CFI has student pilot doing off-the-cuff acro

whifferdill said:
alfadog, I share your confusion. What we see here is not a chandelle or a spin entry or even a spiral. I don't understand the point of it. The instructor simply gets the student close to a stall, has him neutralize the stick and apply left rudder to "pirouette" the airplane. Since the stick is neutral, that airplane isn't going to spin. Pretty odd demonstration to me. Other than it being pointless and a little odd IMO, I don't have any judgments about it, not knowing how the rest of the flight and the post flight debrief on the ground was conducted.

EDIT: When I say "pointless", I say that since it seems the purpose was not explained. All the instructor seems to be doing is showing the student how to "pirouette" the airplane, with no deeper lesson about aerodynamics. That I don't get. But again, maybe there's a context we're missing.

It's actually a good demonstration of the fact that it's hard to get in trouble in an airplane if the stick is neutral. The ball being off center is not the kiss of death as some seem to teach and believe. Neutral stick gives you a low AoA. High AoA plus yaw causes problems. Low AoA plus yaw does not.
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I think we are on the same page. I am certainly not "pillorying" the CFI as someone else mentioned. I am quite complimentary of him otherwise. IMO, this is closest to a "half-assed hammerhead". It is not a hammerhead nor is it anything close to a box canyon turn. It is no more than screwing around with the airplane, IMO. Nothing wrong with that except if were me in the left seat as a student pilot, I would be eager to try it on my own. And the only way this differs from a spin entry is that he neutralized the stick. Had he continued holding back pressure, you would have classic spin entry technique. You also have half of a PARE spin recovery. So I guess that, without more context, this appears half-done and dangerous. Dangerous if it were me as a student (back when) because the CFI is not clear on not holding back pressure, not clear that this is close to a spin entry, etc.
 
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If the point was to show how to make the plane turn on a small radius, it can be done while in coordinated flight. For sure, in slow flight.

An extreme version is the escape maneuver that's taught in mountain flying lessons, for getting out of a box canyon. First, slow down 300 rpm and pitch up to get slow. Second, simultaneously do three things: slam on full throttle, drop full flaps, 60-degree coordinated bank. All while pulling hard on the yoke to stay level and listening to the stall horn. This maneuver gives you a 180 degree turn with a turning diameter as small as 100 feet, in a Cessna 172. Truly a pirouette.
 
Sounds like a good instructor to me. He moves along quick, which seems fine as long as the student isn't afraid to ask questions.
 
From my perspective (a person who has been teaching for 23 years), the instructor seems quite knowledgeable, and knows how to quickly adapt to the situation. We don't know the history--the preflight briefings, the groundschool lessons, etc.--so we don't know what the CFI has covered and is now just briefly referencing, and what he might be leaving out.

I strongly urge people viewing this thread to bear that in mind while watching this lesson.
 
flyingmoose said:
Why not? Because its not required?
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Kudos to that CFI. We need more like him and his students will be better, more qualified and safer pilots. As for it not being required... does the PTS represent ultimate goals or the minimum standards? That decision is up to you I guess.
 
Dead Stick said:
Kudos to that CFI. We need more like him and his students will be better, more qualified and safer pilots. As for it not being required... does the PTS represent ultimate goals or the minimum standards? That decision is up to you I guess.
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Nobody's saying he's not a good CFI or he should be a PTS robot. But I'm familiar and comfortable with all types of stalls, spins, upsets, aerobatics, etc, and this rudder pirouette thing he demonstrated is just a strange bit of maneuvering. It was an extremely unimpressive, and useless maneuver. Seems almost like something he personally invented. Not sure what it's supposed to demonstrate...never seen it done before - not that I'm against demonstrating new things. But maybe he has some pearls of widsom about it that he goes into later. Who knows.
 
RoscoeT said:
Nobody's saying he's not a good CFI or he should be a PTS robot. But I'm familiar and comfortable with all types of stalls, spins, upsets, aerobatics, etc, and this rudder pirouette thing he demonstrated is just a strange bit of maneuvering. It was an extremely unimpressive, and useless maneuver. Seems almost like something he personally invented. Not sure what it's supposed to demonstrate...never seen it done before - not that I'm against demonstrating new things. But maybe he has some pearls of wisdom about it that he goes into later. Who knows.
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It's not the way I introduce spin training to pre-solo students, but then I'm not about to judge a CFI on a 2 or 3 minute snipit out of 20 something hours that is spent with a particular student. As for what he's demonstrating, I can't answer that without knowing what brought it on. All I know is that every airplane has an approved operating envelope and a competent pilot needs to be versed in every area of the envelope of the aircraft he's flying. If that includes spins so be it.
 
Dead Stick said:
It's not the way I introduce spin training to pre-solo students, but then I'm not about to judge a CFI on a 2 or 3 minute snipit out of 20 something hours that is spent with a particular student. As for what he's demonstrating, I can't answer that without knowing what brought it on. All I know is that every airplane has an approved operating envelope and a competent pilot needs to be versed in every area of the envelope of the aircraft he's flying. If that includes spins so be it.
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A spin, or incipient spin, or spin training, or even a mention of "spin" did NOT occur here. The airplane wasn't even stalled. I'm all for spin training. That's not what was happening here though. The fact that nobody among a group of experienced pilots and CFIs can figure out what in the heck the point of the demonstration was, tells you something. But we are discussing a single unusual demonstration in an otherwise typical flight. I don't think it's worth trying to figure out or analyze too much. It's a head scratcher, but I don't have any particular criticism for the instructor.
 
Unusual attitude recovery? Spacial disorientation sensing? Control harmony/disharmony? Elevator/rudder pressure gradient change with airspeed? Suceptability to airsickness in new pilot?(pitch change, yaw change, head moving around) Rudder effectiveness with change in speed?

Obviously I'm not a CFI, I don't know if there was any value related to the PTS standards, but there wasn't any value to me doing loops and rolls during training to the PTS standards, yet we did them, and I'm a better pilot for it.
 
Oddly he took that clip and made it a separate video with the title, "Demonstration of a wing stall":

:confused:

 
dmspilot said:
Oddly he took that clip and made it a separate video with the title, "Demonstration of a wing stall":

:confused:
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Interesting. Still don't know what that is but interesting. Wing stall is just a stall, AFAIK, not a turning maneuver.
 
And I still never saw a stall. That stall horn seem to be set very high. And just because the stall horn goes off, doesn't mean you're in a stall. It goes off as soon as they pitch up from level flight at 80KT - with not a very hard pull. It blares all the way from 80KT to 40KT and back to 80KT. If this was a stall, the airspeed would not increase as the nose pitched back down. The ASI moved very rapidly from 40KT back to 80KT. That's not a stall. Still can't figure the rudder usage. There was never any reason to recover with right rudder the entire time...especially once the airplane pitched back down to 80KT. Since the airplane was not stalled, the ailerons would have worked just fine. Bizarre that he would isolate this particular "maneuver" in its own video.
 
You can either enter a spin by stalling during an uncoordinated turn or by applying rudder at the moment of stall(as in this case). They had a stable fwd CG, used gentle inputs, no back pressure on the stick and the increase in airspeed during the slight nose low descent broke the stall and also helped straighten them out along with applying a little right rudder. The important thing to remember in a spin is that the wings are stalled and the ailerons are useless, which is why he is demonstrating rudder use only. If they had full power applied, ball was not kept centered or used aggressive control inputs, it would have been much more exciting. Spin recovery is fairly simple as long as you stay calm and do everything in the correct order.

See this video of a DA-20 where the ball was probably not centered and more aggressive control inputs used(though not in view just my assumption)...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6BswDLEzY8M

Here is another showing stall horn blaring from 80 to 40 kts. It appears he may have been using ailerons some and not keeping the ball as centered as our CFI...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn6wGkSTxg4
 
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RoscoeT said:
And I still never saw a stall. That stall horn seem to be set very high. And just because the stall horn goes off, doesn't mean you're in a stall. It goes off as soon as they pitch up from level flight at 80KT - with not a very hard pull. It blares all the way from 80KT to 40KT and back to 80KT. If this was a stall, the airspeed would not increase as the nose pitched back down. The ASI moved very rapidly from 40KT back to 80KT. That's not a stall. Still can't figure the rudder usage. There was never any reason to recover with right rudder the entire time...especially once the airplane pitched back down to 80KT. Since the airplane was not stalled, the ailerons would have worked just fine. Bizarre that he would isolate this particular "maneuver" in its own video.
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AOA is what matters, not IAS.

Also our pitot tubes have errors above 5 degrees pitch or yaw angle. Most wings stall at 15-17 degrees. This gives you the quick IAS changes when it is more AOA induced.

That wing was stalled for sure. Note his vertical speed. Stall does not mean no lift, just not enough to support the aircraft weight.
 
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RV10flyer said:
AOA is what matters, not IAS.

Also our pitot tubes have errors above 5 degrees pitch or yaw angle. Most wings stall at 15-17 degrees. This gives you the quick IAS changes when it is more AOA induced.

That wing was stalled for sure. Note his vertical speed. Stall does not mean no lift, just not enough to support the aircraft weight.
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ASI moving steadily from 40KT to 80KT while stalled? I don't think so. That's called a spiral, which is different from a spin. The spin stays stalled, and ASI stays locked in low. Spiral has increasing ASI because it's not stalled. Just because the stall horn was blaring doesn't mean it was stalled. I would like to see video of you holding the airplane in a stall while the ASI continues to accelerate from 40KT past 80KT.

And yes I know AoA is not dependent on ASI, but in an accelerated stall, ASI will decrease, not speed up like this. You don't enter a stall, and maintain an accelerated stall as ASI increases. You enter an accererated stall from higher speed unstalled flight and when you stall, ASI drops. What was shown in the video is quasi-spiral, where AoA is higher than cruise flight, but not stalled...hence the steadily increasing airspeed. Like I said, I think that stall warning indicator could be backed off. And regarding vertical speed, it's pretty high in an an unstalled spiral.
 
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Yup, one weird stall horn. Came on at just under 70 kt. He is near a stall about 40 kt, hits full left rudder, and goes into an incipient spin. With neutral elevator, the airplane is flying itself out of the incipient spin by the time he has turned 90 deg and is fully flying by 180 deg. No need to recover with rudder and that is actually bad technique. All IMO, of course.

 
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It appears that the stall horn comes on around 75 kts in several other videos which does seem too high. I set my stall vane/buzzer to come on about 6 kts above a normal stall. For me with full flaps at gross, stall speed is 54 kias. My buzzer comes on around 70 kias in the flare. I have enjoyed the education and the video. Now, I just need to go out solo at 5000' and try that pirouette/stall/half spin thingy.
 
RV10flyer said:
AOA is what matters, not IAS.

Also our pitot tubes have errors above 5 degrees pitch or yaw angle. Most wings stall at 15-17 degrees. This gives you the quick IAS changes when it is more AOA induced.

That wing was stalled for sure. Note his vertical speed. Stall does not mean no lift, just not enough to support the aircraft weight.
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Keep in mind that the DA-20 has the most obnoixously sensitive stall warning indicator I've ever seen. They weren't stalling.
 
jesse said:
Keep in mind that the DA-20 has the most obnoixously sensitive stall warning indicator I've ever seen. They weren't stalling.
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Indeed, the other day I listened to it all the way down final, yesterday during the 100hr I found that the line was full of water (guess the plug got left out) and yet it still sounded 10-15kts above stall
 
alfadog said:
Yup, one weird stall horn. Came on at just under 70 kt. He is near a stall about 40 kt, hits full left rudder, and goes into an incipient spin. With neutral elevator, the airplane is flying itself out of the incipient spin by the time he has turned 90 deg and is fully flying by 180 deg. No need to recover with rudder and that is actually bad technique. All IMO, of course.
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+1 about zero need to recover with the rudder here. But I would also say that this wasn't even an incipient spin. The stick wasn't held back far enough to stall the airplane. No stall, no spin. What we see here is simple yaw/roll coupling. In most airplanes if you depress the rudder in normal flight, you will roll a bit. There was never a "break" as would occur during a spin entry. Once again, just a weird maneuver.
 
That was not "off the cuff" and the CFI wasn't showing off. He's a very experienced examiner and appeared to be giving competent instruction to a student who was capable of responding well. Nothing dangerous about what you saw. Furthermore, spins are in no way considered "acro", but a normal, approved manuever if your aircraft is certificated and loaded so as to conform to the placarded category for spins (normally utility).

This is why parachutes are not required to go out and practice spins. Asks any CFI candidate who did their spin training for their endosrement in a C-172. I think if we did more of this training for student pilots we'd have a whole lot less stall/spin accidents.

Mike-
 
alfadog said:
Yup, one weird stall horn. Came on at just under 70 kt. He is near a stall about 40 kt, hits full left rudder, and goes into an incipient spin. With neutral elevator, the airplane is flying itself out of the incipient spin by the time he has turned 90 deg and is fully flying by 180 deg. No need to recover with rudder and that is actually bad technique. All IMO, of course.

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The DG knob guard is upside down:wink2:
 
stearmann4 said:
This is why parachutes are not required to go out and practice spins.
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They ARE required if you are not solo and not receiving spin training from a CFI to fulfill the requirements of a rating. Spins definitely exceed the 30 degree pitch and 60 degree bank limits associated with chute requirements. The regs say nothing about chutes being required for aerobatics. If you and your buddy just go out and do fun spinning, then technically chutes are required.

stearmann4 said:
Asks any CFI candidate who did their spin training for their endosrement in a C-172.
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This type of spin training is exempt from the chute requirement.

stearmann4 said:
I think if we did more of this training for student pilots we'd have a whole lot less stall/spin accidents.
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Big +1 there.
 
RoscoeT said:
This type of spin training is exempt from the chute requirement.
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As per all the the guidance that I've received on the topic of spin training, any spin training provided by a CFI to any pilot regardless if they are a CFI student or not, is exempt from the parachute requirement.
 
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