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1 Flight Maneuvers And Stick and Rudder Skills A complete learn to fly handbook by one of aviation s most knowledgeable and experienced flight instructors Front Cover Picture

2 This book is licensed specifically for your use. It is marked with your license number, order info and tracking information at the bottom of each page. Thank you for respecting our intellectual property rights.

3 Rod Machado s How to Fly an Airplane Handbook i Rod Machado s How to Fly an Airplane Handbook Written and illustrated by Rod Machado Published by The Aviation Speakers Bureau peterka - fotloia.com

4 ii Copyright Information First Edition February 1st, 2014 Please visit (and bookmark) our web site for any additional book updates: Published by: The Aviation Speakers Bureau, P.O. Box 6030, San Clemente, CA All rights reserved. The contents of this manual are protected by copyright throughout the world under the Berne Union and the Universal Copyright Convention. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever electronic, photographic, photocopying, facsimile or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author: Rod Machado, care of: The Aviation Speakers Bureau. Nothing in this text supersedes any operational documents or procedures issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the aircraft and avionics manufacturers, any aircraft s Pilot Operating Handbook (POH) or approved flight manual (AFM). Don t for one second think that the generic recommendations found in this book override the common sense recommendations of your flight school or flight instructor for a specific airplane or situation or a given set of circumstances. The author has made every effort in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information. However, the information is sold without warranty either expressed or implied. Neither the author nor the publisher will be liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly, indirectly, incidentally or consequentially by the information in this book. The opinions in this book are solely those of the author and not the publisher. Don t even think about using any performance chart in this book for performance computations in your airplane. Find a performance chart appropriate for your airplane and use that one. All of the charts, graphs and tables in this book are for training purposes only. Cover layout by Diane Titterington Front cover photograph from Fotolia.com by Mark Rasmussen All material created, written and produced by Rod Machado All illustrations in this book designed and drawn by Rod Machado (QuarkXPress, Corel, Photoshop, Poser 2010, Vue 9, iclone 5, CrazyTalk Animator, Blender) Photographs (unless marked otherwise or in the public domain) by Rod Machado Copyright 2014 by Rod Machado

5 Table of Contents iii Acknowledgments...iv Dedication...v About the Author...vi Introduction...vii Message to Instructors...viii Updating Your Book...xi Book Prerequisites...x 1 Chapter One Pages 1-1 through 1-38 Let s Go Flying Basic Piloting Skills 8 Chapter Eight Pages 8-1 through 8-26 The Airport Traffic Pattern The Lowdown On Gettin Down 2 Chapter Two - Pages 2-1 through 2-38 Flying Straight And Level And Turning 9 Chapter Nine Pages 9-1 through 9-30 Approaching to Land Gettln Low, Gettin Down 3 Chapter Three Pages 3-1 through 3-26 Climbs and Descents Understanding the Basics Of Flight 10 Chapter Ten Pages 10-1 through The Roundout and Flare You Have the Nod To Hit the Sod 4 Chapter Four Pages 4-1 through 4-26 Slow Flight Delight How and Why We Fly Slow 11 Chapter Eleven Pages 11-1 through Crosswinds and Slips Flying Sideways Is Fun Chapter Five 5 12 Pages 5-1 through 5-58 Stalls and Spins The Ups, Downs and Arounds Chapter Twelve Pages 12-1 through Advanced Landing Skills Not All Runways Are Created Equal 6 Chapter Six Pages 6-1 through 6-40 Takeoffs and Climbs 13 Chapter Thirteen Pages 13-1 through Advanced Maneuvers Tools to Help You Become Proficient 7 Chapter Seven Pages 7-1 through 7-38 Ground Reference Maneuvers 14 Chapter Fourteen Pages 14-1 through Night Flying Taming the Dark Side Appendix through Editors through Aviation Speakers Bureau Product Information through Index through 15-28

6 iv Acknowledgments and Credits All the folks at ASRS, Moffett Field, CA Andrew Shacker Barry Jones Brian Weiss of Wordsworth Bridgette Doremiere Bruce Williams Cammie Patch Captain Ralph Butcher Carenado (for their use of the Carenado C152 ll sim model) Chris Connor Chris Felton Danny Mortensen Diane Titterington Federal Aviation Administration Fernando Herrera Flightsim.com Fotolia Photo Contributors (each named in photo) Fotolia Photo source Fotolia.com Gabhan Berry Gary Sequeira General Aviation News Helen Woods Jim Szajkovics John Bliss Just Flight ( Larry Diamond Larry Nelson Marty Blaker Matt Abrams Meg Godlewski Orange County Flight Center Orion Lyau Pam Hengsteler Paul Svenkeson Peter Muehlegg Prof. H. Paul Shuch Ralph Alcock Remos Aircraft Company Richard Sanchez Rick Crose Scott Philips Sheri Coin Marshall Sporty s Pilot Shop Steve DiLullo The Aviation Speakers Bureau Tim Olson William Stevick Microsoft Inc. and their Microsoft Flight Simulator software (for many of the flight sim screen shots used in this book) The New Piper Aircraft Corporation. Charts and graphs provided by Piper are to be used for information purposes only. The Pilot s Operating Handbook is the only true source of information. The Cessna Aircraft Company. Cessna authorized the use of their materials with the understanding that they are to be used for training purposes only, not the actual operation of an aircraft. Clipart from the following companies: 3G Graphics, Archive Arts, BBL Typographic, Cartesia Software, Image Club Graphics Inc., Management Graphics Ltd., One Mile Up Inc., Studio Piazza Xilo Inc., Techpool Studios Inc., Totem Graphics Inc., TNT Designs, SmartPics. Note: If I missed crediting or acknowledging any contributor to this book, please forgive me. I promise to give you credit and apologize again (big time!) as soon as you let me know.

7 Dedication v DEDICATION If you re lucky enough to have someone in your life that can give you an honest appraisal of your work, then you re really lucky. I m lucky. For the past 25 years I ve been fortunate enough to have one editor for all my book projects. He s a master wordsmith and one of the wisest men I know. He s also the one responsible for keeping my grammatical sails trimmed and my educational course true. Mr. Brian Weiss of WORD SWORTH has always told me the truth about what works and what doesn t work in print. Were it not for his wise counsel I m not sure that the products I ve produced would have been so well received by the aviation community. I consider this book to be one of the most important I ve written and there is no one I would prefer to dedicate this book to more than my editor and dear friend, Brian Weiss.

8 vi About the Author Rod Machado traded his motorcycle for flying lessons at the age of 16. His parents were delighted he gave up riding with the vegetarian motorcycle gang known as the Sprouts. Captured by the romance and adventure of flight in a Taylorcraft L-2 at Amelia Reid Aviation in San Jose, California, Rod has remained hooked ever since. In fact, he is one of the few airline-transport-rated pilots who still gets excited by a Cessna 150 fly-by. Rod is a professional speaker who travels across the United States and Europe delighting his listeners with upbeat and lively presentations. Machado truly loves mixing it up with the audience. His unusual talent for simplifying the difficult and adding humor to make the lessons stick has made him a popular lecturer both in and out of aviation. Rod speaks on both aviation and non-aviation topics, including risk assessment, IFR charts, aviation weather, in-flight emergencies, and safety awareness. He is also known for his rapid fire, humorous banquet presentations. A pilot since 1970 and an active flight instructor since 1973, Rod is also a National Aviation Safety Counselor. You might recognize Rod as the instructor on Microsoft Flight Simulator or as the author of seven aviation books. He has over 10,000 hours of flight experience earned the hard way one CFI hour at a time. Since 1978, Rod has taught hundreds and hundreds of flight instructor revalidation clinics and safety seminars across the United States and Europe. He was named the 1991 Western Region Flight Instructor of the Year. You can read his monthly column, License to Learn, in AOPA Pilot magazine as well as his monthly columns in Flight Training Magazine. Rod s eclectic interests are reflected by his equally varied academic credentials. He holds degrees in aviation science and psychology. Rod believes you must take time to exercise or you ll have to take time to be sick. Holding black belts in the Korean disciplines of Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido and ranking in Gracie Jujitsu, he gets his exercise from practicing and teaching martial arts. He also runs 20 miles a week and claims it s uphill both ways. Rod Machado Visit Rod s web site at

9 Introduction vii Are you thinking about learning to fly an airplane? Or are you a pilot who wants a better understanding of basic flying skills? Are you a flight instructor who d like to teach your students the basic principles of stick and rudder flying? Then this is the book for you. No matter what your level of flight experience, from zero flight time to thousands of hours of cockpit experience, I can assure you that this book will be a wonderful guide in helping you learn to fly or learn to fly better. If you re an instructor, this book will help you teach others to fly. That s my promise to you. How can I make such a promise? A long time ago I was fortunate enough to learn at a flight school where the flight training emphasized the principles of basic attitude control. Many of our school s flight instructors taught others to fly during WW II or were the educational disciples of these same instructors. Airplanes of that era weren t equipped with autopilots or auto-throttles. Nothing was automatic about them. You had to manually fly them and you did so by feel, by the seat of your pants using all your senses to make the airplane do what you wanted it to do. This was done mainly by looking outside the cockpit, not at your flight instruments. That s how these war-era pilots kept from being vaporized by the enemy and by their airplanes. While I never learned how to engage enemy airplanes, my early lessons emphasized the basics of attitude controls (pitch, bank, roll and yaw) while using all my senses visual, tactile, auditory, kinematic to maneuver the airplane. Back then, this was known as stick and rudder flying. It was the best education a student pilot could have. The payoff for that type of early training was a deep confidence in knowing that the airplane will do exactly what I wanted it to do, all the time, every time. Many pilots flying today were not taught the basics of stick and rudder flying. Consequently, they are often unable to predict how their airplanes will behave. How disconcerting is that? They might, for instance, stall during uncoordinated flight (not a good idea) and end up in spin. They might even attempt a landing during a moderate crosswind, fail to apply adequate drift correction and end up being blown off the runway rather than landing on it. When these same pilots are questioned about these types of events, they often reply, I don t have any idea what happened, or, The airplane just developed a mind of its own and did its own thing. Unpredictability, right? Therein lies the main reason I ve written this book. If you want to fly your airplane safely, with poise and confidence, you have to make your flying machine do precisely what you want it to do. Nothing more, but certainly nothing less. You must learn the basics of stick and rudder flying to do this. That s what this book teaches and what I want you to learn. Rod Machado Rod Machado

10 viii A Message to Flight Instructors About This Book In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur s Court, Mark Twain wrote,...she was wise, subtle and knew more than one way to skin a cat. Disregarding the cat, we re completely justified in applying the same principle to an airplane. There s more than one way to fly one. More than a few instructors today emphasize the use of flight instruments and cockpit automation as the primary means of aircraft control. Even airplane manufacturers producing airplanes with sophisticated glass cockpit technology now sanction this idea. For them, it s automation that keeps a pilot safe, not basic flying instincts. Granted, if a pilot has poor flying instincts, he or she has no choice but to rely on automation to help fly the airplane. However, there are occasions when a pilot finds him- or herself pushed to the edge of the normal operating envelope. If and when this happens, pilots must tap into a deeper layer of airmanship where their basic flying skills reside. At this point pilots are only as safe as the strength of the foundation upon which their basic flying skills are built. The situations where a pilot must rely on basic skills are numerous. For instance, a pilot might need to land for fuel, but willingly overfly a perfectly suitable airport because a report of moderate crosswinds gives him pause. He d rather dip into his reserved fuel than attempt a landing that any capable stick and rudder pilot could handle. Or, while making a hurried descent to visit the loo, he might not have the instincts to keep his controls coordinated during the turn from base to final. A skidding turn at insufficient speed might easily turn an airplane into a lawn dart. This is just a small sample of the many situations where a pilot must rely on basic flying skills instead of automation to keep him or her safe. That s why this book is about basic flying skills, not automation. Many of these tips and techniques might seem unfamiliar to many instructors. For instance, it s common to introduce rudder and aileron coordination skills by emphasizing the inclinometer. While I include that information in this book, I also show two additional techniques used by good stick and rudder pilots to keep their flight controls coordinated. One involves looking through the windscreen to hold the nose (the longitudinal axis) relatively stationary as the airplane rolls into and out of a turn. The last thing we want to do is give our students another reason to keep their heads inside the cockpit by staring at the inclinometer when entering or exiting a turn. Another technique that s used by good stick and rudder pilots is the means by which they assess their angle of attack. These pilots seldom rely solely on their airspeed indicator to fly an airplane. Instead, they evaluate their angle of attack by looking at the horizon and the wing s imagined chord line while paying attention to what their other senses (sight, sound and feel) tell them about the airplane s speed and performance. For these pilots, flying is a sensory experience, not a digital one. These are just a few of the many good instincts you might want your students to learn. Finally, it s difficult to have a one-size-fits-all technique for different makes and models of small airplanes. Nevertheless, I ve tried to be general enough in my descriptions so that one size might indeed fit most of the small airplanes we fly. When you come across a technique different from the way you teach, try it as an experiment. If it works for you, then you ve just added another tool to your teaching kit. As Abraham Maslow once said, If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. Remember, there s more than one way to skin a cat and more than one way to fly an airplane. Rod Machado

11 Updating Your Book ix Updating Your Book Because the world of aviation changes quickly, you should make it a regular practice to update your book by visiting my web site located at: Visit the book/slide update page for any changes that may affect this text or changes in the FAA knowledge exam. Author s Note Any errors found in this book are solely the responsibility of the author, Rod Machado.

12 x Rod Machado s How to Fly an Airplane Handbook Prerequisite Reading In writing a How to Fly handbook I had to assume that the reader will have a basic knowledge of aviation (i.e., aerodynamics, powerplants, airport operations, etc.) upon which to build the concepts provided in this book. Sure, I could have written a combination knowledge and how to fly book but the resulting tome would swell to the size of a small planet. This just wasn t practical since there are no backpacks that big. Therefore, I m assuming that the reader of this book has read, is reading or is at least familiar with the basic aviation concepts covered in Rod Machado s Private Pilot Handbook (or Rod Machado s Sport Pilot Handbook). Advanced Knowledge in this Book Sometimes things are important but they just don t fit. That s why this book has the occasional addendum placed at the end of each chapter known as a Postflight Briefing. These are add-on items of knowledge that are nice to know, but not necessarily need to know. They might contain more detailed explanations of concepts that simply can t be discussed in greater detail in the body text. Therefore, I ve included these Postflight Briefings for your study as a sort of graduate level information for the inquiring mind. Read these if and when you can. They contain some very useful and practical information.