Pitch & Power, Altitude & Airspeed Question

[81Horse]

As to the original question: I always refer to the Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators handbook -- Power + Attitude = Performance. Understanding this relationship makes the power/altitude/pitch/airspeed debate moot.

(And IMO, Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators is an underappreciated resource in civilian flight training.)

Quoting myself, from page 1 of this thread. I think the book is very clear and readable -- for non-engineers -- as long as you overfly all the math.

 

[UndauntedFlyer]

I'm not arguing that your technique is wrong. The "old" approach to me is the third one that you don't seem to acknowlege...that a combination of pitch and power is required to maintain the altitude and airspeed that you desire... I was taught it in the C-140, and it still works in FMC airplanes. But to say that you can't teach it properly without an FMC seems a little off.

Fly safe!

David

MauleSkinner: Everything you say here is correct too. :beer:

 

[UndauntedFlyer]

Have we really solved this? Do we now have the answer this this timeless quetion? I think we do unless their are other views.

 

[Alamanach]

It seems solved to me. Btw, I'm in the middle of reading the Instrument Flying Handbook, and everything it says about primary and secondary instruments seems to jibe really well with this role-reversal idea.

 

[UndauntedFlyer]

The role-reversal concept that is explained in this thread as a want understand the control of airspeed & altitude should be taught at all levels from student pilot to CFI. This is truely the only correct explaination and the only one programed into all automatic airplanes.

 

[Alamanach]

This is truely the only correct explaination...

Epistemological silliness, though this takes us off on a wildly different topic. How we choose to order our knowledge and understanding of the world is largely arbitrary, and can be done in more ways than we could hope to imagine. As it happens, we've ordered our knowledge such that we end up with these concepts we call pitch, power, airspeed, and altitude. But all those concepts rest on ideas of length, mass, and time. And length, mass, and time are all ideas that people made up. We could have made up different ideas, and developed a science that was equally valid, but wholly different.