Teckair

For anybody who wants to sugar coat this issue what got me started on it was a pilot who did something very similar to the pilot of the Queenair in post 77. I was doing a tail wheel endorsement for a pilot who had been trained elsewhere. When turning onto final we overshot and he without any warning stood on the left rudder to get lined up on final, I pointed to the ball which was hard against the right hand side. My bum was trying to escape the right side of the seat and I said you are out of balance, you have too much rudder on. His answer was he had been taught to fly that way, I said well you have been taught wrong. Luckily we were in a Lightwing and not a Queenair although the Lightwing has a big responsive rudder we had enough airspeed up our sleeve to cope with the situation. I have noticed this is not confined to RAAus but is common with GA and I think that is where it most likely came from.

The original thread was started because I found some students were being taught to fly the full final leg using the rudder only for directional control and keeping the wings level with the ailerons and surprisingly to me some instructors thought this was OK. Can you advise what you think the thread title should have been? I agree with you about having blind faith in books. Richard.

Flare height. Read post 102.

In my view unless you are doing aerobatics, side slipping, taxing, flaring or have a control failure with the ailerons the rudder should only be used to balance the aircraft not to steer it on final or at any other time. I put the thread on the instructors forum because I found some students are taught to steer all of the final leg with rudder only and to hold the wings level with the ailerons. I wanted to find out why this was being taught as I believed it to be wrong, it turned out a fair amount of instructors were doing this but none came up with a reason for it that I thought was acceptable. If you try to steer with the rudder the aircraft will skid, you will have cross controls, if you get slow you are ready for spin entry and you will be flying inefficiently. In the event of an engine failure it will reduce the distance you can glide and increase the possibility of an inadvertent spin at low level.

And some wonder why the instructors section is not available to everybody?

Same deal.

Yes that is a lot to do with it and unlike what we are told by some I don't see an end to it any time soon. This is the whole reason the word affordable is becoming important.

I reckon 15 to 40 but young age is getting older. Richard.

It would be good to see the C2S take to the sky, how is that going HITC?

Frank is 66 I am 59, I do know one young RAAus pilot but he is the exception rather than the norm.

Yeah one person.

Yep I agree with that, this has been widely discussed over time and I wonder if it is as has been said by others, times have changed and we now live in a world of smart phones, computers and all sorts of other stuff. Maybe the appeal of flying just is not there any more like it was in the 80s and 90s. One of my students is a young man who learnt to fly in Jabirus but wanted a tail wheel endorsement, and he really enjoys flying the Lightwing, One day we were talking about a Chinook and he described it as a second class aircraft, I did my best to put him right about that but think it could be a clue to how people are thinking. That little gem is another clue to how some people think.

Nope.

It is already happening the membership has dropped by a significant amount, young people cannot afford what is now on offer from RAAus. Look around and you will see most of us are getting close to 60 years old and beyond. What we are doing is nothing more than re-inventing the GA wheel without medicals and the result will be the same. Yes the rules do not prevent anyone from flying affordable grass roots style air craft, but we already knew that and yes people do not choose to fly these planes but once again we already knew that as well. What is happening is self inflicted and if it continues the result will be inevitable.

I could have it wrong but I thought the purpose of the thread was to try find out if there was any interest out there for affordable grass roots style flying of the type the AUF was originally set up to cater for. It certainly is a thing of the past these days and may remain a memory only, if that is the case I think RAAus will die a slow death.

Never a truer word said.

Probably best to have a club to promote the cause, anybody wanting to get started with affordable flying these days might have a problem knowing where to start. The problem with clubs is people who put there own interests before the well being of the club and it's members.

Yes there is nothing wrong with two strokes but you don't have to have one, my first plane was an ultralight that cost $3000 and had a VW engine.

I would like to see grass roots affordable style flying revived, but as has been said, there does not seem to be a demand for it.

Yep wanting heavier faster so he can register his plane with RAAus.

Yeah funny as anything. Just try and make that happen guys. Richard.

You can get anybody to try to teach you to fly but by far the best way is to go to a good instructor. Richard.

I was told the tail can be blanketed by slipping with full flap.

You may well be right with what you say, here are my thoughts about it.

Exactly what I am thinking.