random questions i have for pilots

skyinmind

skyinmind

Filing Flight Plan
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skyinmind
I'm curious how much you use your intuition (gut feeling) when flying...I'm assuming its pretty essential.
 
Well I use my intuition every time I land. I can't see the ground so I'm going off my peripheral sight and intuition.
 
How you ever had an experience with a UFO while flying? Do they train you at all on what to do?
 
skyinmind said:
I'm curious how much you use your intuition (gut feeling) when flying...I'm assuming its pretty essential.
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I believe it is. I use it all the time and have canceled a few flights just because it didn't feel right. Weather was perfect to but something said don't go and I didn't. I believe it is a lot mental and if you are not in the right mind stay on the ground.
 
After watching many episodes of air crash investigation, I'm curious if its possible to mount external cameras where the pilots can actually 'see' the plane while flying? Not that the fly over method to have someone visually check to see if landing gear is functioning, doesn't work.. it just seems kinda like a multi problem type of solution.
 
Do they mention anything about trusting your intuition, in flight school?
 
skyinmind said:
I'm curious how much you use your intuition (gut feeling) when flying...I'm assuming its pretty essential.
Click to expand...

I've trained my intuition with Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

If I get the feeling something is not right, then I check all critical instruments, re-run the last checklist and check-in with ATC.

To be honest, I don't have much of an intuition. When I was flying actively, I did drill a lot so life-saving actions/procedures were instinctual. I like to fly by the numbers and typically will fly within the IFR system even if it's CAVU. I get immense enjoyment out of flying precisely and relaxed. I fly from slab to slab. I think bush/backwoods pilots have a greater need for intuition than my flying. My creativity/intuition is limited to slam-dunk clearances and traffic conflicts in the non-towered traffic patterns.
 
When it comes to decision making - sure go with your gut. When it comes to flying in instrument conditions, not a chance in blue hell. Trust the instruments, not your gut.
 
The "gut" is what I use for judgement. It doesn't change how I fly the plane, but it does change WHETHER I fly the plane, WHEN I fly the plane, and WHERE I fly the plane.

hope that makes sense.
 
The only thing your gut knows is if you're hungry. Use your senses, your training, and logic to make a decision. Leave the gut out of it.
 
Certainly don't rely on it until you're out of other options, anyway.
 
Jhernandez04 said:
Well I use my intuition every time I land. I can't see the ground so I'm going off my peripheral sight and intuition.
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So you can see the ground after all. ;)

This is why I'm starting to like no-stall landings.
 
skyinmind said:
How you ever had an experience with a UFO while flying? Do they train you at all on what to do?
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Every time...until I get close enough to identify it, every aircraft is an unidentified flying object.
 
skyinmind said:
After watching many episodes of air crash investigation, I'm curious if its possible to mount external cameras where the pilots can actually 'see' the plane while flying? Not that the fly over method to have someone visually check to see if landing gear is functioning, doesn't work.. it just seems kinda like a multi problem type of solution.
Click to expand...

Go low tech. Many planes have mirrors mounted externally for this purpose. What do you need a camera for?
 
skyinmind said:
Do they mention anything about trusting your intuition, in flight school?
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Intuition is largely gained from experience. Most students don't have that experience, so trusting your intuition as to what is necessary for different kinds of airspace, how to land, etc. is a recipe for disaster. So, no they don't.
 
Skip Miller said:
Intuition is largely gained from experience. Most students don't have that experience, so trusting your intuition as to what is necessary for different kinds of airspace, how to land, etc. is a recipe for disaster. So, no they don't.
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And conversely, I'd say that it is challenging for a while to start learning to trust your intuition, rather than retaining the "I'm just a dumb new guy, I'm probably wrong about this" mentality.

We talk a lot about it.....a lot about CRM, and assertiveness, and various other similar topics. But most of the time, the scenario isn't "my senior captain is flying us below mins, with a single engine, and a single wing, and I'm too afraid to say something about it". More like "that's strange that the oil pressure gauge is acting funny......should I make a big deal about it, or just carry on?" It's those sorts of situations, and the experience to know when something is a big enough deal to be dealt with, that prevent bad/scary incidents from happening. You can get that from learning from others, or you can do like me, and make just about every possible mistake imaginable short of plowing into the ground, and eventually build that reaction of "I've seen this before, and it didn't end well like this"
 
I have a few personal mantras/rules/flying dogma:
  • Hope KILLS - if you don't KNOW something, assume the worst and plan accordingly. This applies to weather, fuel management, and inflight anomalies.
  • Whoever is most scared makes the decision - another way of saying that when flying with another pilot, when someone says "I'd rather be on the ground", that triggers the diversion to the nearest airport. I apply the same logic to passengers when I'm carrying them.
  • If you think something might be wrong, it is so - this is an extension of the "hope kills" rule. It basically tells me that if I have a "gut feeling" that something's not right, I have to trust my gut unless I can prove it wrong.
These rules have kept me out of trouble for 17 years of flying, and have saved me from looking stupid (more stupid) or getting hurt a few times along the way.
 
ifconfig said:
I reject your reality and substitute my own! :rockon:

Every Boeing and Airbus airplane lands non-stall.
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So they fly them all the way to the gate where they magically go from 140 to 0 and none of the passengers suffer any ill-effects from the massive Gs caused by near instantaneous deceleration to 0? Riiiiiiiiiiight.
 
Intuition is the way to go. Using gauges and screens is for noobs. I put these stickers over every instrument in my panel. I save tons of money not having to pay for pitot static checks and garmin updates. Preflights are also quicker because I use my sixth sense to tell me if something isn't right, and I don't have to waste time getting weather briefings for the same reason.

6740.jpg
 
After about 400 landings in the 180, I'm pretty much exclusively wheelie's. There's too much 'intuition' going on when you three point. If it's soft, grassy field, sure I'll do a three point sometimes just for practice.

I've never witnessed a UFO. And wouldn't admit it if I did.
 
simtech said:
I use it all the time and have canceled a few flights just because it didn't feel right. Weather was perfect to but something said don't go and I didn't. I believe it is a lot mental and if you are not in the right mind stay on the ground.
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I was about to post something very similar.

I agree 100%, but I would say I use it rarely - but then again, I do not generally count myself as an "intuitive" - and my wife concurs!
 
ifconfig said:
This is why I'm starting to like no-stall landings.
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Absolutely the best bet if you cannot judge height accurately.

That gives you essentially two options:

1) Just fly lower and lower gradually until the plane hits, or...

2) Learn to judge height accurately.

I'd favor #2.
 
skyinmind said:
How you ever had an experience with a UFO while flying? Do they train you at all on what to do?
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I was never trained on what to do if I saw a UFU but I was trained on how to deploy chemtrails. Like the other pilots I am not allowed to talk about it.
 
Tex_Mike said:
I was never trained on what to do if I saw a UFU but I was trained on how to deploy chemtrails. Like the other pilots I am not allowed to talk about it.
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Sit UFU, sit. Good Dog.
 
Tex_Mike said:
I was never trained on what to do if I saw a UFU but I was trained on how to deploy chemtrails. Like the other pilots I am not allowed to talk about it.
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Ah HA! I was driving from ft worth to Austin after Xmas and noticed several of these 'chemtrails' being created.. two or three going vertical, then two or three going horizontal... I kept thinking... there is 'something' to this... this isn't just 'random'
 
I need to switch from my phone to my laptop so I can see everything better & respond properly
 
ifconfig said:
So you can see the ground after all. ;)

This is why I'm starting to like no-stall landings.
Click to expand...

I guess what I meant to say was that I can't exactly tell how many feet I am from the ground so I "guess" at it. Which surprisingly gets better the more landings I do.

I don't land with power on but I do like coming in with a smidge of speed. I downloaded a checklist for my plane off the interwebz and they had landing speed at like 60-65mph. I personally wouldn't do that, I like to start my flair around 75mph and by touchdown I'm usually around stall speed.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong? My new cfi was impressed with my landings after the first few tries. I just want to be consistently safe, so I'm all ears.
 
Jhernandez04 said:
I guess what I meant to say was that I can't exactly tell how many feet I am from the ground so I "guess" at it. Which surprisingly gets better the more landings I do.

I don't land with power on but I do like coming in with a smidge of speed. I downloaded a checklist for my plane off the interwebz and they had landing speed at like 60-65mph. I personally wouldn't do that, I like to start my flair around 75mph and by touchdown I'm usually around stall speed.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong? My new cfi was impressed with my landings after the first few tries. I just want to be consistently safe, so I'm all ears.
Click to expand...

I don't think there is anything wrong with coming in a little faster if you're not forcing the plane to land. The downside is that you may use more runway and that could be a bad thing for shorter fields.
 
skyinmind said:
Ah HA! I was driving from ft worth to Austin after Xmas and noticed several of these 'chemtrails' being created.. two or three going vertical, then two or three going horizontal... I kept thinking... there is 'something' to this... this isn't just 'random'
Click to expand...

1) I was flying south in FL with Karen in the Sky Arrow. A cloud formation ahead looked awfully strange - almost geometrically patterned. Probably just pareidolia, I thought.

Until I got closer, and it said (albeit upside down from my perspective): "JESUS SAVES".

There's your sign!

2) Look hard enough and nothing is ever "just random"...

5pn97.jpeg


On a more serious note, I do have a neighbor who will not go out on "high chemtrail" days.
 
Jhernandez04 said:
I guess what I meant to say was that I can't exactly tell how many feet I am from the ground so I "guess" at it. Which surprisingly gets better the more landings I do.

I don't land with power on but I do like coming in with a smidge of speed. I downloaded a checklist for my plane off the interwebz and they had landing speed at like 60-65mph. I personally wouldn't do that, I like to start my flair around 75mph and by touchdown I'm usually around stall speed.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong? My new cfi was impressed with my landings after the first few tries. I just want to be consistently safe, so I'm all ears.
Click to expand...

"Wrong" is not the correct word. I'd say that your technique is less than optimal, but that it's quite normal for a student.

The goal in landing is to smoothly contact the earth with the minimum amount of energy stored up in the plane. In the event that something goes wrong during the landing, the kinetic energy stored in the plane (which is basically 1/2 the weight of the airplane multiplied by your speed squared) will be used to damage/destroy the airplane and it's occupants. See why we want that energy to be low? And because it's a square relationship, speed matters - a lot.

The low end of the speed range for landing is the stall, because then you're not flying, you're falling.

Thus, a perfect landing would have your wheels kissing the runway at the exact moment your wing stalls. Honesty compels me to say that in my thousands of landings I've achieved that.... maybe twice.

What's much more likely is that you either:
  • touch down with excess energy and the wing still flying, or;
  • have the wing stop flying before you touch down, and falling the remaining distance to the runway
In the second case, if you're only an inch or so above the runway, you get a little bump. The higher you are when you stop flying, of course, the worse the bump, and you can get high enough to break stuff. So it's probably better to be a little fast than too slow.

However, by "a little fast", I mean that you're not quite at the stall at touchdown. You should have the stall warning going off, absolutely. If the stall warning isn't sounding, and hasn't been sounding during your flare, you are too fast.

A good flare and touchdown starts with a good approach, and nailing the proper airspeeds on the final approach is important. The faster you are on final, the more energy you have to lose during the flare before touchdown. And in this case, that energy translates into distance, as you float over the runway waiting to stop flying. If you're at Edwards Air Force Base, with runways over 10,000 feet, you can float a long way without worries. But if you're flying into a place like Annapolis (KANP) with a 2500 foot runway and trees on the far end, you really don't want to be floating along hoping you'll touch down with enough distance to stop the airplane.

So, my advice is... Go with your CFI and practice short field landings, where you try to touch down at a predetermined spot with minimal energy and a short rollout. You'll quickly learn that you can be slow on the approach and that a very gentle flare will convert you from flying to rolling. I have found that students are a little reluctant to fly the final as slowly as they should, partly because they perceive that they are coming in more steeply and that makes them uncomfortable.

Practice (with a good CFI) will improve your technique rapidly.

Best wishes
 
FastEddieB said:
1) I was flying south in FL with Karen in the Sky Arrow. A cloud formation ahead looked awfully strange - almost geometrically patterned. Probably just pareidolia, I thought.

Until I got closer, and it said (albeit upside down from my perspective): "JESUS SAVES".

There's your sign!

2) Look hard enough and nothing is ever "just random"...

5pn97.jpeg


On a more serious note, I do have a neighbor who will not go out on "high chemtrail" days.
Click to expand...
I love that you used a pic from a beautiful mind... some people have a unique way of seeing the world. ;)
 
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