What is a Ham Fisted Pilot

[chrisk]

With turbo engines in particular, I see lots of comments about Ham Fisted Pilots.  Some things are are obviously not good:  Over boost, over temperature, and 100% power at peak mixture. Others appear to be more controversial:  Shock Cooling, and ground cool down of the turbo.  And others urban legend:  Reduce MP by no more than one inch per minute.

 

What qualifies as Ham Fisted?

[jetdriven]

Maybe i'm ham fisted. I leave the throttle firewalled until 2 miles from the airport, take 5 seconds to set it to 20", and then a minute later set it to 17" on downwind, put out the gear, and reduce it again to ~12" to land.

 

I don't do that to hot-running turbo motors.

[HopePilot]

I wonder if you have some special tricks for slowing down?  If I left it firewalled until two miles from the airport, I'd zip right by?  Just curious.

[fantom]

Herky jerky on the controls rather than smooth and coordinated, like most of us

Think of a hand on the throttle in the shape of a ham....ugly....but can be effective in a pinch.

[201er]

[carusoam]

I thought Gary was going to provide the funny graphics!

Best regards,

-a-

[AndyFromCB]

I wonder if you have some special tricks for slowing down?  If I left it firewalled until two miles from the airport, I'd zip right by?  Just curious.

 

Prop full in, power out to 20" 2 miles out always gets me down to below gear speed (140) in about 30 seconds once level right as I join the downwind. Gear down gets me to 110 flap speed in the next 30 seconds. Never had issues slowing down with the 3 bladed prop. Maybe two blades are different. I go full flaps and 17" once abeam the numbers which will put me right at about 75knots over the numbers, then about two twists out, level off, power out, flare. I usually chew up 2,500 feet landing without hard breaking but that's because I keep some power in until I flare. Had the bottom drop out from underneath me too many times to go idle at 50 feet.

 

Funny how all Mooneys kind of fly the same, J and my Bravo use almost same power settings.

 

As to being ham fisted, unless flying in the kind of environment where I need to be doing 160 until on final, I tend to be the 2inch a minute kind of guy on descents. I'm still recovering from the overhaul check writing process;-) 

[jetdriven]

I wonder if you have some special tricks for slowing down?  If I left it firewalled until two miles from the airport, I'd zip right by?  Just curious.

 

Not really, just aerodynamics.  Total drag is very high at speeds near 200 MPH. The Mooney has a strong pitch down when it slows a little, which means you are still going 196 knots on base, descending, and not slowing down. Try this, keep full cruise speed until it shows 3.0 NM to the center of the airport while you are on a 45 for downwind entry.  Be at pattern altitude.  This is the secret.  Then, over the span of 5 seconds or so, bring the throttle to 22" MP without touching the mixture. Then ignore all that and concentrate on holding pattern altitude.  It takes a lot of trim.  Let it slow.  2 miles takes a little over a minute or so, and this is just about the time you get to gear speed.  At 125 knots bring the MP back again to 17"  Turn downwind about this point, and extend the gear when it looks right you will be abeam the numbers at 90 knots. Abeam the numbers ops normal.  Report back.

 

For a straight in, get down to pattern altitude by the 7 NM to threshold point. Usually this is 7.5 NM from the GPS-calculated airport center. make the big power reduction there. At 3.5NM begin the 3 degree descent.

 

Since I am a LOP dude, CHT in a real fast descent is around 330. I always watch it. It cools to 310 by the abeam numbers point, and is around 290 on landing.  No abusing the engine, no rapid cooling, and the prop is always pulling the airplane forward.

 

The other day I made a bet I could get two guys over to West Houston and back (From T41 Laporte) in 45 minutes. Coming back I was a little late, too much bullshitting after I dropped those guys off. Time to turn it up. That required extra measures. There is cold beer in the fridge at the shop and I'm gettign my share of it while Bob pays.  So I am on a 2 mile left base at 500 AGL at 180 knots IAS and the groundspeed is 196 knots. Set power to 20" while doing a zoom climb to 1000' gets it slow enough to put the gear and full flaps out. The landng was normal.

 

Combine this stuff with the target EGT constant 125 knot IAS climb and you can block 145-150 knots on a 1 hour flight in a M20J. This is takeoff to touchdown.

 

Before I knew how to do this I had some spectacular failures.

[jlunseth]

To me, the ham fisted turbo pilot is someone who is used to firewalling the throttle on takeoff, because that is how you fly an NA aircraft, and then does that with a turbo like the 231, which will produce I am guessing around 46" of MP (max is 40").  If you want to be even more ham fisted, you could forget to set the mixture at full rich before takeoff, or decide that you should fly the turbo like an NA aircraft and lean for takeoff from a high altitude airport.  It will be just dandy how fast the engine will get to around 470 CHT's and a TIT in the 1800 range.  Keep it up for awhile and you could turn into a molten lump of metal before the descent terminates.  Good imitation of a meteor.

 

Cooling is not the big deal it was once thought to be, but there is a way to use cooling to fly ham fisted in a turbo.  Just throttle to idle when you are at altitude and descend for a couple of minutes, when you have had enough of that, apply full power.  Your CHT's will be in the 100's, well below minimum redline, and the OT will be under 100 also.  This time you probably won't have a chance to turn into a ball of molten metal, you will probably get a chance to practice your power off, off field landing skills when the engine declines to cooperate further.

[N201MKTurbo]

It is like that judge said about porn, "I can't describe it, but I'll know it when I see it"

[kmyfm20s]

Adj. 1. ham-fisted - lacking physical movement skills, especially with the hands; "a bumbling mechanic"; "a bungling performance"; "ham-handed governmental interference"; "could scarcely empty a scuttle of ashes, so handless was the poor creature"- Mary H. Vorse

bumbling, butterfingered, ham-handed, heavy-handed, handless, bungling, left-handed

maladroit - not adroit; "a maladroit movement of his hand caused the car to swerve"; "a maladroit translation"; "maladroit propaganda"

[aviatoreb]

Maladroit! There it is! Nuf said.

[Shadrach]

Maladroit! There it is! Nuf said.

Points for vocabulary!

[Guest]

"Ham Fisted" might also be described as a "driver" rather than a pilot.

Clarence

[Ned Gravel]

Carence:

 

Unless, in our typical humble Mooney aviator fashion, we are trying to understate our vaunted appointments to the cockpit of a Mooney and call ourselves "Mooney Drivers".....

 

but you and I have already had that conversation.

[DonMuncy]

One of the aviation mags recently had a an article about the difference between a pilot and an aviator. So is the skill level driver, then pilot, then aviator. If I call myself an aviator, does that make my flying better. If I call myself a driver, does that decrease my skills. Maybe we don't get to decide our status. Maybe it should be decided by our peers. That might be a problem. If others go to vote about my level, they might have to invent something below driver.

[Marauder]

One thing I have noticed is that professional pilots are not immune from being ham fisted either. With the number of hours I have on commercial airlines, I have gotten pretty good at gauging the difference. The guy who is on a visual, sets the power and leaves it until touchdown gets my vote as an aviator. The guy who is spooling up and down is not. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[fantom]

One thing I have noticed is that professional pilots are not immune from being ham fisted either.

 

Nor are military fighter pilots.......

 

Heck, there are probably ham fisted dentists also.

[Marauder]

Nor are military fighter pilots.......

Heck, there are probably ham fisted dentists also.

You're too funny. I got to get down to Florida and do some drinking with you.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[jetdriven]

One thing I have noticed is that professional pilots are not immune from being ham fisted either. With the number of hours I have on commercial airlines, I have gotten pretty good at gauging the difference. The guy who is on a visual, sets the power and leaves it until touchdown gets my vote as an aviator. The guy who is spooling up and down is not.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

On a lot of modern jet transports you don't disconnect the autothrottles even on a visual hand flown approach. At mid to low power settings it takes large changes of N1 I make small differences in thrust.

I don't like hand flying with auto throttles engaged but Asiana is evidence of what can happen. Usually you stall it after a level-off on descent.

[Bob_Belville]

Pick me up on the way down. (I don't have my ride yet...)

[triple8s]

Id say a ham fisted dentist would have to have big mouthed patients now would'nt he?????