knowing your aircraft's slow handling characteristics might help
here.
How about wind shear? I've been in clear VFR days in
florida
and catch the outflow from a storm 20 miles away while in the downwind and
loose 25 knots in an instant with a nice downdraft. What is your
natural instinct when you encounter a large sink close to the ground?
Pull back now that you are only 6 knots above stall?
I could go on
and on with examples, but just things to think about.
Previously
stated "The initial training for a Lancair needs to include exposure to the
stall to assess the speed at which it is likely to occur. That assessed,
continued testing of that seems superfluous given the mind set should be
clearly engraved to avoid the area whereby such a condition of flight
occurs".
How can you simply avoid these regions of flight given the
examples I have just stated?
Luke Alcorn
--
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