AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2012 - 12

LETTERS

FROM OUR JULY 2012 ISSUE

A hot topic!
“License to Learn” columnist Rod Machado first pondered why instructors don’t embrace stick-and-rudder training in April 2012 and followed up with the overwhelming response in his July column.
I JUST FINISHED READING Rod Machado’s article (“A Hot Topic!” July 2012) and say a hearty amen to the comments in favor of stick-and-rudder training. I’m not a CFI but have been flying nearly half a century and have acquired a commercial certifcate with multiengine and instrument ratings. For years I have said that all pilots should fly through solo in a NORDO taildragger with light wing loading. Learn basic airmanship first, and then add radios, navigation, et cetera. One of the reasons for the high student drop-out rate, is that we take a brand-new student, fly them out of a controlled field, and expect them to learn radio procedures, deal with departure/approach concepts, and also take on the entirely new skill set of flying the airplane. All that at one time just overwhelms them and they quit. My wife and I took basic instruction in the mid-1960s in a Cessna 120 and J–3 Cub from an uncontrolled field. Our instructor (we still thank him!) was adamant about understanding how rudder and ailerons combine to keep the airplane tracking a straight, wingslevel line down the runway just a foot or two above it. We learned stalls and spins: practice, not theory. We also learned to control the aircraft with trim, throttle, and open doors in case a control cable broke in flight. The number of airline and GA accidents in recent years

License to Learn

a hot topic!
Stick-and-rudder training is a sizzler
I knew my article in the April 2012 issue of AOPA Pilot (“License to Learn: In Defense of Stick-and-Rudder Training”) was a hot topic, but I didn’t know how sizzling it was until the letters rolled in. Every letter I received—except one—supported emphasizing stickand-rudder basics during primary flight training. The one letter disagreeing with me came from a retired FAA manager involved with the newer, higherorder training strategies. He said, “As for training pilots to be ‘mini airline pilots,’ that’s probably a good thing to do if they fly a Cirrus or similar airplane.” That’s a difficult position to support when you consider that Cirrus accident data over the past year suggests that 46 percent of accidents in visual conditions were primarily rooted in poor stick-and-rudder skills. I’m perplexed by the fact that there are a number of prominent individuals who support the integration of airline training strategies into presolo curriculums at a time when many students can barely keep an airplane in straight-and-level flight. It’s instructive to see what highly experienced instructors and examiners have to say about the need to emphasize stick-and-rudder training over the FAA’s higher-order training strategies. One multi-thousand-hour flight instructor wrote, “I’m 55 years old with a CFII. The effects of scenario-based training, as opposed to actual flight instruction—landing the airplane in a crosswind, not visualizing it; spinning, not visualizing it; stalling, not visualizing it—are making students less-capable pilots.” Another high-time instructor with a doctorate in aviation science advocated teaching basic airmanship skills during primary flight training. He said, “I train my students that way from the beginning, including training in spin recognition, avoidance, and recovery procedures, and flight without reference to any instruments in the cockpit. Although these are not normal procedures, the skills developed in learning to fly with one’s head out the window and being able to recognize an impending stall will serve my students well in the future.” The good doctor suggests that there are two types of pilots. “There are stick-and-rudder pilots who can fly by looking outside the cockpit using their visual, tactile, and kinematic senses. Then there are panel pilots, who rely on instrument indications to fly their airplanes. There’s no doubt in my mind who makes the safer pilot.” A retired airline pilot with a great deal of instructional experience had this to say about the FAA’s higher

By rod machado

AOPA SUMMIT

Don’t miss Rod Machado’s humorous and entertaining flight training seminars at AOPA Summit in Palm Springs, California, October 11 through 13 (www. aopa.org/summit).

order training strategies for GA pilots: “My initial reaction was that, as an overview, FITS [FAA Industry Training Standards] appeared to be an attempt to reconcile what was being done (in my opinion, overdone) in air carrier simulator sessions with the basic training environment. The assumption appeared to be that the GA community had a sufficiently matured skill set and was regularly assessing and refining it. The reality, I fear, is something else. Just how much does the average private pilot fly in a year? I’d bet that an active pilot is lucky to fly 100 hours a year. Consider that an average air carrier pilot probably flies somewhere between 650 and 800 hours, 24/7, 365 days per year. The number of competency checks is also substantially in excess of the flight review standard we rely on in GA. It was fairly difficult to get really rusty flying the line. That said, some of the younger crewmembers rarely spent much time manipulating the controls. The FMC/FMS systems are wonderful devices for denigrating basic skill sets. Coupled with line-oriented flight training, scenario-heavy training sessions, the overall stick-andrudder skill set is also suffering at the air carrier level.” The captain makes my point that we’re using airline-type training methods for student pilots long before those students have acquired the basic skill set upon which the same airline training strategies are based. If this were even close to being a good idea, we’d surely see fewer stick-and-rudder-type accidents in technically advanced aircraft than in non-technically advanced aircraft. Unfortunately, we don’t. Several pilot examiners chimed in, with one fellow who said, “After 55 years as a pilot, 47 years as an active CFI and pilot examiner, I see pilots who constantly chase the airspeed on final approach, who can’t take off or land in a crosswind, can’t hold a heading using...visual references, [and] can’t keep the wings level without an attitude indicator. The average private or commercial pilot applicant seems to think the rudder pedals are there to rest their feet on, except when taxiing.” Finally, one lady recalled her experience flying with pilots trained in World War II—a time when you had to have stick-and-rudder skills to survive. She said, “I started teaching in 1958 and checked out several World War II-trained pilots and they were, hands down, the best stick-and-rudder guys I ever flew with!” AOPA
web

that occurred because of an apparent lack of basic airmanship skills is saddening. It may sound too simple, but we need to get back to the basics in student training. First aviate, then navigate and communicate.
Dwane Koppler, AOPA 450816 Springfield, Missouri

Mega-storms on the prowl
Tom Horne is a weather prophet (“Wx Watch,” July 2012)! What he wrote came true and was exactly what we were seeing on The Weather Channel in Florida: a slow-moving mesoscale convective complex, between parallel fronts, with unbelievable amounts of biblical rain. This kind of article is needed—on an understandable level where the average pilot can grasp the simple theories and science of meteorology.

www.rodmachado.com

22 | AOPA PILOT July 2012

“None of my instructors ever suggested Billy L. Gillen, reading Wolfgang AOPA 912060 Corpus Christi, Texas Langewiesche’s book Stick and Rudder. Hero worship When my instructor Thomas B. Haines’ article resonated with me (“Waypoints: gave up on my ability Hero Worship,” July 2012). I to ever land an airplane watched Neil Armstrong set safely and I was on the foot on the moon in 1969 as a verge of washing out, 7-year-old, and in total awe. I Frank P. Sperandeo III, I reread the chapter was in Tehran and watched on AOPA 909453 on landings and stood our new RCA black-and-white Fayetteville, Arkansas TV, which we had bought for in my driveway until Lucky with Lucky the occasion. I finally got to “see” I enjoyed Jill W. Tallman’s artiI became inspired and asked what I should have cle on Dallas Air Salvage (“Parts my dad to take me on a flight, been seeing during of the Puzzle”). It brought back which he did in a Cessna 172 a my lessons. I’ve been memories of my first meet- few days later at a nearby airlogging landings ever ing with Lucky Louque in 1988 port called Doshan Tappe. I went on to get my PPL since and, so far, the at 17 in Montreal and number of my landings recently my son, Aria, is equal to the number of the became one of the of my takeoffs.” youngest Canadians

when my Cessna T210 engine failed at 9,500 feet north of Bryan, Texas. I managed to land in a hayfield near Mexia, Texas. I went through the accident process with the FAA and the NTSB. The engine was disassembled [at Dallas Air Salvage] to discover the cause of the failure. It turned out to be valves; one had broken in half and went in with the piston destroying the engine in a matter of seconds. I feel very lucky to be here. I purchased another 210 and have flown problem-free since.

PARTS
Unearthing the safety lessons at a Texas salvage yard
B Y J I L L W. TA L L M A N P H OTO G R A P H Y B Y C H R I S R O S E

James McNally, AOPA 919534 Wilmington, North Carolina

PUZZLE
VIEW THE

The gigantic hangar in Lancaster, Texas, could be a ﬁxture at nearly any airport in the nation—except for two things. Tall racks of aircraft parts line its interior; and hanging from the wall is the rudder from Rick “Ricky” Nelson’s DC–3.

VIDEO

66 | AOPA PILOT July 2012

www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 67

to become a pilot at 16 with his recreational license and at 17 with a full PPL, making him a third-generation

12 | AOPA PILOT September 2012

http://www.rodmachado.com http://www.aopa.org/summit http://www.aopa.org/pilot

AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2012