Some people are just natural at flying

WannFly

WannFly

Final Approach
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Priyo
WX god was happy today so I got 1.6 in, took a dude from work flying. It’s his second time with me, climbed at 4K and asked him to fly. Man that dude held heading and altitude within PPL limits. I did the rudder, made climbing and descending turns like a pro. Messed up only once where on a level then he started to decent and couldn’t figure out why. But overall I am impressed. I was comparing his first time flying and mine when I started and man I sucked big time and took me forever to be at his level on his first day. For some people this just comes naturally.

I got so frustrated seeing his skills that I had to take the controls back and fly a practice ILS just to show him who is the boss. Needlessly to say he neither understood nor cared what I was doing.

Overall a great evening and I may have just hooked him to this overly expensive hobby of ours .

Now I shall wait for the foot of snow that’s coming our way over the weekend followed by freezing rain, black ice and more IFR crap.
 
WannFly said:
WX god was happy today so I got 1.6 in, took a dude from work flying. It’s his second time with me, climbed at 4K and asked him to fly. Man that dude held heading and altitude within PPL limits. I did the rudder, made climbing and descending turns like a pro. Messed up only once where on a level then he started to decent and couldn’t figure out why. But overall I am impressed. I was comparing his first time flying and mine when I started and man I sucked big time and took me forever to be at his level on his first day. For some people this just comes naturally.

I got so frustrated seeing his skills that I had to take the controls back and fly a practice ILS just to show him who is the boss. Needlessly to say he neither understood nor cared what I was doing.

Overall a great evening and I may have just hooked him to this overly expensive hobby of ours .

Now I shall wait for the foot of snow that’s coming our way over the weekend followed by freezing rain, black ice and more IFR crap.
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It does come easier for some. Often times I see it in people that do something else that requires hand-eye coordination, like equipment operation. It is just transferring a similar skill set from a different task.
 
midwestpa24 said:
It does come easier for some. Often times I see it in people that do something else that requires hand-eye coordination, like equipment operation. It is just transferring a similar skill set from a different task.
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Yes, that.

Comes easier for some like my younger brother who simply has better eye hand coordination. Back in the day he quickly surpassed me in RC flying despite being ‘too young’ according to conventional wisdom at the time.

I flew with a guy who had many fewer hours just after I completed my IFR rating. He could hold heading and altitude better than me all day long.

Once I gave rides to about a dozen nieces and nephews between 10 and 16. One girl simply out flew everyone once here hands were on the yoke, which was notable because she was one of the youngest and way too small to see out well. She simply did what I said and immediately integrated the plane’s reactions to her actions and was ‘flying’ quite well. I watch her as an adult and am sure she would be a fine pilot despite all the pot smoking.

Skill set transfer for sure, but particularly flight sim/gamer people. I took a ‘never been up in one’ friend up for a flight and he immediately was flying the plane. We landed and I briefed him on doing a takeoff with me on the throttle of my 260hp RV10. Told him to anticipate right rudder pressure and said once up, let’s turn left to go home. He tracked down the runway well enough and at 200’ executed a perfect left break that frankly shocked me. Flight Sim guy.

Oh well, there is a hierarchy. Some people are just naturally better at some things with everything else being equal. Racing sailplanes showed me that I’m no where near the top of any pilot hierarchy of skills.

Some people should fly fighters, some of us belong in transports.




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I envy that flight. So glad you got in some time before the crud hits again. And awesome that you had a great passenger who is really into it!!! Keep taking him up, especially on those days you are like "I wannfly, the weather is nice, I don't know what I want to do..." I have learned those are perfect days for passengers who are really into flying.
 
Like the old saying, "you dont know what you dont know" LOL...
 
Every instructor that I have had has all commented about how I seem to take to flying naturally ( I’ve always insisted to myself that this was all just to keep me encouraged and coming back). I’ve always attributed this to my experience racing karts (dirt). It takes finesse and most importantly your “seat of the pants/ feel” of the kart to be successful. I’ve always tried to use this ability to help me feel what the airplane is doing.
 
WannFly said:
WX god was happy today so I got 1.6 in, took a dude from work flying. It’s his second time with me, climbed at 4K and asked him to fly. Man that dude held heading and altitude within PPL limits. I did the rudder, made climbing and descending turns like a pro. Messed up only once where on a level then he started to decent and couldn’t figure out why. But overall I am impressed. I was comparing his first time flying and mine when I started and man I sucked big time and took me forever to be at his level on his first day. For some people this just comes naturally.

I got so frustrated seeing his skills that I had to take the controls back and fly a practice ILS just to show him who is the boss. Needlessly to say he neither understood nor cared what I was doing.

Overall a great evening and I may have just hooked him to this overly expensive hobby of ours .

Now I shall wait for the foot of snow that’s coming our way over the weekend followed by freezing rain, black ice and more IFR crap.
Click to expand...
My 10-year old nephew did that and never looked out the window. Video games. I showed him what the instruments should do and he made them do it.
 
There’s so much to flying there’s usually something you are strong at and weak at. I could have probably landed safely my first flight. But it was a couple of hundred hours before talking on the radio didn’t make me anxious. The thought of being in the system IFR still makes me a little uneasy.

When I’m under stress my short term memory is practically non existent.
 
Took a friend up, who had never sat in the front seat of a small plane before.
I did some very steep turns. Wheee! Good times!
Gave him the yoke. "Want to try one?"
He nails a steep turn on the first attempt. Altitude rock-solid. Bank angle rock-solid. Perfectly coordinated. Hit his own wake.

Later, back on the ground, he admitted that he'd been terrified the whole time that if he did even the slightest thing wrong, we'd have fallen out of the sky and died.
So maybe *that's* the secret! :)
 
Salty said:
There’s so much to flying there’s usually something you are strong at and weak at. I could have probably landed safely my first flight. But it was a couple of hundred hours before talking on the radio didn’t make me anxious. The thought of being in the system IFR still makes me a little uneasy.

When I’m under stress my short term memory is practically non existent.
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I’ve noticed the same with my short term memory under stress in the airplane.
 
I was shocked how good my 14 year old did holding altitude... he kept her plus minus 100 ft. My only critique that he did t understand yet was if he went high or low the difference can be made up easy - he was so intent holding 2500 that when he was off he got us back to 2500 right now! Lol
 
TennVolsPilot39 said:
I’ve noticed the same with my short term memory under stress in the airplane.
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All my radio communications changes to plain old English under stress, AIM glossary goes out of the spit window. Bob would cry if he heard that but usually talking to the ATC has always been my strong suite.
 
N659HB said:
It's just like a video game.
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Or the old MS Flight Simulator.

On my discovery flight my CFI rolled his eyes when I told him I had practiced on that (also learned all the parts of the plane beforehand). He yawned and said he'd talk me through taxi, run-up and takeoff (which he did). In the pattern, no problems, so I continued to final with only verbal instruction for carb heat and approach speeds. Was expecting him to take over, and he kept on talking me down. Greased the first landing, and he said "no way". Went around a few more times same result. I thought "man this is going to be easy" ... but if you want to really jinx someone doing well initially, just tell them to wait until crosswind landings :confused::confused: Had a plateau with those and steep turns to the right.
 
danhagan said:
Or the old MS Flight Simulator.

On my discovery flight my CFI rolled his eyes when I told him I had practiced on that (also learned all the parts of the plane beforehand). He yawned and said he'd talk me through taxi, run-up and takeoff (which he did). In the pattern, no problems, so I continued to final with only verbal instruction for carb heat and approach speeds. Was expecting him to take over, and he kept on talking me down. Greased the first landing, and he said "no way". Went around a few more times same result. I thought "man this is going to be easy" ... but if you want to really jinx someone doing well initially, just tell them to wait until crosswind landings :confused::confused: Had a plateau with those and steep turns to the right.
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Honestly I still fly the home sim for fun (yoke / pedal setup and everything) and they're way harder to fly. Way too sensitive, especially pitch/yaw, even after playing around with settings.
 
3 in the green said:
Honestly I still fly the home sim for fun (yoke / pedal setup and everything) and they're way harder to fly. Way too sensitive, especially pitch/yaw, even after playing around with settings.
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During the times I’ve had to stop flying for an extended time the sim has been the best thing for me. And if you can navigate by pilotage on x plane using an actual map it’s much harder than real world. So I think it even helped me in that regard. I’m a big fan of flight sims if you use them properly Its important that you don’t pause them of course lol. I sim flew my long xc multiple times the week before I actually flew it.
 
TennVolsPilot39 said:
And if you can navigate by pilotage on x plane using an actual map it’s much harder than real world
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I do the same thing with xPlane when the weather is too lousy to fly (like every weekend for the last month!). I have some pretty detailed scenery and georeferenced sectionals that allow me to practice fairly realistically. Oh, and the VR setup makes it more realistic. You can actually simulate pattern work pretty well - looking around to the left on turns to final is pretty much like the real thing - well as close as you can get at home for practice. I found that I am hitting my speeds in the pattern much more consistently now - and my landings have improved greatly as well.

My wife thinks it is pretty funny though to see me with my yoke, pedals and VR headset on grabbing at the air for the VR throttle...
 
Salty said:
There’s so much to flying there’s usually something you are strong at and weak at. I could have probably landed safely my first flight. But it was a couple of hundred hours before talking on the radio didn’t make me anxious. The thought of being in the system IFR still makes me a little uneasy.

When I’m under stress my short term memory is practically non existent.
Click to expand...

Same here, flew a lot of RC when young, radio talk not so much.
 
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I've had Discovery Flights with first timers who held altitude and heading within limits.

But the best was a pre-solo student pilot. I cut the power on downwind and pointed to the 1,000 foot stripes. Pretty much the commercial power off 180. He put the wheels down right in the middle of the stripes. It was not a fluke. He's flying for the airlines now.
 
Flying is only natural for birds.

bird_crash.jpg
 
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