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Naval Aircraft and AOA

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Was that just casual San Diego?

It wasn't some problematic cells in HSL and HSM. I was pretty amused to see all the "-1"'s for verbatim on several of my closed-books at the West Coast RAG. I refused to give in.

Ironically, I found HSM San Diego to be worse than HSM Mayport. Although I think rank and standing amongst the JOs helped with that. Still, it was a painful discovery, as an originally West Coast guy.
 

HAL Pilot

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
I had a check airman at Hawaiian that was also an Air Guard standardizations pilot get mad at me once during a line check because I didn't give him a memory item verbatim including annunciating the punctuation marks.. I showed him the blurb in our manual about memory items and limitations that state pilots "should be thoroughly familiar" with these items. I asked him to show me where "thoroughly familiar" was defined as requiring it be memorized down to the exact punctuation. Then I told him to read up on his line check procedures. It's an observation not an evaluation and check airman can not examine the crew, only observe.
 

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
what are you guys talking about punctuation? I've never even heard of that......as in during an oral recital? I've heard of getting the wording/abbreviations verbatim during a unit eval written IAE, but even then, I haven't heard of punctuation police

normal written exams have been littered with abbreviations such as "EOGR-Pull", "FLAE-Push", "FERL-Push", "EBHPTD (if req'd)" for at least as long as I have been around......it is annoying AF to write the same sentence over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
 

Treetop Flyer

Well-Known Member
pilot
what are you guys talking about punctuation? I've never even heard of that......as in during an oral recital? I've heard of getting the wording/abbreviations verbatim during a unit eval written IAE, but even then, I haven't heard of punctuation police

normal written exams have been littered with abbreviations such as "EOGR-Pull", "FLAE-Push", "FERL-Push", "EBHPTD (if req'd)" for at least as long as I have been around......it is annoying AF to write the same sentence over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
I’m also glad I don’t know what they’re talking about. The harrier had a lot of memory items, and rightfully so. Nobody gave a shit about numbers, punctuation, or exact wording
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
When writing them on the closed-book. It's not universal, but annoying, nonetheless.
 

PMPT

Well-Known Member
After 10 years of Navy flying, that shit would break my brain. Like Y-Axis inversion on video games.

BT BT

Getting AoA into my scan came ~6 months into flying the T-6B as an IP, once the new-ness of flying FW, being above 1kft, flying at 240 KIAS, FTI procedures, etc wore off. It's an extremely useful piece of kit, but SNAs especially have such a helmet fire with the basics that it's mostly lost on them. Occasionally you'd get a prior NFO or 1k hour GA background who could digest the information, but it was rare. The Max Range diamond (triangle?) was also super useful on CCXs.


remind me though ... is it not the case that normal landing procedures in the contacts FTI explicitly exclude any scan of AOA? Generally speaking the plane is 'nose at the numbers' either with a slight nose down or very slight nose up, but I certainly was never instructed to include the AOA indexer in my scan. Indeed, the contacts section on AOA landings, I think, recommends slower than usual airspeeds for the NF, TF, and LF landings, which leads me to infer that normal approach turns in the T-6 (at 120, 115, and 110) knots are flown fast rather than on speed.
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
remind me though ... is it not the case that normal landing procedures in the contacts FTI explicitly exclude any scan of AOA?
That sounds like a "tech-cedure" or misunderstanding. IIRC there was something in there about cross-checking it.

The landing pattern is already a big enough elephant for young students to eat and introducing AoA that early in the game is debatable (plenty of good reasons for and against).
Generally speaking the plane is 'nose at the numbers' either with a slight nose down or very slight nose up, but I certainly was never instructed to include the AOA indexer in my scan. Indeed, the contacts section on AOA landings, I think, recommends slower than usual airspeeds for the NF, TF, and LF landings, which leads me to infer that normal approach turns in the T-6 (at 120, 115, and 110) knots are flown fast rather than on speed.
Those approach turn speeds translate to on-speed during the turn if the airplane is on the heavy side, such as the "surprise" PEL on the way to high work but before burning off the typical high work gas, or a solo who has to RTB immediately after takeoff. So they work themselves out pretty well. That is if your approach turn is close to 30° bank. Similarly the final speeds for those three different flap configurations work out in the same way.

At the weights you typically beat up the pattern, you're right- those speeds are a few knots faster than on speed, and especially on your final full stop landing with ~300lbs of gas in the plane, they're about 5 knots faster.

Ask some of your IPs who flew "big wing" (Hercs, P-3, P-8) what system they used to fly approaches when the airplane is very heavy or very light. Usually it's tables of speeds in a turn and speeds on final (wings level or very small angle of bank), with a different number for each flap setting and a different table for each weight. Not surprisingly, the speeds in a turn end up being about 10 knots faster (you can crunch the numbers with the lift vector, trigonometry for a normal bank angle, and the lift equation). There's more than one way to skin a cat and "speed cards" are just another way (paper tablet you hold in your hand or a computer that spits out the pertinent numbers when you enter your current gross weight... same same).

The T-6 isn't an ideal platform to teach AoA approaches because it has a strong pitch-up tendency when you add power. It's up to the stick monkey to do his/her job and fly the airplane and that means compensating for flight characteristics like that, but this one thing makes it a pain (the airplane is otherwise quite good for these).

Food for thought, except for fly-by-wire airplanes, most everything out there pitches up or down when you move the power (a few out there even pitch down a bit when you add power) so it's something that you just get used to. Some of them partially compensate with auto trim systems (kinda like how the TAD helps you with right rudder and power), but you still have to fly the airplane and make the machine do what it's supposed to do. When you're trying to stay awake through systems and aero, it's one thing to understand how these things make your job easier when they're working as advertised; it's quite another to apply the knowledge when those systems are broken and your job is now to recover the airplane at night and in bad weather.
 

SynixMan

HKG Based Artificial Excrement Pilot
pilot
Contributor
remind me though ... is it not the case that normal landing procedures in the contacts FTI explicitly exclude any scan of AOA? Generally speaking the plane is 'nose at the numbers' either with a slight nose down or very slight nose up, but I certainly was never instructed to include the AOA indexer in my scan. Indeed, the contacts section on AOA landings, I think, recommends slower than usual airspeeds for the NF, TF, and LF landings, which leads me to infer that normal approach turns in the T-6 (at 120, 115, and 110) knots are flown fast rather than on speed.

@Jim123 hit most of the relevant aero topics. The Contact FTI has a nugget about "no slower than on speed AOA (amber donut)" in the groove relating to higher gross weights, which tracks with "Don't get slow and stall out" side of the appropriate airmanship with respect to varied airspeeds vs gross weights.

AoA approaches in the Aero block, honestly, I'd have to practice a few times (same/same for a cloverleaf) before I could dial it back in. It just wasn't something I did often (good deal aero flights, especially out and ins, usually went to new guys or reservists ?). Or, if I was doing an Aero check ride, AoA approaches weren't a requirement. I wasn't going to ask an SNA to do an ungraded maneuver on a check ride because that would be wildly into asshole territory.

I was speaking more towards including the indexer in normal pattern work, but, more explicitly, to using AoA on the PFD to dial in Max Range on a CCX or max glide in a possible eng out scenario.
 

HuggyU2

Well-Known Member
None
The punctuation-and-spelling of the Boldface thing is a really a UPT student thing. From Day 1 as a UPT student, we were expected to memorize it perfectly, since we didn't know much else. It worked in the USAF UPT environment... which is something I addressed maybe a year or two ago in another post.

Sevenhelmet: I'm guessing you saw it at Randolph PIT doing the USNTPS T-38 syllabus. Keep in mind the PIT guys are focused on training the new UPT instructors. Although y'all were experienced aviators, it's really in the DNA there to focus on un-winged students.

Both Services do things that the other Service laughs at as completely ridiculous. But... it works for each of us.
 
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