Pitch & Power, Altitude & Airspeed Question

[Alamanach]

If you have an engineer's aproach to things, I highly recommend this book: Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators.

I read that book about ten years ago, and really got a lot out of it. It looks like I need to look through it again. Thanks.

 

[VNugget]

I read that book about ten years ago, and really got a lot out of it. It looks like I need to look through it again. Thanks.

For me it's an ongoing process. I'm always going over random parts over and over again, each time understanding a little bit more than I forgot since last visit. My copy is well dog-eared.

P.S. Don't show Undaunted the first section of chapter 6

 

[MauleSkinner]

If a pilot wants to understand Technically Advanced Aircraft (TAA) they might as well start thinking in terms of FLIGHT PATH MODE & ALTITUDE CHANGE MODE now.

Questions or Comments are welcome.....

So...what if he doesn't? What if this student pilot is working on his Sport Pilot certificate, and has no desire to fly anything except Grandpa's 7AC?

I may think the FAA is full of crap on a lot of things, but I do agree with the "building block" theory for training/learning, and I think it would be a little unreasonable to expect that every student pilot is going to be able to build on their experience with FMC's & autopilots.

Fly safe!

David

 

[UndauntedFlyer]

So...what if he doesn't? What if this student pilot is working on his Sport Pilot certificate, and has no desire to fly anything except Grandpa's 7AC?

I may think the FAA is full of crap on a lot of things, but I do agree with the "building block" theory for training/learning, and I think it would be a little unreasonable to expect that every student pilot is going to be able to build on their experience with FMC's & autopilots.

Fly safe!

David

New students can learn any way you want to teach them. But even though their are holes in Wolfgang's "Stick & Rudder" approach to this, people do learn notwithstanding those problems.

There are problems in the "old" approach and that is why there is always so much disagreement on how to teach this, because both ideas were correct.

Now in the FMC airplanes it is confirmed that there are two ways of controlling altitude and two ways of controlling airspeed and both must be used. This I done through the role reversals of pitch and power modes. All this must be true or how could the FMC equipped airplanes fly so perfectly.

Look at what "Flybiewire" says, quote:

I’m sure there are going to be exceptions to any rule but I like the concept of the role reversal of power and pitch as the Modes change.

He's only 15-years old and he gets it perfectly. Smart boy.

 

[MauleSkinner]

New students can learn any way you want to teach them. But even though their are holes in Wolfgang's "Stick & Rudder" approach to this, people do learn notwithstanding those problems.

There are problems in the "old" approach and that is why there is always so much disagreement on how to teach this, because both ideas were correct.

Now in the FMC airplanes it is confirmed that there are two ways of controlling altitude and two ways of controlling airspeed and both must be used. This I done through the role reversals of pitch and power modes. All this must be true or how could the FMC equipped airplanes fly so perfectly.

Look at what "Flybiewire" says, quote:


He's only 15-years old and he gets it perfectly. Smart boy.

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

 

[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.