Dear Rod:
After three years as a private pilot, I still get a bad case of the willies when I fly at night. It always makes me nervous to think about what might happen if I have to make a forced landing on some dark patch of ground. Yet, I don’t really feel as if I can be an authentic pilot if I’m reluctant to fly at night. What might you do if you were a pilot with this problem?
E.K.
Greetings E.K.:
Let me help you free those willies. The fact is, there are many pilots who don’t enjoy flying at night because it gets dark at night. That’s why it’s called “night.” If you don’t enjoy flying at night, then remember this one simple thing: Don’t fly at night. Period! Problem solved!
Wherever did you get the notion that you had to do everything that pilots are capable of doing in order to be considered an “authentic” pilot? Recreational flying is based primarily on recreation, which is doing something that pleases you. If you don’t enjoy one aspect of recreational flying, then stop doing it. After all, you are not a scheduled airline.
Disabuse yourself of this notion and do what makes you happy in an airplane.
Dear Rod:
I give quite a few checkouts in complex airplanes and want to ensure that my students know how to handle simulated emergency landings in these machines. My chief pilot discourages this practice because he’s worried about shock cooling. Do you do engine-out simulations in these types of airplanes? If so, how do you do them?
Tom
Greetings Tom:
Yes, I do perform engine-out simulations in complex aircraft. Here’s the strategy I use to minimize shock cooling to big-bore engines: Try arranging your checkout maneuvers by doing those requiring the most power first, and then moving on to those requiring less power later. This progressively reduces cylinder head temperatures and helps to minimize thermal shock to the engine when you finally simulate an engine failure. For instance, you might do steep turns (higher power), followed by an emergency gear extension (less power), followed by slow flight (even less power), followed by stalls (much less power), culminating with an engine-out simulation (obviously less power).
In addition, you can also use the following strategy: Find the best glide speed in the pilot’s operating handbook and, based on the airplane’s glide ratio, calculate its descent rate during an engine-out glide (the math is easy here). When you’re ready to simulate an engine-out condition, have your student reduce power slightly, extend the gear, slow to the best glide speed with the cowl flaps closed, and then make another power reduction sufficient to maintain your previously calculated descent rate. This simulates an engine-out condition without having to reduce power to flight idle. It certainly helps minimize excessive engine cooling. Keep in mind that you will have to reduce the manifold pressure about one inch for every thousand feet of altitude lost during the descent.
Dear Rod:
When teaching the basic instrument flight maneuvers to a private pilot student, do you advocate the 180-degree turn after entering instrument conditions, or do you use the 180-degree turn as a preventive measure and prefer the five Cs (confess, climb, conserve, communicate, comply)? I have seen a lot of opposing opinions from reputable sources. Your thoughts?
Greetings:
The purpose of teaching a 180-degree turn to student pilots is to allow them to exit clouds into which they have accidentally entered. Here, we have to assume that in order to enter a cloud, the student must not have already been in one. Therefore, making a 180-degree turn should allow the student an easy and immediate path to cloud-free air.
What we wouldn’t want a student to do is to climb upon entering a cloud, accompanied by making a 180-degree turn (unless there is a compelling reason to do so). Instead, the first thing a student should do upon entering a cloud is to look at the bottom of the heading indicator and say the reciprocal heading aloud. This enhances the student’s short-term memory of the heading value to which the student must turn. Once said, the 180-degree turn begins.
If, at any time, a playful passenger hears the pilot yell out a number and decides to yell out a few of his own numbers for fun, it’s permissible for the pilot to make this person wear the oxygen mask to muffle his distracting vocalizations.
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