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FLYING LESSONS for October 27, 2016 FLYING LESSONS uses the past week’s mishap reports to consider what

might have contributed to accidents, so you can make better decisions if you face similar circumstances. In almost all cases design characteristics of a specific make and model airplane have little direct bearing on the possible causes of aircraft accidents, so apply these FLYING LESSONS to any airplane you fly. Verify all technical information before applying it to your aircraft or operation, with manufacturers’ data and recommendations taking precedence. You are pilot in command, and are ultimately responsible for the decisions you make.

FLYING LESSONS is an independent product of MASTERY FLIGHT TRAINING, INC. www.mastery-flight-training.com

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This week’s LESSONS: Correlating to Engine Failure Sometimes it’s difficult to discern precisely what we are taught and evaluated on specific maneuvers in the process of earning pilot privileges. At times we are told the skills we learn from mastering a maneuver apply to one set of circumstances, without applying them to others as well. Often a maneuver seems to be disconnected from the way we normally fly airplanes, that we are required to learn to fly a particular maneuver solely for the purpose of being able to demonstrate that maneuver on a checkride—what I call a “checkride circus trick.”

The longer I fly and I teach flying, however, the more convinced that there is no such thing as a checkride circus trick. Somewhere lost in the mists of aeronautical time, someone knew what he was talking about (it was almost always a “he”) when a task was added to what in the U.S. became the Practical Test Standards (PTS) and which has now been overhauled into the Airman Certification Standards (ACS). We do things for a reason. It’s up to the flight instructor to make those reasons known to students and to pilots in recurrent training.

A few years ago I was instructing a pilot pursuing a Commercial Pilot certificate in a turbocharged Beech Bonanza. We were practicing the Power Off 180° Accuracy Landing, and he was having difficulty deciding when to turn from downwind to base and then again from base to final in varying wind conditions. See https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aircraft/airplane_handbook/media/faa-h-8083-3a-4of7.pdf, pg. 8-23

After several tries it occurred to me that what he was needing to do was to better judge the effect of wind drift on his ground track. Instead of chopping the throttle and gliding around to the runway again and again (not a turbocharged engine-friendly thing to do), I had him fly away from the airport at around 1000 feet above ground level and practice a few S-Turns Across a Road and Turns Around a Point—maneuvers from the Private Pilot standards that are not included in the Commercial Practical Test.

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The purpose of these Private Pilot maneuvers is to “aid the pilot in analyzing the effect of wind…and in developing a fine control touch, coordination and the division of attention necessary

for accurate and safe maneuvering of the airplane.” Although the FAA’s Airplane Flying Handbook doesn’t make it obvious—a single line in the entire section on Ground Reference Maneuvers says practicing a third maneuver, Rectangular Course, is “helpful in recognizing drift toward or away from an airport runway during the various legs of the airport traffic pattern”—it’s generally accepted and taught that all Private-level ground reference maneuvers are designed to help pilots master compensating for wind drift in the airport circuit. That’s why we practice them at about 1000 feet AGL…a typical traffic pattern altitude.

See https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aircraft/airplane_handbook/media/faa-h-8083-3a-3of7.pdf pg. 6-5

The advantage of practicing S-turns and Turns Around a Point was that my student could

practice them for longer periods than the power-off 180° accuracy landing maneuver permits, and without worrying what sort of expensive things might be happening inside his turbocharged engine at the same time. After just a short refresher on these Private-level maneuvers, my student was again ready to adjust bank angle in a constant speed, descending turn to fly a preplanned ground track during the Commercial-level power off 180.

Next up was the Power Off 360° Accuracy Landing—the old Commercial Steep Spiral to a Landing updated for the current Practical Test. Guess what? Compare the two maneuvers and you’ll likely agree it’s basically a gliding, descending version of Turn Around a Point.

In fact, sometimes lost in “circus trick”-level presentations of the 180° and 360° accuracy landings is that the real purpose of requiring a Commercial Pilot applicant to demonstrate mastery of these skills is so he or she will know what to do in the event of an engine failure in flight. At Best Glide speed options may be very limited. The most easily reached emergency landing spots will often be very near the airplane, allowing you to circle around and (hopefully) land into the wind to minimize impact forces through landing at the slowest safe speed. The 180° and 360° accuracy maneuvers are teaching you to plan your engine-out glide as a function of your height above the ground.

For example, at Best Glide speed and configuration the Beech Bonanzas I often fly will lose about 1000 feet for every 180° of turn done at half standard rate (about 15° bank at 110 knots

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indicated airspeed). If I’m about 1000 feet above ground level, I can comfortably make 180° of heading change at most before time to flare and land—funny, that’s exactly what we do in the Power-off 180° Accuracy Landing checkride maneuver. If I’m higher when the engine quits I can enter the Power-off 360° Accuracy Landing maneuver, spiraling down under control. When I’m at about 1000 feet AGL I know I have only 180° more I can turn and land.

Back to practicing the maneuver: I’ve found it’s easy for me to judge my engine-out glide,

whether in an 180° or a 360° maneuver, if I consider myself to be flying a turn around a point during the descent, until I reach a spot 1000 AGL after which I am now flying an S-Turn Across a Road to line up with my landing surface. During the 360° turning glide I use my intended touchdown spot as the point around which I’m turning—I don’t want to get blown away from my chosen option. When I transition to the 180° turning glide I fly an S-Turn around an imaginary spot about a quarter mile to one side of the touchdown zone, perpendicular to my intended direction of landing.

In both cases I use entry-level (Sport/Recreational/Private Pilot checkride) techniques—ones that are easy to practice for extended periods without descending below a safe altitude and without concern for extended glides with the engine at idle power—to fly advanced (Commercial checkride) maneuvers…AND doing so knowing there is a real-world, lifesaving application of the Power-off 180° and 360° Accuracy Landing techniques should I ever have an engine failure.

Did it work? Absolutely! My student was able to visualize the 180°/360° maneuver right away, and put his recent practice on Private Pilot-level ground reference maneuvers to work to fly the accuracy landings required on his Commercial practical test. I’ve used the same explanation and demonstration on other pilots as well, and it seems to quickly increase the accuracy of their maneuvers.

How does this discussion fit into FLYING LESSONS Weekly’s stated purpose to use “the past week’s mishap reports to consider what might have contributed to accidents…?” In the two weeks since I last published the LESSONS (sorry, very high workload time both at work and at home last week) there appear to have been 16 forced landings that resulted in a crash reported to the FAA (if the pilot successfully glided to a landing without injury or damage, there would be no report). Among those 16 reports, four were fatal and another three caused serious injuries.

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Correlation is the highest level of learning—the ability to apply information and actions used in one situation or set of circumstances to improve performance and understanding of seemingly dissimilar scenarios. Clearly we should all review how we’d glide to a landing if our single engine failed in flight, correlating all the LESSONS we’ve learned before to this vital emergency technique. A little review of the Private-level checkride maneuvers gives us the tools we need to make a predictable, accurate and—if we do everything right and our luck holds—survivable off-airport landing. Comments? Questions? Let us learn from you, at mastery.flight.training@cox.net

See http://www.pilotworkshop.com/tip/estimating-crosswinds/turner

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Try, try again… Last year the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) held its first EAA Founder’s Innovation Prize. The 2016 competition was designed to encourage innovative solutions to loss of control in-flight” (LOC-I) crashes, especially fatal crashes and those involving experimental and amateur-built airplanes. The judging criteria included:

• Effectiveness in reducing LOC occurrence, including wide applicability to the experimental amateur-built fleet and maturity of the solution

• Low cost

• Ease on installation/implementation in a large percentage of the aircraft fleet

The contest rules said solutions could be “technical in nature or otherwise,” but the implication was that EAA was looking for new hardware or software to solve the LOC-I problem.

An esteemed panel of judges evaluated the contest entries. It awarded a total of $40,000 to the winners: a $25,000 grand prize, $10,000 second prize and $5000 to the third-prize winner. It was reasonable to assume that the winners would use their prize as seed money to develop their proposed technology, but there does not appear to have been any follow-up reporting on any progress toward marketing one of the winning devices.

Apparently not fully satisfied with the results, EAA is repeating the Founder’s Innovation Prize competition again in 2017. This gives you another opportunity to submit your ideas, especially if you intend to take your winning idea to market. Maybe your idea will be the one that breaks the stagnant fatal accident rate and saves lives. See: https://www.eaa.org/en/airventure/eaa-airventure-news-and-multimedia/eaa-airventure-news/eaa-airventure-oshkosh/07-14-2016-founders-innovation-prize-finalists-announced https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/eaa-news-and-aviation-news/eaa_founders_innovation_prize

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I submitted an entry into the 2016 competition. I did not expect it to go far, because it was essentially a protest vote. The gist of my proposal was that new technology alone is not the answer. I submitted that, just as an IFR pilot must complete a list of specific tasks in order to complete an Instrument Proficiency Check (IPC), all pilots should at a minimum be required to show proficiency with power on and power off stall recoveries, straight ahead and in turning flight; proficiency in slow flight; and proficiency in go-arounds; using whatever technology is available in the airplane being flown, on all required Flight Reviews. It’s unlikely a large percentage of the existing fleet would be modified with a new and probably costly anti-LOC-I technology. Even if they are, as I put it in my proposal,

History demonstrates that reductions in accident rates only coincide with aeronautical technological improvement when pilots are well trained and proficient in those technologies’ use. Accident rates often increase when pilots are not well trained on using new technologies, and when they become dependent upon and complacent with them, falsely believing the technology replaces the need for basic airmanship skills. The record shows that new technologies indeed do enhance safety when added to good airmanship and time-proven flying abilities.

I look at Air France 447 and Colgan 3407 as modern examples of why technology alone cannot solve the LOC-I problem. US Airways 1549 is the prime example of how airmanship does make a difference, when the A320’s flight envelope protection system alone could not have affected a “miracle on the Hudson.” If we want to get better at flying airplanes, we need to get better at flying airplanes…including regular practice, using whatever optional technology an owner chooses to have installed.

I’ve had my say so I won’t subject the judges to my protests again this year in EAA’s great way to stimulate innovative thinking. I encourage you to submit your ideas to the 2017 EAA Founder’s Innovation Prize competition. I do not have all the answers, but maybe you have the key to improving the LOC-I record. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 What do you think? Let us know at mastery.flight.training@cox.net

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Thomas P. Turner, M.S. Aviation Safety Flight Instructor Hall of Fame 2010 National FAA Safety Team Representative of the Year 2008 FAA Central Region CFI of the Year Three-time Master CFI

FLYING LESSONS is ©2016 Mastery Flight Training, Inc. For more information see www.mastery-flight-training.com, or contact mastery.flight.training@cox.net.