One of those other moments....same idea as Derek here....make certain your wings are not rolled toward you when exiting a box end manuever.  Such as exiting a stall turn at the end of the box.  Some pilots (me ) have a tendency to want to see the entire span of the wing when the plane is on the downline and ready to exit the manuever.  This results in an exit that ends up pointing the nose of plane toward you (coming in).

You are lucky to have Chris M. helping you out.

-mark

quote:

ORIGINAL: flyintexan

One of those other moments....same idea as Derek here....make certain your wings are not rolled toward you when exiting a box end manuever.  Such as exiting a stall turn at the end of the box.  Some pilots (me ) have a tendency to want to see the entire span of the wing when the plane is on the downline and ready to exit the manuever.  This results in an exit that ends up pointing the nose of plane toward you (coming in).

You are lucky to have Chris M. helping you out.

-mark

Another vote for wings level. That's probably one of the bigger "aha" moments that has immediate and noticable results.

There are a lot of small ones. But probably another big one that comes up is learning how much power to use in different conditions, and learning to keep power on a lot more in windy conditions, especially in places you normally wouldn't be comfortable with it. That might depend a lot on the plane, but it's essential in mastering the "other stick".

-Mike

Wings level has been a problem for me so I hope to adopt Derek's suggestion. In terms of already adopted Ah HAs I have the following:

When I moved up to intermediate the pattern had a triangle non rolling loop. Since I rarely push or pull with the wings level I learned to dread flying inverted over that long top becasue the nose would either be coming in or going out and I would always give wrong rudder! I tried correcting with alierons, but no amount of roll fixes that without making it look horrible. I often just let if fly crooked for fear of making things worse. One day I saw an article on how to determine the correct rudder imput while inverted;

When looking at the plane inverted you want to push the rudder stick the way you want the plane/wing to go. So if you are flying inverted left to right and the nose is coming in, it will look like the inboard wing is further back than it needs to be, just give right rudder and that will move the inboard wing to the right and move the nose out  

Before reading that I was baffled about which direction rudder to give while inverted. After that it became a no brainer! now if I could only master that wings level trick!

Anthony

P.S. I would give credit to the original author if I had any idea who it was.

Joe, this is a great thread! Keep them coming please!!!!

Volkert

The rudder is the devils own surface, sorting out which way to push it causes dyslexia in most people.  It was driving me nuts, so one day I spent some time on the simulator and developed a simple set of rules for determining the right way to push my rudder stick.  It seems to be a variation of the one mentioned earlier.  Here are my rules.

Top Rudder:

1.) If I am looking at the canopy, Top Rudder is moving the stick towards the tail of the plane.

2.) If I am looking at the gear, Top Rudder is moving the stick toward the nose.

No matter which way the plane is flying, no matter whether you are starting the roll from upright, or inverted, these two rules solve the Top Rudder direction.  Really simple, and becomes natural very quickly.

Correcting my line:

1.) If the plane is upright going away, watch the nose of the plane.  Push the rudder stick the way you want the nose to go.

2.) if the plane is inverted going away, watch the tail of the plane.  Push the rudder stick the way you want the tail to go.

3.) If the plane is comming towards you, upright watch the tail, inverted watch the nose.  In all cases, push the stick the way the end you are watching needs to go.

Again, all you end up doing is changing which end of the plane you are watching( directing) and push the stick the way you want it to move.  It quickly becomes natural, and you end up doing it without even thinking.

quote:

ORIGINAL: gaRCfield

Today was one of them - I tried flying a couple of the intermediate maneuvers (I forget if there's a humpty bump in intermediate) and realized "Aha! I really do suck at this!"