Learning to Land your Mooney

[donkaye, MCFI]

Too Bad!! Something happened to the previous thread of this title.  Craig McGregor who administers this list doesn't know what happened to it.

At any rate I had one more thing to add so I started this thread.  Here was that I intended to post to that thread.

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For many years I had a specific point of view regarding the Pitch/Power debate.  The problem is that Pitch and Power are related when controlling the airplane.

My point of view now is that there should be no debate.  At any point in the flight just determine which is the most important factor related to what you want to control, airspeed or rate of climb or descent and choose pitch as the primary control for that factor (since it is immediate) and power to control the secondary factor.

So, for example, when flying the ILS, slope is most important at airspeeds not near the stall, so pitch would control slope and power would control the airspeed.  When on final approach and slowing to near stall, transition to control airspeed with pitch and rate of descent with power.  Could you point the nose at the aim point and control airspeed with power?  Yes, but because of the long chain of mechanical linkages used to control power, the speed at which the airspeed could be controlled  lags considerably from the former approach.

In the end either pitch or power can control airspeed or rate of climb or descent.  The more elegant solution to a given situation is to use pitch as the primary control for whatever is most important to you in a given situation and power for the other.

[peevee]

Pitch is airspeed. Power is altitude. This should have been beat into anyone's head in ppl training when learning to land. 

[201er]

Actually the right answer is angle of attack.

[Shadrach]

2 hours ago, peevee said:

Pitch is airspeed. Power is altitude. This should have been beat into anyone's head in ppl training when learning to land. 

It has been beaten into everyone's head, and it's good practice for a new pilot. However, as one gets into more advanced flying (Instrument approaches, ATC assigned speeds etc) it does not always work. The reality is pitch and power work in conjunction (or as a stand alone) to reach a desired space at a desired velocity. They can be interchangeable; a surplus of one can make up for a deficit of the other.

[peevee]

Just now, Shadrach said:

It has been beaten into everyone's head, and it's good practice for a new pilot. However, as one gets into more advanced flying (Instrument approaches, ATC assigned speeds etc) it does not always work. The reality is pitch and power work in conjunction (or as a stand alone) to reach a desired space at a desired velocity. They can be interchangeable; a surplus of one can make up for a deficit of the other.

You can trade one for the other but excess hp is your climb, at its root that's the most basic. 

[ArtVandelay]

Pitch is for quick but short term changes, power is slow but long term. I use pitch to stay on glide slope and power to adjust speed.

[Yetti]

Adjust your downwind turn to the winds of the day and the pitch power debate becomes less of an issue.

[PTK]

15 hours ago, peevee said:

Pitch is airspeed. Power is altitude. This should have been beat into anyone's head in ppl training when learning to land. 

If you're saying that only pitch controls the airplane's movement in the x-axis,  i.e. speed, and only power controls it in the y-axis, i.e. vertical height, I must respectfully disagree. The two are linked and can't be separated. They are parts of one system which obeys one energy equation. The energy of the system can be increased by adding power or by decreasing height. Adjusting pitch affects movement about both x and y axes.

Take the example of a car going down a hill. What controls speed down the hill? Both steepness of the hill and how much you step on the accelerator pedal. Same energy equation at play.

[BDPetersen]

After 53 years as CFI I finally realize how very complicated this flying business is. I'm reminded of the time in the simulator about to take off when the Left Seat started pumping the elevator vigorously back and forth and said to the Right Seat "Ok, when I get some airspeed you push up those thrust levers and give us some altitude."

[Glenn]

I think that that pretty well clears it up.

[Jeff_S]

And to think, Don was trying to stop the debate. Ha!

[donkaye, MCFI]

2 hours ago, BDPetersen said:

After 53 years as CFI I finally realize how very complicated this flying business is. I'm reminded of the time in the simulator about to take off when the Left Seat started pumping the elevator vigorously back and forth and said to the Right Seat "Ok, when I get some airspeed you push up those thrust levers and give us some altitude."

My comments referred to "Any phase of FLIGHT".  This hardly qualifies.

[Jeff_S]

I took BD's comment as a joke, and a pretty funny one at that. But Don, are you saying that taking off isn't a phase of FLIGHT? Is that why BD's comment doesn't fit into the theory?

[donkaye, MCFI]

Just now, Jeff_S said:

I took BD's comment as a joke, and a pretty funny one at that. But Don, are you saying that taking off isn't a phase of FLIGHT? Is that why BD's comment doesn't fit into the theory?

No, just sitting on the runway pumping the yoke isn't flying, so pitch controlled by the yoke in that situation obviously won't work.

[OR75]

the end game is a soft landing and no engine shock cooling

 

[Andy95W]

9 hours ago, PTK said:

Take the example of a car going down a hill. What controls speed down the hill? Both steepness of the hill and how much you step on the accelerator pedal. Same energy equation at play.

Peter- how dare you try to introduce logic into this discussion.

[BDPetersen]

I assure you it was purely tongue- in- cheek. No disrespect. I have already liked donkayes post.

[Mooneymite]

Gee.....will it ever end?

Thank goodness the Wright brothers were not concerned with such things.

[Shadrach]

19 hours ago, peevee said:

You can trade one for the other but excess hp is your climb, at its root that's the most basic. 

Excess energy is your climb strictly speaking. There is more to the story than just HP.  Mr. Hoover has been demonstrating this for years.

[Marauder]

2 hours ago, BDPetersen said:

I assure you it was purely tongue- in- cheek. No disrespect. I have already liked donkayes post.

I thought it was pretty funny!

[Cruiser]

there are only four forces at work here, aerodynamically speaking.......... 

Mr. Newton said that if you change one, the other three have to adjust to bring equality back in play. 

[Bob - S50]

With all due respect to all parties...

1.  Any change in one (power or pitch) will have an affect on the other and the pilot must be prepared to deal with it.

2.  The ONLY time you MUST use pitch for speed control is when you have minimum (idle or engine failure) or maximum power.

3.  All other times a pilot may choose to use either pitch or power to control speed and altitude.

4.  I prefer to use the same technique all the time, not change depending on the situation (except as noted in #2 above).  Therefore, I use power for speed and pitch for altitude.  It's worked for my 19,000 hours so far.  I use the yoke to make the airplane line up with the runway and to maintain the glideslope whether that be electronic or via eyeball.  I use power to make the airplane give me the speed I want (to the best of my 64 year old ability).

5.  MAKE the airplane do what you want.  You fly it, it doesn't fly you.  If you don't like what you see, do something about it using whatever technique you like.

Just my opinion.

Bob

[donkaye, MCFI]

1 hour ago, Bob - S50 said:

With all due respect to all parties...

1.  Any change in one (power or pitch) will have an affect on the other and the pilot must be prepared to deal with it.

2.  The ONLY time you MUST use pitch for speed control is when you have minimum (idle or engine failure) or maximum power.

3.  All other times a pilot may choose to use either pitch or power to control speed and altitude.

4.  I prefer to use the same technique all the time, not change depending on the situation (except as noted in #2 above).  Therefore, I use power for speed and pitch for altitude.  It's worked for my 19,000 hours so far.  I use the yoke to make the airplane line up with the runway and to maintain the glideslope whether that be electronic or via eyeball.  I use power to make the airplane give me the speed I want (to the best of my 64 year old ability).

5.  MAKE the airplane do what you want.  You fly it, it doesn't fly you.  If you don't like what you see, do something about it using whatever technique you like.

Just my opinion.

Bob

Also, with all due respect:

Questions:

1. Suppose your flight instructor asked you to precisely maintain a climb rate of 500 ft/min (not 1 foot off) and an airspeed secondarily of 90 knots.  What would you use to control the rate precisely?

2.  Suppose your flight instructor asked to to maintain an airspeed of exactly 59 knots (not 1 foot off) and exactly 5,000 feet altitude.  What would control the airspeed primarily?

[bradp]

The space shuttle used power for both airspeed and altitude.  ;-)

[ArtVandelay]

Airspeed is always secondary in real flying (power off stalls don't count because you only do these in practice, I hope). Even landings where it's important to control speed, it's more important to control altitude.

Even if you're transitioning to restrictive airspace that has a speed limit, it's not something that you can't anticipate and requires a quick response.