Advanced air speed stall warning thought

[nels]

I know some of you guys think an audible voice command at stall or gear up warning is for sissies but to clear it up, the reason I installed it is I wear foam ear plugs under my noise cancelling headsets and really don’t always hear the horns. I deifinitley hear the voice warnings through the headset.

[carusoam]

Lets face it...

A stall horn...

• gets mis-interpreted...
• is easy to have it mis-calibrate, over time...
• goes unheard for months at a time...
• mine got stuck once, now it gets tested prior to every flight...

When it works properly... It is a single binary point of data... on or off...

Great when you know you are slow and banking...

 

What is missing...

• There is no hint of deteriorating conditions...
• no hint that you are slowing quickly...
• no hint your bank is increasing...

When you are on your A-game, ahead of the plane...

• the stall horn is all you need.
• you are expecting it.
• you make adjustments..

When you are not on your A-game, you may not recognize a bunch of obvious hints... then a noise arises... hope you recognize it, and make immediate adjustments...

 

The nice thing about an AOAi... you can see where you are on a continuous indicator. If you get it wrong, the stall horn will blare...

So...

The AOAi works, a nice visual indicator.  It doesn’t eliminate the stall warning... or the Airspeed indicator...

Having an AOAi doesn’t relieve the pilot from memorizing the basic parts of the stall speed, weight, bank angle chart... and how all these variable interact... and setting personal limits...

PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

Nels,   in the case of the Wildcat... it was a single point binary warning... that alarmed at the point where the set speed was  broken.... ask for more. A smart device that gives a clear warning with enough time for the human reaction time to occur... personalized!  

Best regards,

-a-

 

[steingar]

On 8/24/2018 at 7:24 PM, Yetti said:

You are not backing the accident chain far enough back.  Saying you did great ADM too far down the chain is not great ADM.   Your skills are rusty and your equipment is in bad shape.  Should have stopped right there.   Once you "could not hear the tower".  Should have flown the pattern and put it down on light guns and called it a night.

Anyone who flies after being off two weeks is showing bad ADM? Anyone who flies with intermittent radio gremlins is exhibiting poor ADM? You obviously don’t get out much.

Speaking of not getting out much, you are not allowed to land in controlled airspace with either hearing the words “cleared to land” or having received the appropriate light gun signals, absent an emergency. I was watching for the light gun, by the way, but never saw it. Then again, I didnt know I was going to be NORDO, so why should he?  Smart money was on acting predictable and getting out of dodge.

Truth be told, I really left the airplane because I thought I could score a hangar there and I knew it would be easier to fly out of there to get my aircraft to the avionics shop. I’d have left it there sans hangar had we not had a forecast for storms. But when the hangar fell through I relocated her back to my hangar NORDO and all. I’ll probably make arrangements to fly her back out that way, hopefully for the last time.

i do know guys who only fly on calm clear blue days in perfectly functional equipment. They’re all atrocious pilots because they don’t fly emough.

[Yetti]

You are midfield, the tower knows were you are and lost comms procedures says you should land "as soon as practical".   Turn the transponder to 7600 and fly the pattern is the way to act predictable since that was your last known intention.  The Controllers will move people out of the way.    Instead you chose to bug out while still in their airspace with them having no clue what you are doing.  How did you know they were not bringing someone in on base?   Then you are going to go land with no comms at some other field risking other pilots to bend metal.

There is also a FAR for lost comms that you might want to review.  

§ 91.185 IFR operations: Two-way radio communications failure.

(a)General. Unless otherwise authorized by ATC, each pilot who has two-way radio communications failure when operating under IFR shall comply with the rules of this section.

(b)VFR conditions. If the failure occurs in VFR conditions, or if VFR conditions are encountered after the failure, each pilot shall continue the flight under VFR and land as soon as practicable.

Just because you could not hear, maybe you were still transmitting so use the transmit in the blind process.

So yes Hazardous attitude and poor ADM

[jlunseth]

On 8/24/2018 at 10:29 PM, nels said:

I know some of you guys think an audible voice command at stall or gear up warning is for sissies but to clear it up, the reason I installed it is I wear foam ear plugs under my noise cancelling headsets and really don’t always hear the horns. I deifinitley hear the voice warnings through the headset.

I am an old guy so I have some high frequency hearing loss.  I installed an aural alert system.  Let me tell you, "STALL STALL" gets your attention alot better than a teeny little high pitched squeak.  It is an "advanced stall warning" because the stall horn activates about 10 knots above stall, not at stall.

I have some strong opinions on landing and takeoff stalls.  The formula, if you want to fly a landing stall and try screwing it into the ground, is to follow the advice that we hear during PPL and later.  Even AOPA writes about it constantly.  "Fly a tight pattern."  So we have guys in fast airplanes who fly a pattern at 120 knots with the runway tucked under the wing.  This puts us in the perfect position to make a tight base to final and, having blown through the final, to put a little left rudder into it to get the nose aimed at the runway.  That creates a great little accelerated skid stall so you probably don't even have to wait one full turn to see what the ground feels like. If you are going to learn a flying lesson you might as well be quick about it. In school planes like Warriors and Slohawks, you can do tight patterns like that because the speeds are all lower and so is stall speed, and instructors like to teach it because maybe those school planes are not maintained quite the way they should be and the instructor has seen some of the problems that result.  In the older Mooneys the same is probably true, you can fly a tighter pattern.  But in a J or newer its too easy to carry too much speed into the pattern and if you are tight, you will someday get to practice a skid stall.  Not everyday perhaps, but someday when the crosswind blows you way through final, you are low, and you work a little harder than usual to get it back to the runway.  My standard pattern is .75-1 mile from the runway, not closer, and yes, I can make a power off 180 from there if necessary.

On takeoff stalls, if the cause is an engine out the only thing you can do about it is have quick reactions and get the nose down.  But the whole idea of performance takeoffs is part of the problem.  If you are doing a short field takeoff and climb over the classic 50 foot obstacle you do not have much margin above stall speed, and the aircraft is in an attitude where it will very quickly lose speed.  There are certainly circumstances where they are appropriate and necessary, but not for everyday.  For every day climb out I like to get to Best Glide, which in my aircraft is 85, and maintain that until I am well above "turn-back" altitude, which is about 1,000 AGL.  My home airport, KFCM, sits on a plateau, and every once in awhile, doing a south takeoff over the edge of the plateau, I have seen instant airspeed drops of more than 10-15 knots.  It is due to downslope air currents.  You don't want to be climbing out near your stall speed just because you can, and run into help like that.  

[nels]

31 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

I am an old guy so I have some high frequency hearing loss.  I installed an aural alert system.  Let me tell you, "STALL STALL" gets your attention alot better than a teeny little high pitched squeak.  It is an "advanced stall warning" because the stall horn activates about 10 knots above stall, not at stall.

I have some strong opinions on landing and takeoff stalls.  The formula, if you want to fly a landing stall and try screwing it into the ground, is to follow the advice that we hear during PPL and later.  Even AOPA writes about it constantly.  "Fly a tight pattern."  So we have guys in fast airplanes who fly a pattern at 120 knots with the runway tucked under the wing.  This puts us in the perfect position to make a tight base to final and, having blown through the final, to put a little left rudder into it to get the nose aimed at the runway.  That creates a great little accelerated skid stall so you probably don't even have to wait one full turn to see what the ground feels like. If you are going to learn a flying lesson you might as well be quick about it. In school planes like Warriors and Slohawks, you can do tight patterns like that because the speeds are all lower and so is stall speed, and instructors like to teach it because maybe those school planes are not maintained quite the way they should be and the instructor has seen some of the problems that result.  In the older Mooneys the same is probably true, you can fly a tighter pattern.  But in a J or newer its too easy to carry too much speed into the pattern and if you are tight, you will someday get to practice a skid stall.  Not everyday perhaps, but someday when the crosswind blows you way through final, you are low, and you work a little harder than usual to get it back to the runway.  My standard pattern is .75-1 mile from the runway, not closer, and yes, I can make a power off 180 from there if necessary.

On takeoff stalls, if the cause is an engine out the only thing you can do about it is have quick reactions and get the nose down.  But the whole idea of performance takeoffs is part of the problem.  If you are doing a short field takeoff and climb over the classic 50 foot obstacle you do not have much margin above stall speed, and the aircraft is in an attitude where it will very quickly lose speed.  There are certainly circumstances where they are appropriate and necessary, but not for everyday.  For every day climb out I like to get to Best Glide, which in my aircraft is 85, and maintain that until I am well above "turn-back" altitude, which is about 1,000 AGL.  My home airport, KFCM, sits on a plateau, and every once in awhile, doing a south takeoff over the edge of the plateau, I have seen instant airspeed drops of more than 10-15 knots.  It is due to downslope air currents.  You don't want to be climbing out near your stall speed just because you can, and run into help like that.  

We must be related!

[jlunseth]

1 hour ago, nels said:

We must be related!

Er du norsk også, nels?

[nels]

No. German, Italian, Welch and Irish ... that I know about.

[jlunseth]

Family legend has it that one of my Viking ancestors stole a wife from Ireland, that must have been it. 

[steingar]

On 8/25/2018 at 11:42 PM, Yetti said:

(b)VFR conditions. If the failure occurs in VFR conditions, or if VFR conditions are encountered after the failure, each pilot shall continue the flight under VFR and land as soon as practicable.

I'm based at a fairly busy airport.  During the last transmission i could receive I was informed that I'd be number 2 for landing, and I hadn't yet spotted the other guys.  You do ahead and land, good luck with the arriving traffic.  Me, I'll peel out, find an quiet uncontrolled strip and work the problem.  I did land as soon as practicable, since I didn't want to land a towered field without expressed landing clearance.  Like I said, airplanes fly just fine without radios.  They fly poorly when being flown by distracted pilots.

With any luck in a couple days I'll be able to putts whole sad episode behind me.  With any luck...

[jlunseth]

1 hour ago, steingar said:

I'm based at a fairly busy airport.  During the last transmission i could receive I was informed that I'd be number 2 for landing, and I hadn't yet spotted the other guys.  You do ahead and land, good luck with the arriving traffic.  Me, I'll peel out, find an quiet uncontrolled strip and work the problem.  I did land as soon as practicable, since I didn't want to land a towered field without expressed landing clearance.  Like I said, airplanes fly just fine without radios.  They fly poorly when being flown by distracted pilots.

With any luck in a couple days I'll be able to putts whole sad episode behind me.  With any luck...

Its been posted here before so maybe you are aware, but it is possible to contact tower via cellphone.  That works especially well if you have a bluetooth headset that connects to your phone.  I had to come into a Delta within Bravo airspace once while an airshow was going on.  I called my FBO to get tower's number, and the rest of it went smoothly.  It may also be in the AFD, haven't looked in awhile.  I did what you suggested first, I landed at an uncontrolled strip, called tower, got the whole thing orchestrated, and went in.  There were only about 30 planes, warplanes, etc. on the tarmac waiting to see if I would muff the landing.

[steingar]

3 hours ago, jlunseth said:

Its been posted here before so maybe you are aware, but it is possible to contact tower via cellphone.  

If you pull out your cell  phone while on downwind with balky radios I don't want to fly anywhere near you.  The next day, when I was no longer stressed out about lost comms on downwind, I did indeed phone the tower at my home drome and let them know the score.  Thankfully I got my landing clearance ten miles out while I still had comms.  Still, they knew who I was and were ready for me.  I like that way better than trying to slip in NORDO without a landing clearance.  Might be the legal thing to do, but it just doesn't sound particularly smart to me.

You don't absolutley have to be anywhere.  If the safer course of action is to land elsewhere, do it.  The only negative consequence of my decision was a little more burned avgas and my airplane sat tied down outside overnight.  I can't even fathom why  you're making a deal of it.

[aggiepilot04]

When I transitioned from the J into the TN, my instructor had me pull the power out on downwind so that I could hear what the gear "warning horn" sounded like.  When she started squawking "check gear, check gear," he looked over with a smirk and said "Any questions?"  There are other horns and beeps and bells and whistles that took me a bit longer to figure out (beeps climbing through certain altitudes or within 1,000 ft of target altitude, brief CO warnings, AOA beeping on approach, etc), but the stall and gear voice annunciations are completely unmistakeable...even when the workload is high in an unfamiliar aircraft.  As a side note though, the terrain voice warning is unmistakeable AND unsettling when you're just above minimums in the soup.  I found that out the hard way yesterday while out getting in some instrument work.  Fortunately I was solo, because I'm sure that would have been traumatizing as a passenger...and even if it wasn't, witnessing the PIC (almost) need a change of pants would have been.

[aggiepilot04]

And by completely unmistakeable, I mean as completely unmistakeable as they can be.  I felt an overwhelming need to knock on wood almost immediately after hitting submit.

[jlunseth]

20 hours ago, aggiepilot04 said:

When I transitioned from the J into the TN, my instructor had me pull the power out on downwind so that I could hear what the gear "warning horn" sounded like.  When she started squawking "check gear, check gear," he looked over with a smirk and said "Any questions?"  There are other horns and beeps and bells and whistles that took me a bit longer to figure out (beeps climbing through certain altitudes or within 1,000 ft of target altitude, brief CO warnings, AOA beeping on approach, etc), but the stall and gear voice annunciations are completely unmistakeable...even when the workload is high in an unfamiliar aircraft.  As a side note though, the terrain voice warning is unmistakeable AND unsettling when you're just above minimums in the soup.  I found that out the hard way yesterday while out getting in some instrument work.  Fortunately I was solo, because I'm sure that would have been traumatizing as a passenger...and even if it wasn't, witnessing the PIC (almost) need a change of pants would have been.

The one that gets passengers is when you are right above the runway and you hear “Stall, Stall.”. I always have to explain, that is how it is supposed to be.

[gsxrpilot]

With my M20C, I pulled the bitch out and sold her to another Mooney owner on the field who needed her more than I. He and his partners had gear-up'd their Mooney three times collectively.  I just didn't like the STALL! STALL! on landing every time.

With the 252 it's much more civilized. As I slow to 80 knots, Sam Elliott, comes on and just says "The gear is down for landing."

[81X]

On 8/26/2018 at 2:49 PM, jlunseth said:

I am an old guy so I have some high frequency hearing loss.  I installed an aural alert system.  Let me tell you, "STALL STALL" gets your attention alot better than a teeny little high pitched squeak.  It is an "advanced stall warning" because the stall horn activates about 10 knots above stall, not at stall.

I have some strong opinions on landing and takeoff stalls.  The formula, if you want to fly a landing stall and try screwing it into the ground, is to follow the advice that we hear during PPL and later.  Even AOPA writes about it constantly.  "Fly a tight pattern."  So we have guys in fast airplanes who fly a pattern at 120 knots with the runway tucked under the wing.  This puts us in the perfect position to make a tight base to final and, having blown through the final, to put a little left rudder into it to get the nose aimed at the runway.  That creates a great little accelerated skid stall so you probably don't even have to wait one full turn to see what the ground feels like. If you are going to learn a flying lesson you might as well be quick about it. In school planes like Warriors and Slohawks, you can do tight patterns like that because the speeds are all lower and so is stall speed, and instructors like to teach it because maybe those school planes are not maintained quite the way they should be and the instructor has seen some of the problems that result.  In the older Mooneys the same is probably true, you can fly a tighter pattern.  But in a J or newer its too easy to carry too much speed into the pattern and if you are tight, you will someday get to practice a skid stall.  Not everyday perhaps, but someday when the crosswind blows you way through final, you are low, and you work a little harder than usual to get it back to the runway.  My standard pattern is .75-1 mile from the runway, not closer, and yes, I can make a power off 180 from there if necessary.

On takeoff stalls, if the cause is an engine out the only thing you can do about it is have quick reactions and get the nose down.  But the whole idea of performance takeoffs is part of the problem.  If you are doing a short field takeoff and climb over the classic 50 foot obstacle you do not have much margin above stall speed, and the aircraft is in an attitude where it will very quickly lose speed.  There are certainly circumstances where they are appropriate and necessary, but not for everyday.  For every day climb out I like to get to Best Glide, which in my aircraft is 85, and maintain that until I am well above "turn-back" altitude, which is about 1,000 AGL.  My home airport, KFCM, sits on a plateau, and every once in awhile, doing a south takeoff over the edge of the plateau, I have seen instant airspeed drops of more than 10-15 knots.  It is due to downslope air currents.  You don't want to be climbing out near your stall speed just because you can, and run into help like that.  

Completely agree with the wide pattern.  It seems as if many more people are having stall-spin accidents (almost always fatal) opposed to those who have a power loss in the pattern (usually very survivable).  Nice, shallow turns when slowing down to land is a recipe to land on the airplane's wheels (or at least flat on the belly for those who prefer gear up landings) and not spiraling in.  Even for trainer type aircraft, it's easy to crank in 45 degrees of bank to keep yourself from blowing through final if you're running a tight pattern, which is getting really close to an accelerated stall/spin and is still likely to be unrecoverable if you spin it at that altitude.