At what point could you feel subtle uncoordination?

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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Been flying for a year, 165 hours and still rely on that ball to tell me if I am coordinated.

I don't yet have a sense that I am slipping or skidding based on feel.
When I am putting around the pattern, I am looking at the turn coordinator and correcting after the fact.

Any way to help gain that sense of skidding/slipping so I am not correcting a problem but integrating the corrections into my flying?
 
For me it isn't really a conscious thing and it really depends on flying often. When I don't fly as often then I have to work on the basics of leading with rudder and moving feet with hands. Exercise is to fly a chair and consciously move feet and hands together simulating turns each direction.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Been flying for a year, 165 hours and still rely on that ball to tell me if I am coordinated.

I don't yet have a sense that I am slipping or skidding based on feel.
When I am putting around the pattern, I am looking at the turn coordinator and correcting after the fact.

Any way to help gain that sense of skidding/slipping so I am not correcting a problem but integrating the corrections into my flying?
Click to expand...

I have the same issue at 300 hours. Severe uncoordinated flight I can easily feel in the seat of my pants. Slight uncoordinated flight doesn't give me any real physical input. Maybe it's because most of my time has been in 172s, or maybe my former defensive lineman 260 lbs doesn't get moved easily.

When I got my IR and had to learn the configurations necessary for a certain speeds or rates of climb or decent, I was able to know if I had too little or too much pressure on one rudder pedal or the other, because I wasn't seeing my intended speed or rate target.
 
The whole "Flying by the seat of your pants" thing goes way back to old airplanes like a Curtiss Jenny, or even a J3 Cub, where the pilot sits in the "back" behind the wing. You can feel it much more back there, pitch and yaw changes are much more visually apparent as well. In most of the planes you're flying today you are pretty much sitting right on top of the center of lift so the sensations you get from uncoordinated flight are much more subtle.

In other words: nothing wrong with you, you're perfectly normal.
 
Okay, cool.

Yeah, I think I sit right on top of the main spar which is probably close if not right at CG.


Thanks.
 
A comment I got from a CAP instructor not long ago might perhaps be useful.

He asked if I could feel more weight on one butt cheek than the other. The answer was yes, if he was flying. Rudder pressure overwhelmed it otherwise. The followup suggestion was to use shoulder blades instead, and I quickly realized that I didn't always sit straight in the seat.
 
Become a CFI you'll feel it instantly and won't be able to keep quiet about it either.:D
 
Silvaire said:
The whole "Flying by the seat of your pants" thing goes way back to old airplanes like a Curtiss Jenny, or even a J3 Cub, where the pilot sits in the "back" behind the wing. You can feel it much more back there, pitch and yaw changes are much more visually apparent as well. In most of the planes you're flying today you are pretty much sitting right on top of the center of lift so the sensations you get from uncoordinated flight are much more subtle.

In other words: nothing wrong with you, you're perfectly normal.
Click to expand...

Ah. Duh. That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. :thumbsup:
 
In addition, more modern designed planes have designed a lot of coordination issue out. They don't actually slip, or skid as much as vintage planes do when you keep your feet on the floor and turn the yoke, or stick.

Nothing wrong with checking the ball IMO. I guess glider pilots tape a bit of yarn on the windscreen to keep it simple and in your view. You could try that.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Been flying for a year, 165 hours and still rely on that ball to tell me if I am coordinated.

I don't yet have a sense that I am slipping or skidding based on feel.
When I am putting around the pattern, I am looking at the turn coordinator and correcting after the fact.

Any way to help gain that sense of skidding/slipping so I am not correcting a problem but integrating the corrections into my flying?
Click to expand...
I don't think there really is. The idea that one can accurately sense slips and skids is just an extension of the fallacy around 'flying by the seat of your pants'.

Glider pilots are obsessed by coordinated flight because it's efficient and because the ships require lot's of control input to remain coordinated. They are always turning in lift, lift is usually turbulent, the wings are long, adverse yaw is great and there's a lot of 'inertia' around the roll and yaw axes.

But no one pretends they can do it by 'sensing it' other than by seeing it with those Mark 20 eyeballs. And while one can see a slip or skid by reference to the horizon, it can't be done accurately or easily. So the primary instrument used is the yaw string. A piece of yarn taped to the canopy or tied to a pitot tube, centered right in front of the pilots eyes. Just like you 'step on the ball' to get things coordinated, glider pilots either pull the string with the pedal or whack it with the stick.

Unfortunately, a yaw string won't work with a SE tractor but the ball will do.

I think the 'trick' to flying coordinated is to make the ball part of your scan and generally try to get a movie in you head of what a coordinated turn looks like relative to the horizon. But probably most important, just figuring out how much rudder a particular plane needs to enter a turn, maintain a turn, takeoff, climb out, etc. Coordinated pilots anticipate what's needed, apply it, and make the ball part of their scan.

But I'm not a CFI so there may be better approaches.
 
I wouldn't know because I hardly ever look at the ball. But I have had an instructor comment that he liked what I did with my feet. And when I can see it in a video it tends to be in the middle.

I would think that if you quit looking at it, you would lose your dependance on it.
 
Usually about the time I see objects on the horizon moving perpendicular across the windscreen in level flight I realize I'm uncoordinated.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Become a CFI you'll feel it instantly and won't be able to keep quiet about it either.:D
Click to expand...

Lol! Ain't that the truth. It wasn't until I flew Black Hawks as an instructor did I harp on keeping the ball centered. Students get lazy and try and let the computer keep it in trim but it doesn't work. Drives us nuts! "Trim...trim...right pedal...left pedal." :D
 
Now that I passed my checkride, I have no idea what uncoordinated flight means.


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I recall the feeling being more pronounced in an LSA or Citabria and more muted in a 172 or PA28. Practice dutch rolls with a brisk roll rate and it becomes more apparent.
 
I fly a 172 and I don't feel it either. I glance at the ball, and generally work on anticipating the rudder pedal inputs that I know I should need just prior to or during a maneuver.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Been flying for a year, 165 hours and still rely on that ball to tell me if I am coordinated.

I don't yet have a sense that I am slipping or skidding based on feel.
When I am putting around the pattern, I am looking at the turn coordinator and correcting after the fact.

Any way to help gain that sense of skidding/slipping so I am not correcting a problem but integrating the corrections into my flying?
Click to expand...

Let someone who has no idea how to fly take the controls and don't look at the ball. You're probably subconsciously aware. If you let someone who doesn't know what they're doing try to hold it level and coordinated. You'll notice.
 
I can tell if I'm slipping/skidding rolling into and out of turns by just watching to see if my nose swings to the high-side of the turn. I generally can't tell I'm mildly uncoordinated in level or established turn in a powered plane "by the seat of my pants". I think this has to do with the fact that I'm generally using fairly heavy rudder force which has the effect of pushing me deeper into the seat (and why the CFI sitting next to me can always feel it :lol:).

I can generally tell if I'm slipping or skidding in my glider because the rudder pedal forces are so light, it generally wants to fly straight, and I'm sitting in front of the center of lift.
 
MAKG1 said:
A comment I got from a CAP instructor not long ago might perhaps be useful.

He asked if I could feel more weight on one butt cheek than the other. The answer was yes, if he was flying. Rudder pressure overwhelmed it otherwise. The followup suggestion was to use shoulder blades instead, and I quickly realized that I didn't always sit straight in the seat.
Click to expand...


Being an inventor and having lots of difficulty early-on staying coordinated, I came up with the idea of a seat cushion with pressure sensors and vibrators. It would buzz the butt-cheek of the leg that needed more rudder.

Everyone found the idea quite amusing....
 
Old Geek said:
Being an inventor and having lots of difficulty early-on staying coordinated, I came up with the idea of a seat cushion with pressure sensors and vibrators. It would buzz the butt-cheek of the leg that needed more rudder.

Everyone found the idea quite amusing....
Click to expand...

We actually created a butt vibrator for an operator-assisted conference call bridge back in the day... used one of the dry-contact closures on the system itself, a bejillion feet of cable to get to the operator's chair, and a fire alarm horn bolted to the bottom of the raised floor tile under the chair.

It was a 911 dispatch office, and they didn't want the terminal dinging where it could be picked up by a microphone on the dispatcher's headset. The conference bridge was used for a cool purpose... via radio and phone links, it linked the flight nurse in an EMS chopper and the Docs and 911 dispatcher, and any other colleagues or people with information on the patient's care... (on-scene paramedics, whoever...).

It was a one-of-a-kind in an area of the country that had very few places to chopper the worst trauma victims to, back when we built it for them... a University medical center. Flight times were long, very long, compared to today. The conference call kept everyone apprised of the patient's status from on-scene, through the whole flight. Was pretty satisfying to have worked on the system a few times.

But we all loved the floor tile butt-buzzer.
 
If I realize that I'm using a lot of rudder, I check the ball and will find it near center. That is in a Cherokee. So, I believe that you can develop a "feel" for being coordinated whether it is the seat of your pants, the small of your back, your shoulder blades, or whatever. The mantra should not be "step on the ball". It should be "step on the side toward which your seat feels tilted, then check the ball".
 
Old Geek said:
Being an inventor and having lots of difficulty early-on staying coordinated, I came up with the idea of a seat cushion with pressure sensors and vibrators. It would buzz the butt-cheek of the leg that needed more rudder.

Everyone found the idea quite amusing....
Click to expand...

That's a great idea...like a stick shaker for coordination. It would keep the pilot's eyes outside instead of constantly looking at the ball, too. Well done!

If people don't like the seat cushion idea, you could put shakers in the pedals themselves that the pilot could feel through his/her feet.
 
Skid balls are prone to misindications, which is why glider folks use yaw strings. But a yaw string with an engine in front will not read realiably. Unless the skid ball is mounted precisely on the roll axis of the airplane (they never are), it'll never indicate properly while the airplane is in the process of rolling...which is the time when you must be using the right amount of rudder with the ailerons rolling in and out of a turn. They'll typically only indicate fairly acurately when the airplane is a steady state bank angle, level or otherwise.

I would make an effort to forget about the ball. You don't need it. Take someone along in the airplane as a safety pilot, and close your eyes while rolling the airplane back and forth. Closing your eyes will remove the visual distractions. You will feel yourself sliding around in the seat if you don't use the rudder properly. Use more rudder in the direction you feel yourself sliding. If you make a conscious effort to pay attention to this feeling as you fly, you'll develop good coordination, which will eventually become second nature. But as with any skill, you must make the effort and not be lazy.
 
I am still a student, but unlike many people, I am training in a Warrior as opposed to a 172. I find the Warrior slips/skids very little, and in fact requires very little rudder. If you do not touch the rudder under a standard bank the ball will stay within the hashmarks on the turn cordinator, so I work on keeping it more centered. I really can not feel the plane slipping under normal turns.
 
whifferdill said:
Skid balls are prone to misindications, which is why glider folks use yaw strings. But a yaw string with an engine in front will not read realiably. Unless the skid ball is mounted precisely on the roll axis of the airplane (they never are), it'll never indicate properly while the airplane is in the process of rolling...which is the time when you must be using the right amount of rudder with the ailerons rolling in and out of a turn. They'll typically only indicate fairly acurately when the airplane is a steady state bank angle, level or otherwise.

I would make an effort to forget about the ball. You don't need it. Take someone along in the airplane as a safety pilot, and close your eyes while rolling the airplane back and forth. Closing your eyes will remove the visual distractions. You will feel yourself sliding around in the seat if you don't use the rudder properly. Use more rudder in the direction you feel yourself sliding. If you make a conscious effort to pay attention to this feeling as you fly, you'll develop good coordination, which will eventually become second nature. But as with any skill, you must make the effort and not be lazy.
Click to expand...

You forget.....many of us fly planes where the pilot is also left of the center of roll. So the situation that you indicated with the inaccuracy with the inclinometer also exists in the pilots proprioception.
 
Get some time in a conventional gear - might even get some acro while you do.
It will not take long - more like right after the first landing - for your butt to become acutely aware of sideways movement.
 
Jaybird180 said:
You forget.....many of us fly planes where the pilot is also left of the center of roll.
Click to expand...

I hate those types of airplanes. :)

Jaybird180 said:
So the situation that you indicated with the inaccuracy with the inclinometer also exists in the pilots proprioception.
Click to expand...

Actually, the situation exists to a degree in any airplane where the pilot is not sitting perfectly on the roll axis of the airplane. It's not just side-by-side airplanes. Even airplanes with centerline seating usually have the pilot sitting slightly above or below the roll axis...especially high wing airplanes. Low wing centerline airplanes with a little dihedral are probably the closest the pilot will get to the roll axis, aside from certain aerobatic airplanes.
 
drotto said:
I am still a student, but unlike many people, I am training in a Warrior as opposed to a 172. I find the Warrior slips/skids very little, and in fact requires very little rudder. If you do not touch the rudder under a standard bank the ball will stay within the hashmarks on the turn cordinator, so I work on keeping it more centered. I really can not feel the plane slipping under normal turns.
Click to expand...

172s and PA28s aren't very different in this regard. At least with rudder trim and/or decent rigging.

Now, go in that PA28, and try a 45 deg right bank while climbing at Vy, and see if it still works like you say.
 
MAKG1 said:
172s and PA28s aren't very different in this regard. At least with rudder trim and/or decent rigging.

Now, go in that PA28, and try a 45 deg right bank while climbing at Vy, and see if it still works like you say.
Click to expand...


Not saying I do not use rudder, but I have really only "needed" it while performing maneuvers, slow flight, or during approaches, not in standard turns. I have heard that under standard conditions the 172 is much more rudder dependant.
 
Standard rate turns are quite slow, and neither a PA28 nor a 172 will require much if any rudder.

It's different at 30 deg or higher bank, especially in a climb to the right or descent to the left.

Most of us don't do standard rate turns except in instrument conditions (or under the hood), or maybe with a queasy passenger. 30 seconds for a 90 deg turn is a long time.
 
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