Deadly turn to final

docmirror said:
Sorry to be blunt, but this makes no sense. I trim the plane for a fixed cruise speed and cruise. When I'm downwind, I set the trim appropriately, but as soon as I get abeam the numbers, I'm constantly changing pitch, roll, yaw, throttle to correspond to conditions and position. You want I should fly by trim?

Pass.
Click to expand...

No, you don't fly with trim. You always trim the airplane for its condition.
Page 13.
http://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2014/media/MarApr2014.pdf
 
Blackhawk said:
No, you don't fly with trim. You always trim the airplane for its condition.
Page 13.
http://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2014/media/MarApr2014.pdf
Click to expand...

Yabut, your whole diatribe I quoted talks about the nose not moving when I let go of the yoke, and about the stress in the pattern, and how you let go at 200' while turning on final. That's why I quoted you, and said I will pass.

And in reply you give me....FAA safety briefing?

jeeeeeezzzzz :confused:

<edit: OBTW, I already said I trim on downwind, which would be for the 'condition' of landing configuration.>
 
docmirror said:
Yabut, your whole diatribe I quoted talks about the nose not moving when I let go of the yoke, and about the stress in the pattern, and how you let go at 200' while turning on final. That's why I quoted you, and said I will pass.

And in reply you give me....FAA safety briefing?

jeeeeeezzzzz :confused:

<edit: OBTW, I already said I trim on downwind, which would be for the 'condition' of landing configuration.>
Click to expand...

What do you mean you won't let go of the yoke at 200' on final?? The airplane nose will stay right where it is. I've done this in everything from a Cessna 140, to an SU-29 to a jet. I lived to tell the tale. It's not that you let the airplane fly itself into the ground, you just momentarily let go of the yoke and make sure the nose of the airplane stays where it is.
 
Whatev. I'm out, do it your way.
 
docmirror said:
Whatev. I'm out, do it your way.
Click to expand...

And that right there is why we continue to have pilots doing stall/spins on final.
They are deathly afraid of letting go of a yoke and anyone who suggests otherwise is crazy.
Heck, if you pull the power to idle in most SEL, trim all the way nose up, let go of the yoke and keep the ball centered you will probably crash... but in a level attitude. So if the airplane will keep a level attitude by itself, why are planes spinning in the pattern? The lose nut on the stick. The pilot making incorrect inputs. One of the keys to reducing these accidents is getting pilots to get use to letting go of the yoke every now and then during the approach and ensuring the airplane is trimmed correctly and they are not over riding the trim. I'm not saying fly the pattern with your hands on your lap, but momentarily let go and see what the airplane does. This is especially important when one is stressed out and tends to grip the controls harder. I even have to remind myself when transitioning to new airplanes or other stressful conditions- let go, relax.
 
Sorry, can't read this right now, I'm furiously adjusting trim.

wait, I changed pitch, gotta change the trim.

hold on, hold on, I am descending too fast, gotta pull back and then adjust trim

oops, I increased my turn rate a little, gotta adjust trim

thats it! perfectly trimmed! woohoo - now where is the runw...........
 
If you're not using the trim between downwind and touchdown, you're doing it wrong.
 
I've found that some airplanes I don't have to screw with the trim too much in the pattern(C152, 172N)... I did a checkout in a 172S couple weeks ago and the elevator pressures are significantly heavier than the N model. I found myself using the trim a lot more with that airplane, even in the pattern.
 
I trim on final. I trim anytime I change the power setting.

And I usually do a quick "no hands" after trimming just to make sure the plane is holding the attitude.

But that is about 5 seconds once I am a qtr mile out, I am making adjustments as needed on the yoke.
 
Fly a front-CG Saratoga without trim to touchdown. This method will atleast grow a substantial bicep on your left arm.
 
docmirror said:
Sorry, can't read this right now, I'm furiously adjusting trim.

wait, I changed pitch, gotta change the trim.

hold on, hold on, I am descending too fast, gotta pull back and then adjust trim

oops, I increased my turn rate a little, gotta adjust trim

thats it! perfectly trimmed! woohoo - now where is the runw...........
Click to expand...

I see part of your problem. Descending too fast and you pull back??? :yikes:
 
Blackhawk said:
I see part of your problem. Descending too fast and you pull back??? :yikes:
Click to expand...

It's an example taken from the gen pilot pop. Don't get too worked up.

I have far more problems than just this. If you are the 'solution' I've already said I'll pass.
 
Like I said, if your airplane is properly trimmed for final approach speed just about the only way the airplane can stall is by the pilot over riding the trim. If a pilot finds it that difficult to change trim for configurations while flying an approach... well, they really have some issues.
 
I already said I have problems, and now I'll admit to having 'issues' too. This is well after my 'whatev'.

BTW, when you fly most any acro plane(if ever) and try your trim back all the way plan, you'll find yourself in a nice spin in a few seconds. Of course, if you're flying a spam can 172 maybe it works, I don't know.

OK, you win, I'm out. Buh-bye, it's been real, and fun but not real fun, have your people call my people we'll do lunch, luv ya, mean it, ta.
 
dmspilot said:
If you're not using the trim between downwind and touchdown, you're doing it wrong.
Click to expand...

You're working too hard - set trim on downwind while descending for the base turn and it shouldn't be necessary to touch the trim again on either a 172 or a taper wing Cherokee (of course that's on a good day).
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I trim on final. I trim anytime I change the power setting.
Click to expand...

Or the flaps. Don't forget the flaps. And gear. And prop if you screw that up and firewall it while you still have enough throttle to race the engine. And even cowl flaps (it makes about a 5 knot difference in a 182 at full rental power).
 
docmirror said:
I already said I have problems, and now I'll admit to having 'issues' too. This is well after my 'whatev'.

BTW, when you fly most any acro plane(if ever) and try your trim back all the way plan, you'll find yourself in a nice spin in a few seconds. Of course, if you're flying a spam can 172 maybe it works, I don't know.

OK, you win, I'm out. Buh-bye, it's been real, and fun but not real fun, have your people call my people we'll do lunch, luv ya, mean it, ta.
Click to expand...

Yes I have flown acro airplanes, from the Great Lakes to the SU-29. If you doubt me there are some on this board who can set you straight. Don't know if Jean will chime in or not.
Like I wrote, the trim back works well with most SEL airplanes. Don't remember doing it in the SU-29, but worked well in the Citabria, Super D and Pitts that I flew. But even if it does not work you will not spin unless you are lazy on the rudders, and that has nothing to do (directly), with pitch trim so I'm not sure how trimming up all the way will lead to a spin. Maybe you need to review what pitch trim does and the aerodynamics of a spin.

But if trimming an airplane is that difficult for you feel free to set up a few lessons with me and we can work on it. It normally takes longer for the experienced pilots such as yourself as you seem to have some bad habits we will need to break.
 
C172 full nose up trims to almost exactly best glide speed. You cannot stall it with trim alone unless you really try.
 
asechrest said:
How close do you think this was to an accelerated stall? Fast forward to the first take off.

Click to expand...

Too close. He obviously doesn't understand accelerated stalls, or he wouldn't be doing that.

Dan
 
Ron Levy said:
The fact that a maneuver is "fun" is not an excuse for taking an excessive risk which is otherwise pointless.

If it's "instructive," then do it with an instructor at an altitude where the risk is moderated by having sufficient altitude to recover if you screw it up.

They also have aircraft with very high thrust:weight ratios, and skills which have been specifically evaluated on that maneuver. And they don't have passengers whose lives are also at risk.

Have you ever flown a carrier landing? I've got 116 of them in my Navy Flight Log. Do you know why we do it that way? There is a reason, and it has nothing to do with base-final turn stalls. There are also reasons the USAF does it that way, but they are different reasons (yes, I flew jets in the USAF, too).
Click to expand...

USAF 1969-1973, 2 tours SEA, F-4D&E, mostly. Other iron as required or as the opportunity presented itself. I understand very well why it's done, and I maintain that it's the safest way to fly an approach in anything.

1973-1976 airshow pilot.
I've flown that takeoff maneuver in everything from an Aeronca C-3 to a B-727 and pretty much everything in between, and the wings never came off and they never stalled.
 
Shepherd said:
USAF 1969-1973, 2 tours SEA, F-4D&E, mostly. Other iron as required or as the opportunity presented itself. I understand very well why it's done, and I maintain that it's the safest way to fly an approach in anything.
Click to expand...
The FAA has good reasons why they want light plane pilots flying wider patterns than that. Of course, if those folks were flying airplanes with approach speeds in the 140-knot range, like the F-4 (I did one tour in RF-4C's), that might change.

1973-1976 airshow pilot.
I've flown that takeoff maneuver in everything from an Aeronca C-3 to a B-727 and pretty much everything in between, and the wings never came off and they never stalled.
Click to expand...
Not exactly the qualifications of the average pilot, and I'll bet you never did that with passengers in one of those airshows.
 
Shepherd said:
Because it's fun? Because it's instructive?
You can do ANY maneuver in ANY aircraft and die doing it, because you were too excessive or to timid. I would opine that more deaths are caused by not knowing what the limits of the aircraft are and accidentally pushing through the envelope.
Air show pilots take off like that all the time, and very few of them end up in the bottom of a smoking hole. Why? Because they understand, not just intellectually, but physically and instinctively what works and what doesn't works with their aircraft.

This discussion started with the "deadly turn to final". Just my humble opinion, but the reason it happens so often is that we have stopped teaching people to fly airplanes in order to teach them to fly tests.
All those nice square corners you were taught to fly in the pattern?
Well you were taught wrong.
Have you ever seen videos of carrier landings? That's the most obvious place to see it in action. From downwind to base to final it's a continuous curve. The Navy does it, the Air Force does it, the Marines do it, the Coast Guard does it. So do the airlines. There is a really good reason for doing it. It makes it easy to correct your mistakes without sacrificing anything. It's harder to over-shoot your final turn to the runway, and it takes the guess work out and decision making easier if you do. You go around. You don't try to fix an over-shoot, you just go around.

Now, who wants to start a thread on doing "S" turns on final? Back before flaps, we used to do them all the time.
Click to expand...

Nice post. :thumbsup:
 
Ron Levy said:
Pure coincidence; there is no certification or aerodynamic reason for that to be true.
Click to expand...

I don't think I claimed otherwise.

But, is there a GA plane that stalls with full nose up trim? As in, power idle, full nose up, hands off yoke.
 
Ron Levy said:
Have you ever flown a carrier landing? I've got 116 of them in my Navy Flight Log. Do you know why we do it that way? There is a reason, and it has nothing to do with base-final turn stalls. There are also reasons the USAF does it that way, but they are different reasons (yes, I flew jets in the USAF, too).
Click to expand...

Seriously Ron, the pilot in the jet with you flew these. Trying to take credit for what someone else performed is a bit disingenuous don't you think?
 
mtuomi said:
I don't think I claimed otherwise.

But, is there a GA plane that stalls with full nose up trim? As in, power idle, full nose up, hands off yoke.
Click to expand...

From the FAA publication referenced earlier, an aircraft that is in CG that will stall with full nose up trim is a "rare exception"

That was a good article, reiterating that proper trim use and flying with a light touch is good technique and someone who does this is less likely to crash in a base to final stall/spin. It goes as far as saying that someone who is used to flying with significant control pressures is more at risk for an unintentional stall.

I've had two instructors that would periodically ask me to let go of the yoke on base leg and final. If it was apparent that I was out of trim (nose dropped noticeably when I let go) I was reprimanded. Its not necessary to trim fanatically, but you should be trimming with every configuration change so that you need nothing more than light pressure on the yoke to maintain your target airspeed.

Setting the trim once you make a power reduction on downwind is probably fine for most GA planes. The point is just to make sure you are at least trimmed close to the speed you want to fly, and make small adjustments with the stick. I admit to not doing this enough with something like a cub where getting to the trim is a real *****.

IMO constant turns from downwind to final vs. squared patterns is more of a personal preference thing, and not a safety issue. As an aside I find its easier to do a power off landing with a constant turn. If I feel short, increase the bank. If I feel I might land long, decrease bank.
 
Last edited:
docmirror said:
Sorry, can't read this right now, I'm furiously adjusting trim.

wait, I changed pitch, gotta change the trim.

hold on, hold on, I am descending too fast, gotta pull back and then adjust trim

oops, I increased my turn rate a little, gotta adjust trim

thats it! perfectly trimmed! woohoo - now where is the runw...........
Click to expand...
Never too late to learn.
Keep at it .
 
FastEddieB said:
I agree. I do not like imposing arbitrary bank limits on student - I would rather see a little "too much" bank in the pattern than a skidded turn.

But skidding is insidious. I have about 6,700 hours in all sorts of small planes and a lot of instructing hours. Yet watching a YouTube video of me flying a pattern in my Sky Arrow, I noticed this:

7425385928_e03e845087_o.jpg


That was a left turn in the pattern, and I do not remember any skidding on that flight - but there you have it.

Admittedly I did have plenty of airspeed "cushion" and the Sky Arrow is very rudder sensitive, but if it can happen so easily and insidiously to me, well...
Click to expand...

It seems that the thread has moved on significantly (and I haven't read the last 3 pages), but this happened to me too in the Sky Arrow. Turning from crosswind to downwind. I didn't notice it until I saw the video I took, and then I realized I was waaayyyy uncoordinated. I only have +/- 130 hours, but I'm a decent stick and was shocked at how far out that ball was in the video.
 
jpower said:
It seems that the thread has moved on significantly (and I haven't read the last 3 pages), but this happened to me too in the Sky Arrow. Turning from crosswind to downwind. I didn't notice it until I saw the video I took, and then I realized I was waaayyyy uncoordinated. I only have +/- 130 hours, but I'm a decent stick and was shocked at how far out that ball was in the video.
Click to expand...

Moved on, but still very relevant to the topic of the "deadly turn to final".
 
Pilots have a bad habit of overthinking things. If you need to turn more, turn more. There's no set degree of banking that is within the safe zone, where a little more is suddenly dangerous (up to going inverted I suppose).

Flying is a lot easier than we make it by putting such precision parameters on it. Turn where you need to turn, keep the speed where you need it, etc. If you need to get from point a to point b - fly there.

That's one of the reasons we are a dying breed. We make things too damned complicated. The checkride is the worst example of it.
 
Oh, btw, trim when you need it. Again, start applying rules and parameters to trim use and you make it too complicated.
 
mtuomi said:
C172 full nose up trims to almost exactly best glide speed. You cannot stall it with trim alone unless you really try.
Click to expand...

Try it with full flap and full throttle, or with an aft CG (within limits), and see if you still believe that.

Trim stalls are not impossible in 172s, particularly in a go-around scenario with adults in the back.

Cessnas -- every one I've tried, not just 172s (that's 150, 152, 172, 177, and 182) -- has full nose up trim very close to best glide with the throttle at idle, airframe clean, and CG near the forward limit near max gross. Piper PA28s are very similar. Ignoring those caveats is rather dangerous.
 
RotorAndWing said:
Seriously Ron, the pilot in the jet with you flew these. Trying to take credit for what someone else performed is a bit disingenuous don't you think?
Click to expand...
No more than an instructor taking credit for talking a trainee through an instrument approach, and before he got his glasses, my first A-6 pilot needed that assistance. :eek:
 
An instructor can usually pick up on when a student is out of trim in the pattern.

How?

Because every time the student is distracted, the pitch will change.

Let's say the plane needs some nose down trim, but the student chooses to just hold some forward pressure instead. That will work - right up until the time he has to answer a question, or use the radio, or whatever. Then he or she will tend to relax whatever pressure they were holding, and up comes the nose and down goes airspeed.

Same applies to instrument instruction.

Trimming as necessary just makes flying easier - and more precise.
 
Ron Levy said:
The FAA has good reasons why they want light plane pilots flying wider patterns than that. Of course, if those folks were flying airplanes with approach speeds in the 140-knot range, like the F-4 (I did one tour in RF-4C's), that might change.

Not exactly the qualifications of the average pilot, and I'll bet you never did that with passengers in one of those airshows.
Click to expand...

Ron, I'm going to plead the fifth on that last statement. I'm not sure the statute of limitations has expired on some of the dumb things I did back then.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top