Control and performance concept: Aircraft control only by instrument references; straight level flights and turns inclusive 180° back track turns; climbs and descents
But not in IMC unfortunately. Some FIs do it (easy to find a few good cumulus clouds in summer) and I am grateful for it but it is not legal in most cases (the aircraft, the flight plan, the instructor).
And it's not just the incomplete shielding of IFR goggles that make it unrealistic, it's also smooth air vs turbulent cloud that makes the exercise only partially useful.
This has been part of the JAR/EASA PPL training syllabus since the introduction of JAR-FCL. Up to eight hours, five of which can be flown using a simulator (minimum FNPT II): "Control and performance concept: Aircraft control only by instrument references; straight level flights and turns inclusive 180° back track turns; climbs and descents"
Well I did some "instrument flying" with a hood, as usual - but I don't qualify that as real IMC. Even just the lighting changes you perceive at the edge of your peripheral vision give some visual guidance. What I mean is: grey everywhere around me. That I didn't do so far.
The closest I've come to that is in FSX, which can be quite interesting in itself. But its just not the same :)
And it's not just the incomplete shielding of IFR goggles
That's my view too, hood and IFR goggles are totally useless. Also for IFR training. You need real clouds or a simulator, that's why we usually do this part of the PPL training in the FNPT.
but effectively with an immediate recovery after perhaps one turn. Rudder stopped the rotation quickly, and the aircraft barely needed any elevator beyond centralising to un-stall the wing. Letting go of the yoke would have done it.
Because at that stage it is still incipient. The C152 takes at least one turn before it enters autorotation!
That one was almost two turns and took some time to recover
Becaue it is now autorotating (spinning) You will notice the rate of rotation increase as it enters autorotation.
The 152 has a tendency to accelerate whilst in the spin after a few turns and may enter a spiral dive which can be identified by the airspeed which is no longer low and fluctuating.
Height loss is about 300 ft per turn plus 600 for recovery
I did spin training during my PPL (which was back when I lived in Texas). I went to Harvey and Rihn aviation, where at the time they had an aerobatic C150 and we went out and spent the best part of an hour exploring spins.
Probably the most interesting bit was this. We're all told that a C150 will recover if you just let go of the controls. Perhaps this is true for a one turn spin, but we took the plane up to about 6000 feet, and I spun it and held it in the spin for three or four turns then let go of the controls. The aircraft's controls remained in their pro spin positions when I released them, and shortly after that the engine quit. It took hands on controls in the spin recovery inputs as written in the POH, and after another turn the aircraft recovered. (It was quite odd watching Galveston Bay spinning through a stopped propellor instead of the other way around).
That's my view too, hood and IFR goggles are totally useless. Also for IFR training. You need real clouds or a simulator
Or night time. Really, it would be better if we were to have US regulations for night flying.
I did nearly all my US instrument rating training at night precisely because it was more realistic (and once induced a case of spatial disorientation). That flight was quite interesting. I was near the end of my IFR training and flying with a friend of mine as a safety pilot. I was at the stage where I could nail ILS approaches, the instrument was rock steady as I went down the glide slope, but for some reason that night I was absolutely all over the place. Every time I got on the glideslope and everything stable, I would begin to deviate. At about 500 feet on the ILS into Galveston, through the little bit of windscreen the hood didn't quite block, two streetlights off the causeway from the coast to Galveston Island showed up roughly describing a line about 60 degrees from vertical. Immediately and incredibly powerfully, something in my brain went "YOU'RE IN A 60 DEGREE BANK AND ABOUT TO DIE!!!!11". The desire to roll the aircraft the other way - at about 500 feet, with all the instruments showing I was actually established on the glideslope in level flight - was indescribably powerful. It took every bit of will power to ignore it and continue to fly the instruments, not what the lizard-bit of my brain was trying to make me do. Somehow I managed to make it down to the decision height, at which point we flew the missed approach procedure.
After we got back I said to my friend Paul, "I don't know why I was so sloppy on that ILS, I've been doing them really well for so long", when Paul - not the lightest of people - without a word slid the seat back and forward a couple of times. The seat rails in a C172N are very long and he could make quite a trim change. And that's what the **&@@£; had been doing - every time I got on the glideslope, he provided a "realistic distraction" by moving the seat back or foward!
I can really recommend night for IFR training if you've only got the hood.
The seat rails in a C172N are very long and he could make quite a trim change. And that's what the **&@@£; had been doing - every time I got on the glideslope, he provided a "realistic distraction" by moving the seat back or foward!
If my FAA CFI had done that to me, I'd be an entry in the NTSB database today. The way this guy is built, my attempts at recovering from the trim change would surely exhaust the travel of the elevator! :)
I like the distraction idea. However, from what I remember I still had to fully concentrate on flying the aircraft until my IR exam, I was far from being at ease and able to cope with any additional workload. That was probably due to the fact that I did it in a terrible PA28 spam can. Even though I could have afforded a better training aircraft, I was scared of any aircraft more powerful than my C172 because I feared I would no longer like it after having flown something better :)
There is a story in Ernest K Gann's excellent book, "Fate is the Hunter", of a training captain who struck matches in front of the student's eyes while on night instrument approaches in bad weather. This was in a DC2 or DC3.
That’s my view too, hood and IFR goggles are totally useless. Also for IFR training.
That’s why we use screens in the UK; so you can’t see out!
No student gets through a PPL course with me without practicing spin recovery, can someone please tell me how I could sleep at night if one of my students got into a spin without the knowledge to recover.
The pre flight briefing however is a lot longer and involved than for most flights, and includes viewing the wonderful 1950’s RAF instructional film entitled Spinning Modern Aircraft……. Very low tech but a first class teaching aid.
What I do miss is the PA38 as an instructional tool, it exhibited very clearly the increased role rate during a correct recovery, the C152 is not quite as good at demonstrating that.
The modern PPL does a good job of ensuring the student understands using controls in slow flight; stalling and stall recovery; and SSR for circuit related incipient departures from controlled flight (e.g. base to final turns, etc). Also modern aircraft, in particular the taper wing Warrior (PA28-151) are spin resistant. Pretty well worldwide it is now recognised that more lives were lost demonstrating spins at the PPL stage, than ensuring there is a very thorough and structured approach to stall/spin prevention.
Exercise 11 covers incipient spins, emphasis on incipient.
The RAF spin demonstration/exercises had bail out altitudes of 4,000’ AGL if recovery had not been achieved – emphasis ‘bail out’. How many PPL schools use parachutes?
Also different types have different spin recovery techniques – and using the wrong technique may, and does, result in the spin going rogue: high rotation, flat, or needing to re apply pro spin controls and re initiating recovery – all this at around 8~10,000 fpm descent.
The classic killer scenario of the skidding turn base to final typically occurs too close to the ground to be recoverable – and teaching a spin recovery at 5,000’ AGL is very different to having the world flick around you at 800’ AGL. Much more value is gained in ensuring this threat is avoided.
In short yes to spin training in the context of thorough pre briefing and using an aerobatic aircraft – ideally training in aerobatic spinning with recovery on a heading. But this is proficiency training once the PPL has been achieved.
