Changes Since Your Initial Training (Get Off My Lawn edition)

wanttaja

wanttaja

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Ron Wanttaja
Discussions on another thread highlighted to me some of the changes in flight training since I learned to fly in the early '70s.

1. Was taught to fly all patterns so I could make the runway if the engine quits. No longer a factor, apparently.

2. Power back to 2,000 when on downwind abeam the numbers, 1500 on base, idle on final. Nowadays they apparently have you play with the power through final.

3. I was taught to turn crosswind at 500'. CFIs on my BFRs seem to want me to climb to 800' or even TPA before turning.

4. At uncontrolled fields, was taught to make radio calls on downwind and final. Now, they apparently want you to announce position on crosswind and base as well.

Any other old f***s want to chime in?

Ron Wanttaja
 
Had to figure the precession on the wet compass when making turns ,had to do stall/ spins and actual soft field landings on grass.
 
wanttaja said:
3. I was taught to turn crosswind at 500'. CFIs on my BFRs seem to want me to climb to 800' or even TPA before turning.
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AIM 4-3-2(c)(6) and 4-3-3(fig 4-3-2, fig 4-3-3) says "If remaining in the traffic pattern, commence turn to crosswind leg beyond the departure end of the runway within 300 feet of pattern altitude."
 
1. Definitely or the former WWII instructor would show me why with an unannounced power cut. Only took once.
2. Carb heat on about mid field, power to idle abeam the numbers, land on the numbers and we were allowed one "clearing the engine" throttle up, but it had better be brief . . . very brief. I still do it this way now.
3. Same
4. You had a radio?
 
Even though I qualify as an old f***, I did my training a little over ten years ago. I too was taught to fly patterns that would allow landing on the runway if the engine quit. Power to idle abeam the numbers, and if I need power before I flare I've misjudged something.

I do turn crosswind at 600-700 AGL usually, depending on the day.

Radio calls... there's plenty of training and other traffic at our non-towered field, so I usually call all four turns.
 
In 1976, we had TCAs and Control Zones, not class B and class D. Runway at the middle of a C-150 wing strut on downwind, engine to idle abeam the numbers. Getting your logbook signed on cross countries. Getting an in person weather brief at a FSS. Our ground instructor taught us about A-N radio ranges as a curiosity, but there were still a few active in remote areas.
 
wanttaja said:
I was taught to turn crosswind at 500'. CFIs on my BFRs seem to want me to climb to 800' or even TPA before turning.
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I was taught to turn crosswind at 300ft below TPA.
wanttaja said:
At uncontrolled fields, was taught to make radio calls on downwind and final. Now, they apparently want you to announce position on crosswind and base as well.
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Wow. That's a new one. What's the logic for not announcing each leg?
 
I still call it a BFR. This is apparently a hill my brain is willing to die on, as I cannot retrain it to acknowledge anything else.

"Notice to air missions" is forever ridiculous, and I don't mind most newspeak and try to adapt. But just stop it with that one.
 
At uncontrolled fields, overfly midfield 500’ above TPA and check windsock to determine which runway to use, then descend and enter appropriate downwind on a 45.
 
We called those fields "uncontrolled" back then, but evidently the FAA didn't like the inference, so now they just don't have a tower.

And my pilot's license is now just a certificate.

And when were biennial flight reviews introduced? I know it wasn't biannually . . .

When I hear everyone announcing every leg in the pattern I want to turn my radio off - if I have one.
 
I was taught to report downwind and final as well. But since these days you're as likely as not to find yourself, on crosswind, spinner to spinner with someone who just reported "...on the 45...", it seems prudent to call each leg.

I was also taught to fly the pattern as you were Ron. But, Civil Air Patrol and more than one flight school in my area are teaching B-52 style patterns with 3 mile "stabilized" finals. So, my traffic pattern is whatever I can make it in order to stay out of their way and not run out of gas. Sometimes that's a continuous turn from downwind to final in a full slip with the power at idle, and sometime thats a 90kt final and float to the last turn off. I never know exactly till I'm there.
 
wilkersk said:
I was also taught to fly the pattern as you were Ron. But, Civil Air Patrol and more than one flight school in my area are teaching B-52 style patterns with 3 mile "stabilized" finals. So, my traffic pattern is whatever I can make it in order to stay out of their way and not run out of gas.
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The 6 minute circuit has gone the way of $1.99 avgas...
 
schmookeeg said:
newspeak
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Newspeak: a purposefully ambiguous and confusing language with restricted grammar and limited vocabulary used in Oceania, according or Orwell, “to diminish the range of thought.” For example, in newspeak, the term plusgood had replaced words better and great.
 
wanttaja said:
Discussions on another thread highlighted to me some of the changes in flight training since I learned to fly in the early '70s.

1. Was taught to fly all patterns so I could make the runway if the engine quits. No longer a factor, apparently.

2. Power back to 2,000 when on downwind abeam the numbers, 1500 on base, idle on final. Nowadays they apparently have you play with the power through final.

3. I was taught to turn crosswind at 500'. CFIs on my BFRs seem to want me to climb to 800' or even TPA before turning.

4. At uncontrolled fields, was taught to make radio calls on downwind and final. Now, they apparently want you to announce position on crosswind and base as well.

Any other old f***s want to chime in?

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...

I learned in the late 90's, so that may still qualify as old. Except for emergency practice, power was reduced to 1500 abeam the numbers, and then left alone unless there was a need to change it. The argument was that an engine failure at near-idle setting was not a very likely event. In 25 years of flying, I have witnessed only one engine failure during the landing pattern, and that was because the pilot ran out of fuel on the downwind, not because the engine failed. On the other hand, I have witnessed several accidents with catastropic outcomes due to an engine failure after takeoff.
 
wanttaja said:
Discussions on another thread highlighted to me some of the changes in flight training since I learned to fly in the early '70s.

1. Was taught to fly all patterns so I could make the runway if the engine quits. No longer a factor, apparently.

2. Power back to 2,000 when on downwind abeam the numbers, 1500 on base, idle on final. Nowadays they apparently have you play with the power through final.

3. I was taught to turn crosswind at 500'. CFIs on my BFRs seem to want me to climb to 800' or even TPA before turning.

4. At uncontrolled fields, was taught to make radio calls on downwind and final. Now, they apparently want you to announce position on crosswind and base as well.

Any other old f***s want to chime in?

Ron Wanttaja
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1. There are some CFI that still teach this.
2. I wasn’t taught that way. No one teaches that way today.
3. Crosswind 500 then, within 300 ft of pattern altitude today.
4. Yes, radio calls at the 4 corners, then and now.
 
Crosswind turn has been TPA minus 300 feet going back to 1980, and possibly further, but I don't have any references older than that. The standard TPA used to be 800 AGL, leading to some people incorrectly assuming the turn was supposed to be 500 AGL.
 
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— Red, blue and green avgas.
— VHF radios wih only a dozen or so transmitting crystals, so you talked on one frequency to tower or FSS, and listened on another. If you were lucky enough to have a “Simplex” frequency and the appropriate crystal, the “whistle-stop” feature helped you tune the analog receiver.
— Nothing equivalent to “Class B” or “Class C” airspace. “Termnal Control Areas” first appeared in 1971.
— Sectional charts printed on one side, with “A/FD” type data on the back.
— Military Climb Corridors.
— “For radar identification turn [left/right] to heading xxx°.”
— Vacuum-tube avionics that took a while to warm up when you switched them on.
— P-25 (President Nixon’s California home): 1 statute mile radius, up to 4,000’ AGL.
— Trainers and rentals (and CFIs and examiners, for that matter) that reeked of cigarette smoke.
— ADIZ and DVFR flight plans - and not just at the borders.
 
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wanttaja said:
Discussions on another thread highlighted to me some of the changes in flight training since I learned to fly in the early '70s.

1. Was taught to fly all patterns so I could make the runway if the engine quits. No longer a factor, apparently.

2. Power back to 2,000 when on downwind abeam the numbers, 1500 on base, idle on final. Nowadays they apparently have you play with the power through final.

3. I was taught to turn crosswind at 500'. CFIs on my BFRs seem to want me to climb to 800' or even TPA before turning.

4. At uncontrolled fields, was taught to make radio calls on downwind and final. Now, they apparently want you to announce position on crosswind and base as well.

Any other old f***s want to chime in?

Ron Wanttaja
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Spins
 
other than the advent of GPS and gas-to-glass, the biggest ones in my flying (I started late - about 1990) have been the internationalization of US aviation. Alphabet airspace. SA to METAR. Things like that.
 
Is steep spirals over a point still taught.??

My instructor told me I enjoyed that too much...
 
Lon Stratton said:
Not sure....it just doesn't sound like aviation I guess.
"Taxi into position and Hold"...said it for 40 some years and now I have to Line Up? and then Wait?
Remember, this is the "Get Off my Lawn edition"
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As a controller, LUAW was tough to get used to. Then I realized that it was easier to say than “taxi into position and hold.”
 
No PIREPs means no known ice. Send it.
 
Through solo and I'm pretty much sure that through to my PPL checkride, all my patterns were throttle idle abeam the numbers...engine out practice + it trained me to keep patterns close and tight...and I thended to come in high too, which in GA trainers anyway I don't think is a bad thing.

And radio calls at all 4 turns.....but in a busy pattern I can see some logic in the idea of eliminating some of the calls just to free up the freq a bit...

eman1200 said:
Back in my day we had to fly the magenta line strictly by hand. Nowadays you just hit the nav button.
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I don't believe I ever owned a magenta highlighter....so my lines were almost always yellow. Hand drawn too ;)
 
Timbeck2 said:
As a controller, LUAW was tough to get used to. Then I realized that it was easier to say than “taxi into position and hold.”
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I see your point....4 syllables instead of 9. Hmmmm. I'm now re-thinking my position.
 
Taxi clearance… you were told to taxi to runway 27. You could go anyway you want, including crossing runways that were in your path.
 
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