"Seat of the pants"

[Folding_Expert]

I only have a few hours logged, so this may seem like a pretty dumb question.

I keep hearing the phrase "flying by the seat of your pants" and I know what it means, but I have yet to experience this feeling. I know I just started flying and everything is rather new to me, but will it take some time where I won't have to glance at the ball to maintain coordinated turns / other maneuvers?

 

[PaulThomas]

You either have or you don't. I don't believe it's something that can be taught.

Try running with your eyes closed. Can you run straight? If you can and then turn when needed due to the road, that would be doing it by the seat of your pants. You may know to turn because you feel the road going away or because you long it was going to take you to get there and turned (if you counted, it would not be by feelings).

 

[Fury220]

Wow, a whole 50 hours and we've decided that pilotage is born, not taught. Whateva, man...I could teach a monkey to fly a cessna from point A to point B.



Here's the deal: Flying "by the seat of your pants" is often used as a euphemism for flying by feeling. Right now, your body knows that you're sitting in a chair with your butt pointed straight down. After years of walking the earth, you know certain things by feel.

Now, when you take your body into the air (where it wasn't really designed to be), your body will try to judge its surroundings in the same way it does when it's on the ground. This works SOMETIMES, but not all the time.

Search google for "spatial disorientation" for the effects of flying by the seat of your pants in instrument conditions. The effects are deadly.

 

[Jmmccutc]

so this may seem like a pretty dumb question.

I keep hearing the phrase "flying by the seat of your pants" and I know what it means, but I have yet to experience this feeling.

not dumb at all...i actually used to ask myself the samething...it took me about 60-70 hours, before i started to "feel" the airplane...before that i was just moving levers arround to make it do what i wanted...it all comes with practice...i noticed it onw day when i was flying i moved the trim wheel and actually noticed that the controlls moved, just a little, but enough to "trim off the pressure" before i just used to zing that wheel arround and hope it ended up somewhere in the ball park of level...

good luck

 

[midlifeflyer]

It takes a while. But it will happen if you let it. "Letting it" means making yourself use your senses (all of them) to know where you are and what you are doing.

Let me ask you: If I put you on a relatively straight section of highway in your car, cover the front window and dash and ask you to stay in the middle of the road at 50 MPH, could you? (Don't try this at home). Chances are that, unless you are a fairly new driver, you could do a fairly good job of it. If you are a newer driver, you could probably do the 50 MPH part pretty well without the speedometer. Through years of driving and, before that, being a passenger and watching other people drive, your senses developed a "picture" of what 50 MPH looked, sounded, and felt like. With the front window covered, your peripheral vision would give you all the clues to need to stay centered.

The only difference with learning to fly is that the exposure is not as long or as great, so we have to consciously teach ourselves to develop those pictures.

 

[Lead Sled]

It takes a while. But it will happen if you let it. "Letting it" means making yourself use your senses (all of them) to know where you are and what you are doing.

This my be stretching it a bit, but if you've ever flown an R/C airplane you'll understand what I'm saying. We've all seen guys (pilots) who show up at the field with their shiney new scale model (FILL IN THE BLANK) and within just a few minutes they always seem to manage to return it to kit form. You'd think that a pilot would be able to jump right in and fly one of those little critters - after all, they know what everything does and of course they've got X amount of flying hours, etc, etc, etc. It doesn't work that way. They may understand the concepts involved, but they're also used to feeling those subtle pressures and sensations encountered as they manipulate the controls. As others have mentioned, this is also one of the issues that you have to deal with when you start working on your instrument rating. Up until that point in your flying career you've been told to keep your eyes outside - looking for traffic. Over a period of time, you've come to equate certain feelingings in your "backside" with certain aircraft attitudes, positions, and manuevers. Once you start staring at the gauges your body will start trying to tell you things that aren't necessarily so. One of the big things that an instrument student has to learn is how to suppress and control those feelings. Flying by the seat of your pants is either good or bad depending upon the situation. Have fun, enjoy the process, and don't worry about it. It will all come together.

'Sled

 

[Goose Egg]

Hey Folding Expert,

I've got to know what your avatar is.

Anyway, I still glance at the ball every now and then, but it is usually in the center. It is something that comes with experience. As an instructor, I'd much rather have you checking the ball periodically than just flying it uncoordinated. I didn't really start to pick up the feel for it until around 400 hours.

-Goose

 

[Buffettpilot]

Leadsled, the longest paragraph I have seen (just kidding, but my pops was as a sled driver).

Flying by the seat of your pants......just an ob today, doing a DME arc to a VOR approach, I notice off the bat the thermal, student notices it about 5 seconds later. Just a feel for what the aircraft is doing, either pitching, rolling, yawing, something you pick up with a few hours under the belt. Some people pick it up easier than others, but what do I know, I listening to Janes Addiction and drinking a rum and coke.

 

[Bjammin]

You have to very careful with all of this "seat of the pants" flying. VFR flying with little or no horizon can be just as dangeous as solid IFR.

A little medical background on what happens to your senses:

There is fluid in your inner ear that stays still as your head moves around it. The movement of your head is picked up by little hairs in the fluid. So when starting a turn, climb, or descent you body can sense it no problem. When there is a horizon your eyes also tell your brain whats going on outside thus backing up your inner ear senses.

The bad stuff happens with no horizon. After a long duration turn, climb or descent the fluid in the inner ear will catch up to your haed. It can trick the mind into thinking that you are no longing turning, climbing or descending. Then when you roll out of the turn, or stop the climb or descent, your mind will think you have started another turn, climb, or descent and you will tend to go back to the original orientation. The feeling in you butt dosent work during these senerios because gravitational feelings can be in any direction when turning. This all can add up to becomming very "spatially disorientated" and you can end up on the dirt or water, (JFK junior).

Be very careful when flying in poor weather conditions with little instrument experience.

Bottom line, trust you instruments, NOT YOUR SEAT, and be aware of what the body is doing to screw you up. If you have another pilot on board tell them you are having difficulty and have them back you up on the artificial horizon.

good luck,
bjammin

 

[Singlecoil]

Interesting thread.

Back when I was an instructor it went something like this:

Flying by the seat of your pants is how you know if the aircraft is coordinated (the ball is centered). It will also tell you more quickly as there is a slight lag in the ball. You then go up and demonstrate how this works. In straight and level fight, start feeding in a lot of rudder in one direction, say left. At the same time, feed in opposite aileron, right, to keep the wings level. You will notice that you feel pressure on the right side of your lower back, right about near your beltline. That means you need right rudder. Repeat the maneuver with right rudder and left aileron to demonstrate how that pressure feeling moves from right to left. Try it again with more subtle cross-control inputs and notice that the pressure on your back is also more subtle.
You can also watch the ball when you do this and you will notice that the pressure shows up on your back before the ball indicates a deflection, since there is a slight lag in the instrument.

I have flown with a lot of airline pilots who have never had this demonstrated and cannot feel the airplane at all. Take a Dash-8, pull the power back to idle, and your left foot better be moving. A lot of pilots just sit there, then start reaching for the rudder trim, which is the wrong technique. It isn't the pilots fault, it just demonstrates that they have had poor primary instruction and their only twin time was in a bird with counter-rotating props.