Colonel Sanders wrote:But I can still fly the snot out of an aircraft down low, without hitting the ground,

Sure you can, but I sure wouldn't want to try it down low without quite a bit of training up higher first. Everyone has their own experience levels and flying abilities. Trying to push those boundaries at low levels is dangerous, without the proper training and experience.

Colonel Sanders wrote:

the test scores aren't actually a good metric for skill

You are addressing a very tricky problem - the calculation of
the simple scalar metric, which I would consider the norm of
the vector of the appropriate dimensions, of which there are
many, of different weight.

Wow...talk about a pissing match. Almost completely forgot the topic of this thread.

Regarding the turnback, I guess temperature ( i.e. winter vs summer flying ) is going to affect your decision. Turning back at less than 1/2 mile from the airport is obviously more tempting than doing so at a mile or more out.

Also, I guess it depends on what's around the airport or at least what's in front of you. At my airport, there is a lot of open flat space adjacent to the airport. Turning back might still have its advantages, even if the runway was never reached.

low level is dangerous, without the proper training and experience

Like motherhood and apple pie, it is hard to disagree
with that statement, but here's a dumb question for
you: Who do you go to, to teach you low altitude aerobatics?

talk about a pissing match

Er, no, that was just a discussion about distributions.
I didn't see any urine flowing ... at the risk of embarrassing
him, photofly and I are actually quite good friends! He's
a fascinating fellow - IMHO at least 2 sigma right of mu

Regarding the turnback, I guess temperature ( i.e. winter vs summer flying ) is going to affect your decision

Well yes, there are many different factors which determine
whether or not you are going to be able to glide back to
the departure end of the runway after the 210 degree turn.

Climb angle on departure is indeed a biggie, and yes, it's
probably going to be steeper in the winter. Or when you
have a headwind. Or when you are light. Or when you fly
Vx instead of Vy.

A huge factor is also runway length. It's a lot easier to get
back to a 12,000 foot runway than a 3,000 foot runway - that's
9,000 feet (1.5nm) less that you have to glide.

Its hopeless C.S.

Just as an aside in this conversation the advice that gives me the most entertainment is " Look at the far end of the runway to best judge how high you are off the runway "

Yeh...for sure that really works when you are trying to judge one foot.

Its hopeless C.S.

You're probably right, ., but what I keep
telling myself: You're not trying to teach all
the pilots. Just the best ones

You're probably right, ., but what I keep
telling myself: You're not trying to teach all
the pilots. Just the best ones

True, the 5% ers.

The object is to move them into 1%ers.

photofly wrote:On a statistical quibble, the Normal distribution is great for things like adult height and shoe size but not perhaps the most appropriate to model pilot skills.

I have to side with Photofly on this one. In my experience, plotting the achievement of students on a graph will NOT give you a normal distribution. This is because skills assessment is not a natural or randomly occurring phenomenon. Perhaps the level of skills a person possesses in a given area is 'somewhat normal', but there is no way these skills are being objectively measured like height or weight. The criteria with which we assess student skills are frequently changing, modifying. For example, I can get a uniform distribution anytime I want ~ all I have to do is make a test ridiculously easy ( or ridiculously hard ). And I can manipulate the curve a hundred different ways inbetween.

I can manipulate the curve a hundred different ways

That's the second lesson about statistics: it can be easily
manipulated (or distorted) to prove or disprove anything.

Wasn't there a study recently, that concluded that all studies
were useless because people could manipulate the data to
conclude anything that they wanted? Of course, if one accepts
that is true, therefore that study is invalid because it could
have been sculpted to confirm the researcher's opinion that
all studies are useless. Or not.

This kind of silly nonsense is common in statistics, which is
the Monty Python of the mathematics world. Nobody takes
them terribly seriously.

there is no way these skills are being objectively measured

I take it you are not into Euclidean norms of vector spaces?

Colonel, you have to drop this crazy idea of yours that a typical vector space has a norm.

Colonel Sanders wrote:I take it you are not into Euclidean norms of vector spaces?

Oh, for sure. I've actually collected the whole set.

you have to drop this crazy idea of yours that a typical vector space has a norm

Typical vector space? Is that like an "average" vector space?

PS Sorry, just the engineer in me, looking for a scalar
in all the wrong places.

Listening to you two talk about vectors and normals is starting to make me cross.

But the turn back discussion and videos are interesting...


g

Colonel Sanders wrote: If one collects a lot of samples of stuff in nature -
such as people's IQ - you will notice that the data
forms a curve, with some data points with small
values, most data points clustered around the
average, and some data points with high values.

No necessarily. For that to be true you would need to sample something that follows a normal distribution. There are many things in nature that are normally distributed, but most aren't.
I don't know if IQ is normally distributed, but for the sake of the example let's say it's not.
However, if you regroup your results randomly into subsets (like many sets of 20 IQ test results), and then plot the average IQ of each set, NOW you will have a normal distribution (well, something approaching a normal distribution).

Sorry for the thread hijack, but statistics are just too damn fun...

photofly wrote:Why bother pitching down initially, then? Why not pitch straight up, convert your airspeed to height and do a hammerhead to turn around?

I think it's going to be hard to do a hammerhead with the engine out.

I think it's going to be hard to do a hammerhead with the engine out

With enough speed you could. If I was 200 mph
at the surface in the Pitts and the engine quit, as
long as I pulled the prop knob all the way back to
get rid of the drag, I'm pretty sure I could gently
pull to the vertical and kick.

Like going supersonic with the throttle at idle. I'm
sure people here would say "impossible!". But back
in the early 60's my father's job was to transition
Sabre pilots to the -104, which of course had a reputation
as a fire-breathing dragon which you didn't want to
slow down.

What you don't want is a high alpha, which is not
quite the same thing. His favorite maneuver in the D
model was to show the Sabre pilot a hammerhead.
Pull vertical, throttle to idle. Wait for the airspeed to
get down to 40 knots - almost zero. Full rudder,
and watch the equivalent AOA indicator. Set the
vertical downline, leave the throttle at idle, and go
supersonic on the vertical downline, pull level.

What you can do is a function of your energy,
not the throttle. Different things. One day, he
was driving around the range at Cold Lake - primrose,
I think it was called. Boring as hell. The ground crew
in the building were bored at hell, too, and egged him
on for a full speed run. Ok, full afterburner, very low,
very fast. As fast as the -104 would go at low altitude.

Unfortunately the ground crew in the building stopped
answering on the radio. Anyways, it was throttle to
idle and coast up to 35,000 feet - with the throttle at
idle - and then just for grins, a practice forced approach
landing at Cold Lake, throttle still back.

Not many aircraft can coast up to 35,000 feet with
the throttle at idle.

Anyways, turned out things at the building at the end
of the primrose lake range were not good. Windows
blown, ceiling down. Quite a mess. Oops. Oh well,
at least they weren't bored, cleaning it up!

Edit -- a very, very long time ago, shortly after the
-104 was announced as Canada's new fighter, a USAF
pilot demonstrated one at Ottawa. Blew all the windows
out of the "new" tower!

Colonel Sanders wrote:

I think it's going to be hard to do a hammerhead with the engine out

With enough speed you could.

How about 70 knots?

How about 70 knots?

If you had a little altitude, sure. Dive to nearly
the vertical downline, again prop all the way back.
When you have lots of airspeed, pull vertical.

The glider guys do all sorts of wild aerobatics,
starting high, then working their way down. I
remember watching one guy landing after his
sequence. He dove on downwind behind the
hangars and disappeared. Fast as hell. Popped
up for a wingover and landed out of it. Very
nice to watch.

Well the ground were I fly is 3380 feet higher, so I would have a higher number on my little gauge thingy there, but my understanding is that makes things worse not better.

Colonel Sanders wrote:

I think it's going to be hard to do a hammerhead with the engine out

With enough speed you could.

I thought a real hammerhead was done at almost zero airspeed, and you kicked the rudder into the slipstream of the prop only.

F-104 seemed like a fun ride.

CpnCrunch wrote:Do flight instructors in Canada regularly practise EFATOs during the PPL?

I'm not sure if it's done regularly but mine did just recently and before I'd soloed. The day's lesson was to be on engine failures in the circuit. During the pre-flight briefing he asked me what I'd do if the engine failed on take off at 300 ft. Having just read about it in FTGU, I knew turning back wasn't an option then. However, after several power off landings from other points he told me to climb straight out to 1000 ft and try. We barely made it back to the runway, but we did. Then he asked for a touch and go into a downwind take off, to try it again. Almost as soon as we started to glide back I told him we wouldn't make it. We tried anyway and I was getting nervous before we added power again.

I couldn't tell you exactly how steep my turns were but I suspected that optimizing the turn would be one of the keys to the exercise. I'm also going to re-read the books on avoiding a spin during low level turns. Thank you all for an enlightening discussion.

New_PIC wrote:

CpnCrunch wrote:Do flight instructors in Canada regularly practise EFATOs during the PPL?

I'm not sure if it's done regularly but mine did just recently and before I'd soloed. The day's lesson was to be on engine failures in the circuit. During the pre-flight briefing he asked me what I'd do if the engine failed on take off at 300 ft. Having just read about it in FTGU, I knew turning back wasn't an option then. However, after several power off landings from other points he told me to climb straight out to 1000 ft and try. We barely made it back to the runway, but we did. Then he asked for a touch and go into a downwind take off, to try it again. Almost as soon as we started to glide back I told him we wouldn't make it. We tried anyway and I was getting nervous before we added power again.

I couldn't tell you exactly how steep my turns were but I suspected that optimizing the turn would be one of the keys to the exercise. I'm also going to re-read the books on avoiding a spin during low level turns. Thank you all for an enlightening discussion.

Well I think that's maybe the problem with Canada...my instructors did it regularly at 400ft (or thereabouts) when I was training at EGSG. I think that's the only way you guarantee making it an automatic action to put the nose down and maintain airspeed. Doing it at 1000ft is completely different from 300ft.

CpnCrunch wrote:

New_PIC wrote:

Well I think that's maybe the problem with Canada...my instructors did it regularly at 400ft (or thereabouts) when I was training at EGSG. I think that's the only way you guarantee making it an automatic action to put the nose down and maintain airspeed. Doing it at 1000ft is completely different from 300ft.

So you are saying that in Britain instructors regularly practiced an EFATO at 400 feet AGL and turned back to the runway, the premise of this thread ?

Frankly if I was CFI and one of my instructors did that I would fire them.

Big Pistons Forever wrote:
So you are saying that in Britain instructors regularly practiced an EFATO at 400 feet AGL and turned back to the runway, the premise of this thread ?

Frankly if I was CFI and one of my instructors did that I would fire them.

No, of course not. Sorry for the slight thread creep, but I believe it is an important point.

To clarify: instructors at EGSG (not sure about other places) regularly pull the throttle at 400ft (or thereabouts) and student is expected to point nose down, 70kts and pick a field straight ahead to land in. It's only Colonel Sanders who expects his students to land on the runway from 400ft

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/15/us/florid ... index.html
"The aircraft had taken off from the airport, then tried to circle back and land, according to Vezina."

Looks like an EFATO. I'd rather be alive than a hero pilot.

I read that Selkirk does this as part of their pro pilot program, what about them?
























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