Flight School backed up

[jointhelocalizer]

A recent instructor told me they were unsat'ing people when they couldn't land in the front after being in the back for awhile. As a result, they changed the syllabus to almost exclusive front flying.

Landing the plane from an approach is definitely an underappreciated skill. My squadron also would usually have you do I4101 and C4701 (Night Contact... it was C4901 back in my day) as your first out and in. When I went through, IGS was like 7-10 days and you had 16 or so instrument sims and 2 VNAV sims. So you didn't land the plane for about a month. My first landings in a month were at night and while they were fine, I definitely was not comfortable. Circling to land is also a particularly demanding skill and so is flying the circling missed. A lot of lost training when the IP up front takes the controls were the most demanding part of the approach. As long as you turned inside the radius and in the right direction, you were fine.

Also, you build up a lot of proficiency in Contacts/Aero just to lose a decent bit of it in Instruments. I was lucky and did Forms after Aero, so I didn't have refresh myself on stuff like course rules at the end, but my instruments first counterparts were relearning how to land, VFR procedures, and formation flying all in one go.

I'll take 30 deg AOB and RV to the ILS every day the week and twice on Sundays.

I'd also wish there was more exposure to visual approaches as well. They can be very simple or quite complicated.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Landing the plane from an approach is definitely an under appreciated skill.

Amen. In Navy VT land (BI, RI. AirNav) for many, many years the end state of an instrument approach procedure was always "Missed Approach" - and the student was exclusively in the rear seat of the T-34C or the non-visual sim of the era. This was a deeply flawed part of the syllabus - but I can see how this mindset established itself.

When I was the Stan-O at HT18 and the bread and I was giving Helo RI-18 checks on a near daily basis, I would make it a point once we were "cleared for the option" to yank the cardboard instrument hood from the SNA and tell him/her to "land!". What often ensued was a transition from a nice stabilized approach to something you'd see on a FAM 7 as the SNA attempted to follow Tower instructions and land as directed - often not the runway. The concept evaded most students - not their fault I realized, we made them this way!

Fast forward to today where I generally have 1 or sometimes 2 students as a CFI/CFII on either initial instrument in a piston single or Commercial / ATP multi engine. Executing a proper circling maneuver near minimums is one of the most difficult training items to master. The missed-approach is relatively easy and I often intro it in an AATD and later the actual aircraft a few times and its straight-forward to grasp. But flying a light twin or piston single, maneuvering in decreasing visibility, staying within the circling area, keeping airspeed above minimum-manuevering airspeed, etc all takes practice and reps to do well. And then there is serious PIC stuff - risk analysis/CRM/TEM on the tradeoffs from landing straight in vs circling regarding runway/winds, aircraft performance and configuration. There was a mishap involving a Challenger - not long ago - where the pilot lost control and crashed while circling a perfectly good airplane.

You can understand why circling in the 121 world is rarely - if ever a thing.

 

[CClark533]

How long is the wait from NIFE to Primary at this time?

 

[Mouselovr]

How long is the wait from NIFE to Primary at this time?

Corpus - Practically none 3-4 weeks.

@villo0692
Milton - 3 ish months, from what I've heard.

 

[villo0692]

@villo0692
Milton - 3 ish months, from what I've heard.

Sounds about right

 

[SynixMan]

I thought the T-6’s didn’t have beta, thus limiting the number of outlying fields that could be used? Also, I thought the T-6 had problems with landing gear, brakes, and wheels that were not durable enough?

They lengthened the fields they could and put a few out of use (Wolf OLF) to mitigate. Not a huge deal. The tires, eh, once you learned how to handle it and not jam on the brakes, it was fine. Also not rushing students off the runway early to the point they jammed on the brakes.

As far as landings up front go, when I instructed from 16-19, there was front seat landing requirements in RIs. Anyone making an SNA circle on I4xxx is a jerk IMO. I always made sure to brief it up again, remind them wave offs are free, and I was guarding the controls like an early contact X.

All in all I loved the T6 and instructing. The worst part about VTs was Milton. The summers sapped my will to live.

 

[Swanee]

Amen. In Navy VT land (BI, RI. AirNav) for many, many years the end state of an instrument approach procedure was always "Missed Approach" - and the student was exclusively in the rear seat of the T-34C or the non-visual sim of the era. This was a deeply flawed part of the syllabus - but I can see how this mindset established itself.

When I was the Stan-O at HT18 and the bread and I was giving Helo RI-18 checks on a near daily basis, I would make it a point once we were "cleared for the option" to yank the cardboard instrument hood from the SNA and tell him/her to "land!". What often ensued was a transition from a nice stabilized approach to something you'd see on a FAM 7 as the SNA attempted to follow Tower instructions and land as directed - often not the runway. The concept evaded most students - not their fault I realized, we made them this way!

Fast forward to today where I generally have 1 or sometimes 2 students as a CFI/CFII on either initial instrument in a piston single or Commercial / ATP multi engine. Executing a proper circling maneuver near minimums is one of the most difficult training items to master. The missed-approach is relatively easy and I often intro it in an AATD and later the actual aircraft a few times and its straight-forward to grasp. But flying a light twin or piston single, maneuvering in decreasing visibility, staying within the circling area, keeping airspeed above minimum-manuevering airspeed, etc all takes practice and reps to do well. And then there is serious PIC stuff - risk analysis/CRM/TEM on the tradeoffs from landing straight in vs circling regarding runway/winds, aircraft performance and configuration. There was a mishap involving a Challenger - not long ago - where the pilot lost control and crashed while circling a perfectly good airplane.

You can understand why circling in the 121 world is rarely - if ever a thing.

The transition from instrument to visual scan is one of the hardest things to do in an airplane- we're having our own challenges teaching it to RPA folks in satellite launch and recovery ops.

"But sir, the airplane flies itself." "Yes young Padawan, but you must ensure it's doing everything that you intend it to do, because it's doing everything you told it to do, and that C-130 crew taking off on the righthand runway's lives are depending on your airplane landing on the left hand runway like you said it would."

 

[jointhelocalizer]

Amen. In Navy VT land (BI, RI. AirNav) for many, many years the end state of an instrument approach procedure was always "Missed Approach" - and the student was exclusively in the rear seat of the T-34C or the non-visual sim of the era. This was a deeply flawed part of the syllabus - but I can see how this mindset established itself.

When I was the Stan-O at HT18 and the bread and I was giving Helo RI-18 checks on a near daily basis, I would make it a point once we were "cleared for the option" to yank the cardboard instrument hood from the SNA and tell him/her to "land!". What often ensued was a transition from a nice stabilized approach to something you'd see on a FAM 7 as the SNA attempted to follow Tower instructions and land as directed - often not the runway. The concept evaded most students - not their fault I realized, we made them this way!

Fast forward to today where I generally have 1 or sometimes 2 students as a CFI/CFII on either initial instrument in a piston single or Commercial / ATP multi engine. Executing a proper circling maneuver near minimums is one of the most difficult training items to master. The missed-approach is relatively easy and I often intro it in an AATD and later the actual aircraft a few times and its straight-forward to grasp. But flying a light twin or piston single, maneuvering in decreasing visibility, staying within the circling area, keeping airspeed above minimum-manuevering airspeed, etc all takes practice and reps to do well. And then there is serious PIC stuff - risk analysis/CRM/TEM on the tradeoffs from landing straight in vs circling regarding runway/winds, aircraft performance and configuration. There was a mishap involving a Challenger - not long ago - where the pilot lost control and crashed while circling a perfectly good airplane.

You can understand why circling in the 121 world is rarely - if ever a thing.

Especially when you are flying something like a 172 and your approach configuration is not your final configuration. Flaps 10 and 90 KIAS is not where you want to cross the threshold.

121 definitely seems circling averse. Understandably so. I have definitely heard the ILS for a runway with a tailwind advertised more than once on ATIS at Class B airports. However, in my armchair, I feel the risk is greater doing a tailwind landing is less than circling an aircraft full of pax. I do also suspect that problem will be mitigated as more RNAVs come on line.

 

[Skywalker]

Other than the shmish-shmortion of a transition plan that CNATRA executed, how is the T-6 in any way not better than the T-34?

Everything I've heard about the T-34 makes the T-6 a superior aircraft in all categories, no doubt. From a program perspective is where I understand it to be such a headache. I understand that at one point, the Air Force canceled a particular parts contract - and it hit Navy T-6 readiness tremendously. That and COVID were allegedly the rock and hard place that set TW-5 so far behind (sources: IPs at TWs 4 and 5). Plus there's the fact that the "NATOPS" for it is not formatted like the other operating manuals in the NATOPS program; from my tiny sample size of 3, the other two manuals read in a uniform fashion and I even find myself able to find things easily is declassified NATOPS manuals of retired platforms because of that uniformity. I fear not my first fleet NATOPS manual when that time comes as a result. People have mentioned the beta issue, the other big complaint I heard from primary sim instructors is that the T-6 was mostly intended to save the Air Force money on IFF - so it is supposed to fly and feel like a jet. They didn't think that was helpful when most students weren't going to fly jets.

 

[SteveHolt!!!]

Everything I've heard about the T-34 makes the T-6 a superior aircraft in all categories, no doubt.

Lies! Lies and slander!

 

[sevenhelmet]

However, in my armchair, I feel the risk is greater doing a tailwind landing is less than circling an aircraft full of pax.

I’m not sure I agree, depending on runway length and wind component. Big planes are harder to see out of, and circling is a very visual maneuver. Couple that with a profession where many pilots don’t spend much time flying manually, and the relative risk weight could easily shift in favor of landing with a TW.

 

[insanebikerboy]

I’m not sure I agree, depending on runway length and wind component. Big planes are harder to see out of, and circling is a very visual maneuver. Couple that with a profession where many pilots don’t spend much time flying manually, and the relative risk weight could easily shift in favor of landing with a TW.

Flying a stabilized approach was the game when I was flying the tanker. Any deviations, especially inside the FAF, drove a go-around. This was particularly true if the weather was down to mins.

I’d happily take a few knots tailwind to not have to circle at circling mins.

The irony is that the only reason we even practiced circling was because it’s in the Vol 2 as a checkride requirement, and we only did it in the sim.

 

[jointhelocalizer]

I’m not sure I agree, depending on runway length and wind component. Big planes are harder to see out of, and circling is a very visual maneuver. Couple that with a profession where many pilots don’t spend much time flying manually, and the relative risk weight could easily shift in favor of landing with a TW.

Yeah, sorry about that. We are in agreement. I was just half awake when I wrote that. I was saying that the risk of a tailwind ILS compared to a circling approach is less.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Yeah, sorry about that. We are in agreement. I was just half awake when I wrote that. I was saying that the risk of a tailwind ILS compared to a circling approach is less.

Yeah on a shitty weather straight-in, I will take a <10 kt tailwind all day long on a long runway in a little airplane.

 

[sevenhelmet]

Yeah on a shitty weather straight-in, I will take a <10 kt tailwind all day long on a long runway in a little airplane.

This- presuming I cannot approach to a runway that favors the wind. A circling approach in actual IMC weather near mins- while a skill worth training to- is not a good recipe for success.

The last time I circled "in anger" was probably 9 years ago, and it wasn't my first choice. My planned circling approaches have pretty much all been training in a sim, or in an aircraft VMC in VFR or better conditions.