This is also why some pilots can easily jump from airplane to airplane. His eyes remain outside more than three-quarters of the time, and he uses the horizon for the direct information he needs for pitch, bank, heading, and so on. Like a baseball player with a beautiful swing or a drummer who keeps perfect time, the core skills never left. The reason he was able to get in an airplane after so long and be so good, with no degradation in performance, is because he has the right fundamentals. He’s since whipped me at spot landing contests and short-field technique. At one point I joked that he was two knots fast in the climb. Despite not flying for two years, he nailed every airspeed, every altitude, and every heading. From the second the wheels left the ground it was obvious to me that he had been properly trained. He said he felt rusty, his flight review had expired, and he wanted something more than the minimum one-hour flight and ground sessions to feel confident again. A properly trained pilot puts the airplane where he wants, which he’s able to do by flying by reference to the horizon first, using the instruments as a secondary source of information.Ī few weeks ago I started flying with a co-worker in an effort to get him current again. While physics of flight are constant, how you manipulate them to your advantage is not. One of the great joys of teaching is that you get to see a variety of styles, and after some experience it becomes apparent that some work well and others don’t. Assuming you haven’t pushed the envelope and flown in poor visibility, it never fails. It’s so good that many of the instruments inside the cockpit do nothing but replicate the information it provides-but with errors, lag, and the necessity to interpret their meaning. The horizon is an excellent source of information on everything from pitch and airspeed to coordination and bank.
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