Gadget Show, Otis flying solo.
Discussion
Anyone see it yesterday. His challenge was to learn to fly using a PC sim and books as well as a lesson in a 737 simulator.
2 months of practice and study and he then took off in a Cessna 172, did a circuit of the aerodrome and then landed safely. He did have a lovely lady instructor by his side who apparently did not have to help him.
What do you think? a setup or for real?
He was over the moon when he landed, I really felt for him.
2 months of practice and study and he then took off in a Cessna 172, did a circuit of the aerodrome and then landed safely. He did have a lovely lady instructor by his side who apparently did not have to help him.
What do you think? a setup or for real?
He was over the moon when he landed, I really felt for him.
I once had a 1 hour flying lesson and was actually quite surprised how easy it was and my instructor was very hands off, I don't know if that's the norm. I taxied to the end of the runway and the instructor simply told me to floor it and when the speed hit around 70mph to pull back on the control as hard as possible which I did and away we went.
On the way back I explained how useless I've always been at flight sims and have never managed a successful landing but he told me not to worry. He explained what to do and then left me to it. I landed successfully at which point the instructor floored it and we went around again. In total I completed 3 landings all of which were apparently textbook.
It was all pretty easy if you ask me although I suspect the difficult things are things like navigation, understanding the lingo, flying on instruments, dealing with poor weather and generally knowing what to do if something goes tits up. But take off and landing in good conditions is dead easy.
On the way back I explained how useless I've always been at flight sims and have never managed a successful landing but he told me not to worry. He explained what to do and then left me to it. I landed successfully at which point the instructor floored it and we went around again. In total I completed 3 landings all of which were apparently textbook.
It was all pretty easy if you ask me although I suspect the difficult things are things like navigation, understanding the lingo, flying on instruments, dealing with poor weather and generally knowing what to do if something goes tits up. But take off and landing in good conditions is dead easy.
Arnold The Bat said:
I once had a 1 hour flying lesson and was actually quite surprised how easy it was and my instructor was very hands off, I don't know if that's the norm. I taxied to the end of the runway and the instructor simply told me to floor it and when the speed hit around 70mph to pull back on the control as hard as possible which I did and away we went.
On the way back I explained how useless I've always been at flight sims and have never managed a successful landing but he told me not to worry. He explained what to do and then left me to it. I landed successfully at which point the instructor floored it and we went around again. In total I completed 3 landings all of which were apparently textbook.
It was all pretty easy if you ask me although I suspect the difficult things are things like navigation, understanding the lingo, flying on instruments, dealing with poor weather and generally knowing what to do if something goes tits up. But take off and landing in good conditions is dead easy.
You did all that in a 1hr flying lesson??! That's pretty good going!On the way back I explained how useless I've always been at flight sims and have never managed a successful landing but he told me not to worry. He explained what to do and then left me to it. I landed successfully at which point the instructor floored it and we went around again. In total I completed 3 landings all of which were apparently textbook.
It was all pretty easy if you ask me although I suspect the difficult things are things like navigation, understanding the lingo, flying on instruments, dealing with poor weather and generally knowing what to do if something goes tits up. But take off and landing in good conditions is dead easy.
Arnold The Bat said:
and when the speed hit around 70mph to pull back on the control as hard as possible which I did
now, i'm not an expert, but wouldn't that just result in a pretty immediate stall closely followed by a nose dive back to the ground????Surely you should easy back the stick rather than yank it back with brute force?
Any pilots on here??
Max_Torque said:
Arnold The Bat said:
and when the speed hit around 70mph to pull back on the control as hard as possible which I did
now, i'm not an expert, but wouldn't that just result in a pretty immediate stall closely followed by a nose dive back to the ground????Surely you should easy back the stick rather than yank it back with brute force?
Any pilots on here??
When I flew gliders my instructor never let me use any more than thumb and forefinger on the stick (fnarr) - a very light touch is required on those beasties.
Surely you should easy back the stick rather than yank it back with brute force?
Any pilots on here??You have to pull back fairly hard, but not up too much. IMHO, you have to judge it like steering a car. If you're going wrong, sort it out.
FraserLFA said:
Max_Torque said:
Arnold The Bat said:
and when the speed hit around 70mph to pull back on the control as hard as possible which I did
now, i'm not an expert, but wouldn't that just result in a pretty immediate stall closely followed by a nose dive back to the ground????Surely you should easy back the stick rather than yank it back with brute force?
Any pilots on here??
My only experiences have been on Sims and a couple of aerobatic flights as a passenger and is it not around 10%/15% above the vertical to take off.
This needs to be in the Trains, Planes and Boats as there are some real pilots on there.
I'll drop them a link.
This needs to be in the Trains, Planes and Boats as there are some real pilots on there.
I'll drop them a link.
Edited by croyde on Tuesday 2nd November 18:41
Edited by croyde on Tuesday 2nd November 18:42
AnotherClarkey said:
FraserLFA said:
Max_Torque said:
Arnold The Bat said:
and when the speed hit around 70mph to pull back on the control as hard as possible which I did
now, i'm not an expert, but wouldn't that just result in a pretty immediate stall closely followed by a nose dive back to the ground????Surely you should easy back the stick rather than yank it back with brute force?
Any pilots on here??
croyde said:
My only experiences have been on Sims and a couple of aerobatic flights as a passenger and is it not around 10%/15% above the vertical to take off.
This needs to be in the Trains, Planes and Boats as there are some real pilots on there.
I'll drop them a link.
The angle you pull to will be governed by what you are trying to achieve ie noise abatement take-off, V2 climb (in the case of engine failure), display and also at the other limit by gear limiting speeds (you need to have an angle of climb so as to control the speed below limiting speed). In my old aeroplane (if my memory is correct) a standard departure would be to pull to 12 degrees over a 4 second period. As most of the civvy jets will be subject to Noise abatement they will probably pull to a larger angle.This needs to be in the Trains, Planes and Boats as there are some real pilots on there.
I'll drop them a link.
Edited by croyde on Tuesday 2nd November 18:41
Edited by croyde on Tuesday 2nd November 18:42
Flying isn't that hard, what does get more difficult is fitting in with other air traffic, following procedures, weather concerns etc - but these get easier as you get more experience. Give it a go!
Which question were we supposed to be answering?
If it was relating to control forces, I suspect 'pull back as hard as you can' on take-off might include just a smidgin of hyperbole, although things vary between types. The C182 in that video is actually comparatively heavy in pitch ('tis the same one that James May used on the Veyron race, and veteran of several of our hoons around Scotland and elsewhere, although there don't appear to as many pie wrappers in it as there were last time I was using it).
There was an incident at Waltham, where the Gadget Show piece was filmed, earlier in the year where a pilot without experience on type attempted a takeoff in a Cirrus, £300K's worth of plastic fitted with a sidestick - he managed to over-pitch on takeoff, stalled it just off the runway, dropped a wing which dug in, and then followed all manner of violent disassembly of the airframe, and fire. Thankfully he - and the owner who was sitting next to him - emerged completely unscathed.
In general, if you're exerting large amounts of force on any control why flying, you're either grotesquely out of trim, or you're about to snap something off at one end of the control linkage or other.
There are exceptions, for example in aerobatic types in high-rate autorotational figures, because the airflow across the control surfaces is doing some very odd things. If you'd never tried it before, in trying to achieve a minimum height-loss recovery from a fully developed power-on flat spin in the Yak, for example, you could easily convince yourself when trying to get the stick into the corner and keeping it there that you'd suffered a control restriction - it requires a large amount of force....
If it was relating to control forces, I suspect 'pull back as hard as you can' on take-off might include just a smidgin of hyperbole, although things vary between types. The C182 in that video is actually comparatively heavy in pitch ('tis the same one that James May used on the Veyron race, and veteran of several of our hoons around Scotland and elsewhere, although there don't appear to as many pie wrappers in it as there were last time I was using it).
There was an incident at Waltham, where the Gadget Show piece was filmed, earlier in the year where a pilot without experience on type attempted a takeoff in a Cirrus, £300K's worth of plastic fitted with a sidestick - he managed to over-pitch on takeoff, stalled it just off the runway, dropped a wing which dug in, and then followed all manner of violent disassembly of the airframe, and fire. Thankfully he - and the owner who was sitting next to him - emerged completely unscathed.
In general, if you're exerting large amounts of force on any control why flying, you're either grotesquely out of trim, or you're about to snap something off at one end of the control linkage or other.
There are exceptions, for example in aerobatic types in high-rate autorotational figures, because the airflow across the control surfaces is doing some very odd things. If you'd never tried it before, in trying to achieve a minimum height-loss recovery from a fully developed power-on flat spin in the Yak, for example, you could easily convince yourself when trying to get the stick into the corner and keeping it there that you'd suffered a control restriction - it requires a large amount of force....
When I was a civvy flying instructor I'd occasionally let people have a crack at take-off and landing on trial flights, even if they had no prior experience. Take-off in something very low-performance like a Cessna 152 is pretty straightforward, and keeping it straight during the take-off roll on a wide runway isn't too demanding. It's then a case of prompting them to ease back smoothly on the control column to get airborne once we reach rotate speed. Most people are quite timid with the controls, and a gentle prompt to increase the input or whatever usually got us airborne with no drama.
If they'd shown some interest and some semblance of ability during the flight I'd usually talk them through the landing with them handling the controls. I'd do flap selections etc for them. If someone has a bit of 'feel', and is alert and responsive to your instruction, then it's surprising what can be achieved with 'roll left, stop. pitch up gently, stop.' They've already had a while in the air to practice selecting and holding attitudes on that first trip. Unless they seemed particularly switched-on I usually handled the throttle on the approach while they held the control column. If they remained attentive then most managed to select and hold the landing attitude through my prompts.
What is significant is that there is a huge difference between a student responding to an instructor's prompts as to what to do with aircraft attitude and power when landing, and trying to get them to make the judgement calls unprompted. If I just let them attempt the approach with my mouth shut we would have ended-up as a pile of burning wreckage 99% of the time. That's what makes flying trickier than it looks; judging when to make control inputs, and also the rate of input when near the ground.
In my current job, we have students with no prior experience, although they have passed pilot aptitude selection. They fly the take-off themselves on hour 3, having been shown the techniques on hour 2. They are also taught the landing on hour 4, but when practising at this stage they almost always require prompting. A good military student will be able to land unprompted after a few attempts.
If they'd shown some interest and some semblance of ability during the flight I'd usually talk them through the landing with them handling the controls. I'd do flap selections etc for them. If someone has a bit of 'feel', and is alert and responsive to your instruction, then it's surprising what can be achieved with 'roll left, stop. pitch up gently, stop.' They've already had a while in the air to practice selecting and holding attitudes on that first trip. Unless they seemed particularly switched-on I usually handled the throttle on the approach while they held the control column. If they remained attentive then most managed to select and hold the landing attitude through my prompts.
What is significant is that there is a huge difference between a student responding to an instructor's prompts as to what to do with aircraft attitude and power when landing, and trying to get them to make the judgement calls unprompted. If I just let them attempt the approach with my mouth shut we would have ended-up as a pile of burning wreckage 99% of the time. That's what makes flying trickier than it looks; judging when to make control inputs, and also the rate of input when near the ground.
In my current job, we have students with no prior experience, although they have passed pilot aptitude selection. They fly the take-off themselves on hour 3, having been shown the techniques on hour 2. They are also taught the landing on hour 4, but when practising at this stage they almost always require prompting. A good military student will be able to land unprompted after a few attempts.
FraserLFA said:
You have to pull back fairly hard, but not up too much. IMHO, you have to judge it like steering a car. If you're going wrong, sort it out.
I think that about sums it up. Perhaps I wasn't told to pull it back as hard as possible, it was a few years ago so I can't remember the exact words, but the sentiment was certainly one of don't be afraid to give it some welly. There may have been a degree of self preservation from the instructor as this was at Caernarvon airport which has a fairly short runway with a large sea defence at one end which has a quite a few pedestrians walking along the top so it appears that there might be little room for error.http://goo.gl/maps/2E6f
Golden fleece said:
You did all that in a 1hr flying lesson??! That's pretty good going!
Thanks however it wasn't all plain sailing. I flew into some cloud at one point and was amazed how quickly the plane ended up at quite an alarming angle. This was the only time the instructor had to take control as I was being a bit ghey getting it level as I was worried I might overdo it and end up barrel rolling into the ground.Arnold The Bat said:
FraserLFA said:
You have to pull back fairly hard, but not up too much. IMHO, you have to judge it like steering a car. If you're going wrong, sort it out.
I think that about sums it up. Perhaps I wasn't told to pull it back as hard as possible, it was a few years ago so I can't remember the exact words, but the sentiment was certainly one of don't be afraid to give it some welly. There may have been a degree of self preservation from the instructor as this was at Caernarvon airport which has a fairly short runway with a large sea defence at one end which has a quite a few pedestrians walking along the top so it appears that there might be little room for error.http://goo.gl/maps/2E6f
Golden fleece said:
You did all that in a 1hr flying lesson??! That's pretty good going!
Thanks however it wasn't all plain sailing. I flew into some cloud at one point and was amazed how quickly the plane ended up at quite an alarming angle. This was the only time the instructor had to take control as I was being a bit ghey getting it level as I was worried I might overdo it and end up barrel rolling into the ground.
ps - For the avoidance of doubt - it sounds an awful lot for a first hour...
It was I would guess a routine 1 hour flight out of Caernarvon and then along the coast around Great Orme and back where I executed 3 landings. The cloud base was quite low so for most of the flight I was just below it but for a few minutes I drifted into the cloud which was the only time the instructor took control of the plane. The rest of the time he just sat there with his arms folded. For the landing he showed me the lever for the flaps and told me to push it all the way down and explained how I need to align myself with the runway and control my descent with the throttle. As soon as I got over the end of the runway I had to kill the throttle and keep the nose up until we touched down. I certainly remember it as being quite straight forward.
Having read the replies to this thread I can understand how it might seem a little far fetched but I'm not prone to bulls
tting and this is pretty much how it happened. Perhaps my instructor was a little more casual than most and maybe placed us in some danger but I really couldn't comment on that as I'm not a pilot.
Suffice to say I was very impressed with the instructor as I fully expected him to take off, get it level and then let me do a few gentle turns and whatever before he landed it. I was not expecting to do as much flying as I did but I am very glad that he did allow me as it was a truly fantastic experience. Maybe I'm a gifted pilot, whose to say, but until now I assumed all first lessons were like that and if people do wish to call bullst then I will happily take that as a compliment of my limited flying skills.
Having read the replies to this thread I can understand how it might seem a little far fetched but I'm not prone to bulls
tting and this is pretty much how it happened. Perhaps my instructor was a little more casual than most and maybe placed us in some danger but I really couldn't comment on that as I'm not a pilot. Suffice to say I was very impressed with the instructor as I fully expected him to take off, get it level and then let me do a few gentle turns and whatever before he landed it. I was not expecting to do as much flying as I did but I am very glad that he did allow me as it was a truly fantastic experience. Maybe I'm a gifted pilot, whose to say, but until now I assumed all first lessons were like that and if people do wish to call bulls
t then I will happily take that as a compliment of my limited flying skills. croyde said:
Now very tempted to try a lesson if you actually do more than a few gentle turns. I've done that already at the end of acrobatic session when the pilot let me hold the plane steady then turn to the right to head back to the airport.
If you have the money, flying is one of the most amazing things in the world. The more you do, the more control you'll be given, and if you get to go solo further down the line, it'll be absolutely terrifying but worth it.FraserLFA said:
croyde said:
Now very tempted to try a lesson if you actually do more than a few gentle turns. I've done that already at the end of acrobatic session when the pilot let me hold the plane steady then turn to the right to head back to the airport.
If you have the money, flying is one of the most amazing things in the world. The more you do, the more control you'll be given, and if you get to go solo further down the line, it'll be absolutely terrifying but worth it.Gassing Station | TV, Film, Streaming & Radio | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff