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Ingrained Habits

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Toobuilder

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2010
Messages
6,602
Location
Mojave, Ca
I'm reluctant to bring this thread to the forum because I'm certain it is going to go off the rails eventually, but I had a profound experience today and want to get "my say" before that happens.

I have a co worker who has his PP ticket but has been out of the country for the last few years and is interested in jumping back into flying now that he's "back to the world". He has accomplished his flight review and is current, but all of his time has been in spam cans. This morning I took him up in the RV-8 to show him the dark side of aviation. He showed the typical Cessna driver astonishment at the light controls and snappy performance, but was quite competent, if understandably timid, flying a new airplane from the back seat.

One of the coolest things about the RV line is that despite their snappy performance, they are extremely benign in the stall - time to demo this trait to the spam can driver. At altitude I demo a full flap 1g stall, talking him through my actions. I point out the onset of the buffet (which he acknowledged), then point out the stick locked hard against the up stop. As the airplane plummets downward shaking like a dog but wings perfectly level, I explain the need to lock out the ailerons and maintain roll control with the rudder (which he also aknowledged). I also talk through the very slight difference in pitch control which results in stall recovery. Far from the massive forward yoke, full throttle and dive bomber recovery I remember from my 172 instructor, the RV requires an almost imperceptible relaxation of aft stick to break the stall. All very logical, low drama, and easily processed... Or so I thought. We climb back up and I let him do it. He approached the stall extremely gingerly, and instead of locking the stick back at the burble, would shove it back forward and break the stall. In, out, in, out, in, out... More troubling was his automatic reaction to pick up the wing with the aileron - even with me telling him NOT to do that. His brain simply COULD NOT break the habit. Of course, the feet were completely inactive while this was going on. OK - My airplane...

On the climb back to altitude we discussed what a "down" aileron did to the effective AoA of the wing and he eventually agreed that further stalling one wing with down aileron was counterproductive to picking it up. So this time I demo'd the full stall again and had him focus on stick placement. Again, locked out in roll (yep, he sees that), and only slight forward stick to break the stall (yep, sees that too). Ok, now look at my feet - constantly active: stab, stab, stab, long press, left, right, left, left left, right... All this activity and the wings are rock solid level as we plummet down. "Yep, I see that" he says. Now for the final demo. I tell him I'm going to freeze the rudder and try maintain the wings level with the aileron. As I do this, the airplane IMMEDIATELY departs with a 90 degree heading and bank change. OK, point made, we climb back up and give him another shot at it. As soon as the airplane burbles, he stuffs a bunch of aileron in to try pick up the wing...

OK, knock it off... take us home.

What the hell are instuctors teaching their students these days?
 
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