Not sure this has been posted here, but a good discussion piece which hopefully raises awareness on low level loss of control events.
It is a pity, I think, that the EASA CPL syllabus doesn’t cover eights around pylons – a good exercise in maintaining co ordinated flight at low level.
It is a pity, I think, that the EASA CPL syllabus doesn’t cover eights around pylons – a good exercise in maintaining co ordinated flight at low level.
I would say, a blessing rather than a pity. For me that’s one of those fields, just like asymmetric flight with twins and stall training in non-aerobatic aircraft, which has more potential to create training accidents that it can help to prevent. Low-level steep turns with highly loaded aeroplanes are only required in ag flying. So this should be part of some special training for agricultural pilots. In central Europe (at least as far as I know) there is next to zero ag flying anyway and the little bit of it is mostly done with helicopters.
WN should have clarified that eights around pylons is not about low level crop dusting reversal turns, but designed to highlight the potential risks from operations involving aircraft circling a site, for example photo flights which is the mainstay of some A to A AOC operations.
The briefing would cover maintaining a look out, emergency landing site, calculating pivotal altitude, wind correction, and avoiding cross control. Most pilots would adopt a race track pattern in practice, but the eights around pylons is a good skill exercise.
Unlike the infamous Vmc demonstration accident history in the 1960’s, I am not aware there is a particular accident history related to the ground reference manoeuvres in the FAA COM ASEL.
EASA has dispensed with the Vne dive, which was a feature of the old UK CPL. While I remember this exercise sort of fondly, am glad this exercise is no longer required.
Unlike the infamous Vmc demonstration accident history in the 1960’s…
Much later than the 1960’s: German FTOs have had at least two fatal Vmc training accidents during the last five years.
WN should have clarified that eights around pylons is not about low level crop dusting reversal turns, but designed to highlight the potential risks from operations involving aircraft circling a site, for example photo flights which is the mainstay of some A to A AOC operations.
But again, this is a very special activity. In Germany (with 80 million inhabitants, I don’t know about other countries) there are maybe five such companies left, employing not more than ten pilots who perform this activity. And they get replaced by multicopter drones faster than I can type these lines. So let them have this special training when they start their job. All the other CPL trainees will either never find a job or join some Airbus or Boeing operator where more than 5 degrees of bank below 500ft will result in tea and biscuits with the chief pilot.
On Vmc I was aware of the Seminole accident in Croatia in 2009, not of the second one – might you post the BfU English link?
UK practice ideally limits the required Vmc demo (student follows through, instructor demonstrates), to Vsse as per all updated AFMs. Some instructors want to test natural selection by taking the demo to an incipient Vmc rollover, but hopefully this is bragging and not for real.
One of my soft spots for the Seneca 1 is that it may have never suffered a Vmc training accident.
In the spirit of VFR threads it would be interesting to get comment on whether FAA ground reference manoeuvres are useful skill exercises.
In the spirit of VFR threads it would be interesting to get comment on whether FAA ground reference manoeuvres are useful skill exercises.
Much as I like the FAA training system, I didn’t find those particular ones useful. The turn about a point (keeping the point just above the wingtip) had to be done at a specific altitude for it to work at the normal cruise speed – 1200ft I seem to recall. I was pretty nervous, not due to the flying of it but because where we were doing it (east Anglia on a sunny weekend) the skies were full of traffic at that level 
What I found really good were the CPL ones: the chandelle and lazy eights. They are very instructive. The chandelle teaches you to do an aggressive (but still “non aerobatic”) 180 maneuver, and lazy eights teach you about energy conservation.
I agree that this cannot and should not be taught at the “awareness” level. Either good aerobatics training with this as an element, or simply avoid, through good airmanship. If your flying takes you into a risk of these situations, get comprehensive training, of which this video is a small part. You’ll know that you’re flying an aircraft, in which this type of training should be conducted, if it has a G meter. Awareness of your G is vital as a foundation step for this type of flying. Not because pilots pull too much, but because they can wait to pull enough, until it’s too late.
There are so many specialized things which can be done in aircraft, which is why there is so much specialized training. None of us get it all….
All VFR landing operations are ground reference maneuvers.
What a great video, not least because it so clearly covers things that were stressed and restressed to me while I was learning to fly. A Luscombe has a very powerful light rudder that you absolutely need to use properly to maneuver the aircraft, combined with the need for constant attention to maintain correct speed on approach… a typical ‘classic’ aircraft in other words, and a bit more so than most. If you are a low time pilot in such a plane your instructor had better teach you the content of this video if you are to have both the knowledge and skill needed to avoid killing yourself. It’s really not optional.
I remember flying dual one day when I probably had 20 hrs or something, and turning final I skidded the turn. ‘He in the right seat’ went slightly nuts and said “if I ever see you skidding a base to final turn again, we’re done”, which would have been a real problem for me. Instructors to teach primary students in classic aircraft don’t grow on trees. Then on the next flight we went up to altitude and he showed me how a stall from a skidding turn tucks hard under and a turn from a slipping turn rolls level, as the video lays out very clearly. Since as a matter of effortless normal practice you fly that type of aircraft uncoordinated to control descent rate on approach, that is something the tyro pilot Link needs to understand.
Wonderful stuff for me, in many way the basis for the rest of my flying in other types that don’t so cheerfully allow you to do the wrong thing without complaint, and then punish you for doing it.
Wayne Handley for those who don’t know him was and is a great aerobatic pilot, one of the best Link
