|
Aviation articles by Garth Wallace
14/ Five things your flying
instructor didn’t teach you
Here are five just-for-fun flying tips that you didn't
learn from your instructor, for good reasons.
1/ Taxiing backward
Say you have landed in a strong wind and you need
to backtrack. That was poor planning but there you are. Normally to turn around,
you’d press a rudder pedal and maybe add a touch of power and a little
differential braking in the direction of the turn.
What if the airplane refuses to go around? You could try it again with full
rudder, more power and harder braking. Keep it up and at some point the airplane
will either turn or flip over or both. If it tips, note the wind velocity. You
now know the wind strength where it gets expensive trying to turn your airplane
around.
What to do? Back the airplane up. This is borrowed from seaplane pilots. Shut
down the engine, extend the flaps if equipped, open the door or doors and let
the wind do the work. All you do is steer.
To manoeuver backward in a tricycle-geared airplane with nosewheel steering,
press the right rudder pedal to roll backward to the right, and the left pedal
for left. A touch of differential braking may be required since the nosewheel
and the rudder are working against each other.
Without a back window, you’ll need to zigzag to see where you’re going.
Leave the radio on so you can tell the controller that you are not drunk, if you’re
not.
Don’t forget that slamming on the brakes of a tricycle-geared aircraft going
backward can have the same effect as doing the same to a taildragger taxiing
forward.
In a taildragger, use the left rudder pedal to back up to the right, and right
for left. Differential braking might help steering. Use left rudder and right
brake to steer right and the opposite to go left.
In a tricycle airplane with a castoring nosewheel, steering backward might be
impossible. Sometimes there are tabs on the nose gear stopping the wheel from
swinging all the way around. Pulling the elevator up might lift the nosewheel
off the ground and allow rearward steering with rudder and brake. Use them the
same way as with a taildragger since your tricycle airplane is dragging its
tail.
2/ Inducing childbirth
There is an aviation wives’ tale that says high
altitude helps induce childbirth. The reduced outside air pressure is supposed
to make it easier for the overdue event to occur. Don’t believe it.
Flying a female passenger to 10,000 feet in her tenth month of pregnancy will
ensure a birth but it has nothing to do with air pressure. The cause is Murphy’s
Law. The law says that a non-medically qualified pilot flying an overdue mother
up to altitude in a small airplane will always produce a baby. She might have
twins if the pilot is alone with her, the autopilot is not working or
uninstalled and there is turbulence. Are these situations that you would like to
be in?
If the pregnant parent-to-be is the pilot, a high-altitude birth is guaranteed.
This is why air regulations disqualify females as flyers during advanced
pregnancy.
What to do? Send her to Denver on the airlines. The airlines need the fare, are
better trained and equipped to handle an in-flight birth and the baby might end
up with dual citizenship.
3/ Tachometer and time
Hands up everyone who uses the hour meter on the
aircraft tachometer to record air time. You are ripping yourself off.
The tach time is only accurate at one power setting and that’s usually around
2300 rpm. If you cruise at a lower power, the meter ticks over at a slower rate
than real time. That would save on aircraft inspections which are based on air
time but who flies below 2300 rpm? Nobody does on takeoff or in a climb and few
pilots do in cruise. At higher power settings, the hour recorder on the tach
runs faster than the clock. Aircraft inspections come up sooner if the tach is
used for air time.
The meter also works on the ground. It’s clocking slowly at idle but it’s
turning and adding to the air time which doesn’t have to start until liftoff.
What to do? Use real time for air time. Since aircraft clocks are as reliable as
weather forecasts, wear a watch or count steamboats from liftoff to touchdown.
Pilots of retractable-gear aircraft can buy clocks that start recording air time
when the wheels are retracted. They get a free flight when they forget to raise
the gear.
4/ Gliding for fuel economy
It is possible to save a small bit of fuel in
powered aircraft by shutting the engine down near the end of a trip and gliding
to the destination. It’s stupid but it’s possible.
The problem is that the engine cools down and won’t restart because it’s
cold and/or the cylinders have cracked. This becomes a big problem if you own
the airplane and you misjudge the glide.
What airspeed? Powered aircraft handbooks that offer glide speed and distance
information usually give it for the aircraft’s maximum gross weight in zero
wind.
This is interesting since powered aircraft that take off at maximum weight get
lighter as fuel is burned. So they never fly at gross weight after takeoff,
right?
The "zero wind" thing is also interesting. How many times have you
flown in no-wind conditions? Me either.
What to do? Use the normal approach speed for a glide speed. If you are light,
raise the nose slightly and slow down a few knots to go further. When gliding
into a strong wind, lower the nose a bit to speed up a few knots. The result
should be the same glide speed that was taught on the forced approach lesson.
5/ Water skiing tips
Aviation water skiing is flying a wheelplane on
water. There are plenty of reasons not to do this, a good one being the
destruction of the aircraft and everyone in it. This might be why your
instructor didn’t teach it to you.
But if you find yourself water skiing, say when landing on a short sand spit or
simply ditching in a wheelplane, here are some tips.
Brakes on: You can tell when novices are practising water skiing. They forget to
hold the brakes. The free wheeling tires spin and throw water which reduces
vision, even in low-wing airplanes. Don’t forget to release the brakes before
hitting the beach.
If you are planning on water skiing, leave the wheel fairings at home. They tend
to fill with water and explode.
Intentional water skiing in an airplane with retractable landing wheels should
be done with the gear down.
Good luck, you’ll need it.
|
