When I was being examined for my PPL, the examiner decided I had my
head in the cockpit too much. He covered the entire panel with the
largest handkerchief I'd ever seen, and I flew the remaining hour with
no instruments at all. Certainly makes you look outside!
dg
On 8/2/06, Andrew Sarangan <asarangan@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I agree entirely. In fact I teach my primary students how to approach
> and land with all instruments covered, including airspeed and
> altimeter. If you know the pitch + power combination for every flight
> configuration, you don't need much else. However, the pitch+power
> combination depends on aircraft weight and load factor. If you use
> AOA+power, it would be independent of weight and load factor. This is
> why some people prefer AOA. My point was that rarely do we have large
> variations in load factor or weight to make this a highly useful
> instrument. I would be interested to know if there are any studies that
> show than an AOA makes that much difference in stall-spin accidents. In
> my observation flying with many pilots, new and old, by the time
> someone gets into a dangerously slow airspeed and a screwed up
> approach, they are rarely able to pay attention to the flight
> instruments or even hear the stall horn. What saves them is their basic
> airmanship to recognize the unusual attitude and recover it to a
> familiar pitch + power configuration. I doubt that yet another
> instrument on the panel is going to be of much help to those who get
> that far into the danger zone.
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