With lower wages and the pay-for-a-job mentality that is currently littering aviation it is no wonder that the brightest pupils no longer pursue a career in our industry. Sausage factories are required because sausage airlines transporting sausage clients require sausage pilots to pay for the airfare.
At the FTO where I used to teach we tried to provide as much real flying as was possible, and introduced our students to the various facets of flying single engine and multi engine aircraft. This often included short fields, grass, real IMC (!) and the occasional Ice accumulation. It was fun and educational.
Another, much larger, sausage factory in the nearby area could not calculate performance of a C172 to allow operations on a 600m grass strip, with no obstacles at either end. They also wore uniforms and had impressive french fries on their shoulders.
It is a pity that flight training has become such a procedure based drag, and that pilots of the future will not be pilots at all, but mere systems operators. I think the Asiana 777 provided some insight into the current state of “pilot” training and skills level.
Oh, I forgot to answer the question. Vx and Vy are performance points and I believe each pilot should know them for his/her aircraft and apply them accordingly. As with flap, the decision to use them or not depends on the conditions. In a sausage factory “company procedure” is the rule rather than teaching pilots to aviate.
I too loath and detest this pseudo airline practice. You can FEEL when an aircraft is ready to fly.
I always takeoff with 10 degrees flaps.
I operate a lot on short grass strips. Would rather have 10 degrees of flaps on a long paved runway than forgot to set flaps on a short grass strip.
What an excellent article, I wholeheartedly agree. Every new pilot should be brought, by skilled demonstration, to understand these factors.
I will fly every takeoff and landing with the maximum permissible flap, and have never regretted it. Glide approaches, may require the application of full flap very late in the approach, possibly in the flare. More flap equals slower speed over the ground, which reduces landing gear wear and the severity of that remotely possible collision with something you did not expect.
The article very correctly touches on am important point, but it is a brief touch, which deserves more attention. I found this later in my career, while test flying a Cessna Grand Caravan. The POH speed for climb after aircraft may not be predicated on performance at all, it may be safety based, for the engine failure reasons stated in the article. Testing the Caravan, I found that due to the modification I was dragging, the minimum climb performance could not be achieved. The only means to accomplish this performance, and gain approval, was to climb at a slower speed. It worked a charm, and the required minimum climb performance was demonstrated. But then the Transport Canada Test Pilot said to me "The slower speed is okay, provided that you also demonstrate an engine failure from 50 feet, and a “Vref – 5” circuit".
So there I was flying an entire circuit at 75 KIAS at gross weight, with the stall horn peeping most of the time. Doable, but not reassuring at all. The engine failure land back from 50 feet was the scariest thing I have ever deliberately done in a plane. zero room for error there. It was then that I realized that the Cessna speeds were not there for best performance, but for minimum liability. From the POH 87 KIAS, the landback was reasonably possible, from 80 KIAS, it was near impossible.
So I still see pilots hanging off the prop, doing Wilga/Helio Courier departures, blissfully unaware of the fact that if the engine burps, there will not be enough altitude to even enter a glide, much less enter the flare required at the bottom to land. In helicopter training, we learn the “avoid curve” – airplanes have them too. That speed/altitude combination from which a glide cannot be entered so as to end in a successful landing. As the article alludes, the area of that curve is different per aircraft type, and wing loading in particular.
Pilots should be practicing this at altitude, and noting their success, or lack there of, flaring to “land” at their chosen “hard” altitude.
Pilots should also be practicing takeoffs where the plane does the flying, when it is ready. Achieve the required pitch attitude, and accelerate, the plane will fly, then, allowed to accelerate a bit more, climb away safely. Much faster will be a wheelbarrow inducing risky maneuver. Slower, has it’s place, if soft field technique is appropriate, or on non standard surfaces, but is otherwise needless.
Pilots should be aware of Vx, Vy, and other specified speeds, but they should feel the plane, and fly the feel….
Pilots should also be practicing takeoffs where the plane does the flying, when it is ready. Achieve the required pitch attitude, and accelerate, the plane will fly, then, allowed to accelerate a bit more, climb away safely. Much faster will be a wheelbarrow inducing risky maneuver. Slower, has it’s place, if soft field technique is appropriate, or on non standard surfaces, but is otherwise needless.
Every takeoff on my nose wheel aircraft is done by lifting the nose on the roll as PDAR ably describes here. The front gear strut is not particularly well designed and has essentially no suspension function – it only moves to absorb energy upon landing. That makes the plane squirrelly if the nose is bouncing around over bumps on the ground. Happily the elevator is powerful so you can gently lift the nose at low airspeed, well before takeoff speed, and hold it there until it flies off. The plane tells you that’s the right way to do it.
On the tailwheel plane you need to streamline the plane for acceleration, then lower the tail to fly. Otherwise it won’t accelerate very quickly at all. Again, the plane tells you what to do.
Neither of my planes has a POH Vx or Vy, in either factory built or current form. The factories didn’t supply that data and anyway non-standard props are an issue. I’ve tried enough speeds to have a reasonable idea of what to use when. Generally I balance the desire for altitude with the awareness that if things go quiet I’ll need to push the nose over hard to maintain best glide airspeed.
I love this line, reminds me of watching the British Buccaneers as a kid.
I retract the gear as soon as I’m positive the airplane will not contact the runway.
Link!
The Blackburn Buccaneer with boundary layer control and ordnance carried internally – has to be one of the best carrier ops aircraft ever built. Dublin Weston still has a First Gulf War veteran as a guardian.
PDAR great comment. Some aircraft have quite a wide separation between Vx and Vy. The Super Cub and early Cessna 182 variants, for example. While a very skilful SC pilot I imagine might meet the 50 feet EFATO test from Vx, I am not sure the early 182 (even with their trim able tailplane) would be so easy to handle. Perhaps both a liability lawyer and the accountant did away with the excellent tailplane trim system of the early 180/182s, in any event later 182s I believe have higher Vx.
This SC pilot climbs out at 75 mph IAS, which still produces a healthy deck angle. My early SC is flapless so I can’t carry out the hot rod Vx plus full application of flaps departure – hanging on the prop with 45 mph IAS fifty feet AGL suggests a desire for a minor Darwin Award, at the very least.
Going back to the 182 some POHs advise 20 degrees of flap on take off – in addition to lower lift off speed and less wear on the under carriage, this should also produce a lower deck angle, a steeper initial climb angle, and arguably a smoother transition to cruise climb at 95 KIAS.
Waiting for the plane to feel like it’s the right time to take off can lead to some nasty surprises in some nose heavy types, unless you always have 1000m of runway…
And yet that is what I do on mine* – according to tuition received: full flaps, full stick back, full throttle, wait for the nose wheel to lift, stick back and roll on two wheels till she lifts off. Once airborne, build speed first, then climb and gradually release flaps and throttle, use the stick to keep sufficient speed.
*tri-gear microlight, 450 kg (legal) MTOW, 80 hP Rotax 912
Full flaps? On takeoff? That’s a new idea I think…
