Flight Instructors Break Down Student Pilot Crashes

[@PilotInstituteAirplanes]

Want to see more? Let us know what you'd like Greg and Tom to watch next! 👀

[@midnightmasterlilly]

can u fly a plane as a student in 1 video:)

[@midnightmasterlilly]

or are u already a pilot?

[@diegodimarco7423]

We need more videos like this. Short and with a lot of information, I love it.

[@jimmydulin928]

Could Greg and Tom look at the common error of using the ailerons, the steering wheel, on short final where we wish to go straight and not turn. If we do not wish to turn, why do we see so many students try to bring the nose, between our legs, back into alignment with coordinated turn (including adverse yaw unless we lead rudder) rather than with the proper yaw of rudder only? We old crop dusters call this common error wing wagging. We teach tail wagging to prevent wing wagging, ie dynamic proactive rudder. This is like riding a bike or balancing a broom on our hand. Adverse yaw sends the nose the wrong way. This is distracting and disruptive for the student. Why do I see the yoke, steering wheel, twist so much in the videos today? I jam my thumb against the bottom of one side of the yoke. When the student tries to crank the steering wheel, hit my thumb, and look over, I tell them to use rudder only. If the problem persists, I have them put their hands in their lap and just walk the rudder pedals dynamically and proactively to keep the centerline between their legs. Yes, it will appear to be between my legs as well as theirs. Longitudinal alignment.

[@FT-64]

I had to laugh when you said that the student needs to get some more landing practice in that plane. Given that gear-up landing, I doubt he'll be flying it again anytime soon! Great discussion of the failed go-around attempt; it seems to show that go-around practice might be a good idea. Shouldn't you treat a go-around like a soft-field landing? Just pull it up into ground effect, level off and then sort out whether you want to try to save the landing or fully go around....?

[@jimmydulin928]

I became an instructor in 1974. Go around, back then, was not the school solution to many solvable problems that could be otherwise solved. The student who bounced the Cessna had almost the whole runway remaining, as you said. For this type bounce, we taught just adding a bit of power and making a soft field type landing on the runway remaining. With plenty of runway available, the excellent glide path and rate of decent control of the dynamic throttle gives the student solid control of the recovery from the bounce. Why was this student obviously encouraged to go around regardless of the situation? The too much pitch up that causes the stall here is a part of the Airmen Certification Standards. Why do we encourage positive rate of climb in VFR conditions? Why is Vy the accepted default pitch attitude for both normal takeoff and for go around? Do the principles in "Stick and Rudder" still apply? Where is the law of the roller coaster? What about Wolfgang's advice to try to hit the tree and then zoom over with the airspeed, not altitude, developed in the free ground effect energy that pitching immediately to Vy throws overboard and rejects. What about Wolfgang's advice to pay attention to what the airplane wants to do. When pitched up or in a turn, what does the airplane want to do? By rejecting these principles, once just called flying, ACS has restricted energy management to just leaning for best rpm and flat pitch for best rpm as fuel energy management is the limit of ACS thinking. Flying was smarter than that in my school solutions prior to the old PTS and now ACS. Flying required more common sense back then. Is this why air safety programs have reduced incidents and accidents but have not reduced fatalities? Power on stall recovery is a high altitude orientation. It is generally not going to happen during the three seconds of startle that are common with inadvertent stalls. This is why stall recovery training is not a priority in Ag instruction, nor should it be the around the airport school solution. Airspeed, and not altitude, is life around the airport except for landing where we need to stall in ground effect. Vso is an out of ground effect number. We need to teach students to pay attention to what the airplane wants to do when pitched up or in a turn. Yes, it wants to lower its nose to prevent, not recover from, stall. If we are so V speed concerned, why do we teach maintaining altitude? Again, what does the airplane want to do? Is it wrong to maintain airspeed rather than maintain altitude? Which is the biggest killer of our students? The active left turning tendencies not factored into airplane design, gyroscopic precession when we bring the tail up (TW airplane) and P factor when we bring the nose up, can be automatically mitigated (in phase rather than out of phase or preventive rather than reactive) by dynamically and proactively walking the rudder pedals to keep/nail/bracket the centerline between our legs. Same on short final. If we are not allowing the nose to come off target other than a controlled dynamic wiggle/bracket, the wing is automatically level or stabilized in set bank angle against any crosswind drift. Why is go around automatically a good thing to do? What if fuel, weather, traffic, or whatever makes go around dangerous? What if go around is actually a high fatality statistic? Will I not eventually have to land?

[@GusHeck]

"What about Wolfgang's advice to try to hit the tree and then zoom over with the airspeed, not altitude, developed in the free ground effect energy that pitching immediately to Vy throws overboard and rejects" - I suspect this one is influenced by noise abatement concerns at some airports. Both the ones I've trained at have strong preference for one pattern or the other (left at one, right at the other to avoid overflying town centers/neighborhoods), expected (published) minimum climb rates and one has a heading to fly as soon as practical after takeoff from one runway. NIMBY neighbors that lobby the town make life harder (and more dangerous).

[@jimmydulin928]

@@GusHeck Two things about this: First I have flown closely around the airport and across many active parallel runways and to jet fuel farms between parallel runways at many Class B airports in a pipeline Cessna 172 at 200' AGL with waiver without complaint. Second the basic level in low ground effect takeoff, with the extra energy of low ground effect, will put us higher (using zoom reserve airspeed) over housing surrounding airports if we wish. By rolling on the surface (big energy loss) until Vy, and then pitching immediately to Vy, we have less total energy available than if we had stayed level in low ground effect until cruise airspeed and then pitched up only to Vcc. Vy pitch attitude is the fastest rate of climb at Vy airspeed. If we get the nose wheel just off as soon as possible and get the mains off as soon as we can fly in low ground effect, and then dynamically and proactively move the yoke to stay level in low ground effect until cruise airspeed, we will be able to attain plenty of altitude (zoom climb if we wish) plenty fast. And we will have safe airspeed for maneuvering, even if the engine quits. Vx or Vy as appropriate are never appropriate at large airports. What about instrument takeoffs. I always put the little airplane wing one wing width above the artificial horizon and checked the VSI for a positive (not lots) rate of climb. I told my crop duster students not to be where she can say, "He went right over the top."

[@GusHeck]

@@jimmydulin928 I'm not suggesting the technique you describe is bad. Merely speculating on a possible reason it's not taught as often.

[@jimmydulin928]

@@GusHeck Sure. I expect you are correct. It is a hard concept to get across to those who fly high all the time. Extra free energy is not attractive until we actually need it...and then we wish we had more energy. Having flown low all my life and having had many engine failures in old Pawnee crop dusters, I actually needed/appreciated it many times. With airspeed, and not altitude from the already low perspective, we have the ability to maneuver to a near hemisphere in front of the wing landing site. It was usually a six second deal. Higher might math out with potential energy traded for airspeed, but in the videos it doesn't seem to work out that way. Too often they quickly get just high enough to kill themselves.

[@spatstat435]

In the second accident when the student applied full power to go around, with full flaps, it's possible they were caught by surprise by the strong upward pitching force, and may have been physically unable to resist it.

[@SteveVon7]

No, because if you look at his elevator control, he was pulling all the way back until the crash