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Visual Angle of Attack Indicators and Systems Engineering Theory

If VAOAI is primary, then failure mode remedies must be determined, published, and trained. Pretty soon, the solution will come to pitch and power to determine approximate airspeed. Back when I gave primary instruction, I wouldn’t solo a student till they had an hour of pattern work with the airspeed indicator covered. They were terrified on the first approach, apprehensive on the second, and by the end of the hour, bored stiff. They were ready to handle an airspeed failure.

April 14, 2025 /6 Comments/by

Final Thoughts on the Base to Final Turn

The takeaway is confirmation of earlier results: in base to final accidents, only about half are stall/spin, and the other half are botched steep turn / spirals. And just like a VFR into IMC spiral is low AOA, ball centered, a botched base to final turn can be low AOA, ball centered.

January 31, 2025 /14 Comments/by

What NTSB Reports Say About Impossible Turns and AOA (Part II)

Because successful impossible turns are not accidents and not reportable to the NTSB, none showed up in the NTSB data. However, the very embarrassing rhetorical question is, how did all those past impossible turns succeed when none of those aircraft had a visual AOA indicator? Given the rarity of visual AOA indicators in recent years, it’s a safe bet that visual AOA indicators would not have been installed in any, or hardly any, of those airplanes.

September 13, 2024 /9 Comments/by

What NTSB Reports Say About Impossible Turns and AOA (Part I)

There is an impressive surge of AOA rhetoric—“lifesaving,” “correct,” “optimum”—but such language can be misleading. “Correct” and “optimum” may fit the context of the speaker but not necessarily apply to the situations of the listener, who may be considering other flight operations, or having to deal with real world scenarios. While the decision on where to expend safety resources will vary from pilot to pilot, the NTSB reports of this study do not support visual AOA indicators for impossible turns as a silver bullet to address overall safety issues.

September 9, 2024 /36 Comments/by

Survival gear after the crash…hmm

Or might it be the case that the pilot–you, for example—has mental and cognitive skills degraded by pain after the crash? And maybe all those survival tools and toys that were so appealing and easy to evaluate on a bright Saturday morning are in the moment hard to use, hard to get open from the packaging, or even forgotten?

July 5, 2024 /5 Comments/by

Remembering what flying was like fifty years ago

While I was training for my instrument rating, my instructor taught me what real partial panel was. No skid ball, that was easy to lose. No attitude or directional gyro, simulating a vacuum failure. Vertical speed didn’t mean much, so it got covered up, and who needs airspeed when you can set power and hear feel what’s going on. Besides, the altimeter is still there, along with the turn needle and the LOC/ILS.

March 4, 2024 /11 Comments/by

Angle of attack for dummies

Angle of attack is really a measure of how hard the pilot is commanding the wing to work with the air flowing past. If the pilot is not asking the wing to work very hard (low angle of attack) the wing will generate some lift. If the pilot is asking the wing to work harder (higher angle of attack) the wing will generate more lift.

January 22, 2024 /23 Comments/by

Which controls which? Throttle/elevator and airspeed/altitude

There’s an old story about an insane asylum in which nobody ever thought up any new jokes, so all the old jokes were given numbers. This meant that telling a joke only required giving its number. In that same spirit, here is a list of arguments as to whether pitch or power controls airspeed or altitude. Now pilots can discuss the issue more succinctly by tossing numbers around.

March 8, 2023 /20 Comments/by

“Energy Management”—Cliché or Exactitude?

“Energy management” is not a precise term. It is used in different ways to express different things, so it almost always requires clarification. Often, a speaker will say “energy management” and expect the listener to understand without any further explanation. Aviation safety is too important to tolerate vague phrases like “energy management” that facilitate misunderstandings.

January 16, 2023 /15 Comments/by

Are “impossible turns” worth all the attention?

A major purpose of gathering accident statistics is to assess where safety resources should be allocated. In other words, are pilots being trained on the right things? Are safety messages targeting the right things? Are researchers’ efforts addressing problems with the most likely payback? And, as the title states, are “impossible turns” worth the effort that is being expended upon their study?

September 5, 2022 /23 Comments/by

Reducing loss of control accidents in five minutes

Let’s cut right to the chase: there is a strong case to be made that many base-to-final accidents may have as a significant factor the pilot’s fear of a runway overshoot, fearing that any runway overshoot can only be disastrous. However, if pilots have flown even one deliberate runway overshoot and seen that the real issue is instead fear of the unknown, then just one five minute traffic pattern with a deliberate runway overshoot has the potential to significantly reduce loss of control accidents.

July 26, 2021 /25 Comments/by

Great expectations: ADS-B traffic uplink

When ADS-B traffic uplink was announced, there were great expectations for what it could do to improve safety, specifically, to reduce mid-air and near mid-air collisions. After some years of flying with ADS-B traffic, my expectations have been, shall we say, down-sized. It’s nice to think that improvements are easy, but there are real world constraints.

June 28, 2021 /24 Comments/by

Recovery from spirals with the LVL button

In a flight in a Cirrus SR22, it was mentioned in passing that the LVL function on the Garmin autopilot is not taught for unusual attitude recovery. A flight in the RV-9A, equipped with a Garmin G3X Touch system, was then made to evaluate the LVL function for spiral recovery. These flight tests clearly indicate that the FAA technique is not always required for all airplanes.

August 3, 2020 /14 Comments/by

Is traditional proficiency enough?

Regardless of license level, elements of being a good pilot normally include skill at operating the airplane; book knowledge; situational awareness of everything going on around the airplane and what it means; and experience. All of these are, good, no doubt about it, but what additional elements can be incorporated to make an even better pilot? In effect, what would constitute an Honors Course in flying?

April 29, 2020 /25 Comments/by