denopa wrote:
Cruising at 50ft doesn’t count as pushing your limits, unless you’re inverted, of course. As for stalls in IMC, they’re only challenging if you cut the engine off and are in icing conditions.
You are raising the bar too much with the second one 
for the first one anytime bellow 300ft agl you don’t have a good horizon, you can’t fly inverted safely 
One thing I did not dare yet is practicing forced landings in valleys, I am less tempted to lower my height near 500ft or go to corners just to test that….I am very inclined to think it will not go very well, the first time will be one shot to practice and probably the last one, meanwhile I pray so the engine keeps running !
When I am alone or other pilots I tend to keep the fun going, I have to fly the heck out of it: make every visual landing a glide approach, do stalls in IMC, climb my glider in convective clouds, cruise at 50ft, do 1.05*VS approach, aerobatics, fly different types…
Cruising at 50ft doesn’t count as pushing your limits, unless you’re inverted, of course. As for stalls in IMC, they’re only challenging if you cut the engine off and are in icing conditions.
Yep. A Pitt’s is perfect. Try a stall with the ball off one side. Flicks are good place to start too. All I’m saying is practice the dark arts of the limits when there is an out. And I totally agree Antonio. If you think you’re legal you’re safe, then VERY good luck …..
I disagree with most of these statements. For activities with natural hazards, plan for 100% safety. Pushing your limits come from unforecast events. My personal experiences have been sea and river canoeing, sea sail and power cruising, hill walking, and flying.
The “Just Do It” slogan is fine in controlled situations, with help available.
I agree we don’t grow unless we are going outside our comfort zones. Just curious how you actually do this in an aircraft.
Easy fly a Pitts :)
Some statements above are too broad and missing context to make anything of them apart from sounding good and showing confidence.
Some things that sprang to my mind:
- Negative training
- „I’ll show you what’s possible“
- „It has always worked“
We don’t have good data for GA accidents so the safety curve is flat vs. the airlines where it’s still improving.
There used to be 500hr pilots in new turbine planes e.g. M600 that flew 100% of planned flights 24/7 in all weather down to published minima. At 5000hrs (and in some cases in a even more sophisticated plane) they don’t fly at night, no longer mess with ice and keep some margin on minima. Oh, they also no longer post „war stories“ on the internet. Go figure.
Apparently, more pilots bought the farm during stall exercises than during actual stalls. Go figure again.
ADM is huge, at least that’s my take on it.
Beechtalk has a section on airplane accidents. I never fail to read it on a regular basis, just like i read the Guardian or Le Monde or the local papers. There is so much to learn from other’s mistakes. But what is remarkable is that the number of airplane accidents here in USA is astounding. Not a day pass without a major mishap. My own conclusion is that flying is dangerous. Pilot error being the major contributing factor, people like to get there wherever they are going and that is what kills them in addition to not enough fuel, poor maintenance, etc. But most of the accidents are weather related and flying into conditions for which the PIC is not prepared as in VFR into IFR. Again the numbers of hours flown is irrelevant. I have more than 10,000 hrs and the hours accumulated in my high performance airplane do not count since is a boring take off, go into A/P and then plan the landing which is in addition done semi automatically when i disconnect the A/P 200 feet above the threshold. To counteract that i fly my small airplanes (bucker, rv-8, etc) where all take offs and landings are done manually and they involve many landings and take off in small strips which are challenging. Plus the open cockpit airplanes are vfr day only which makes flight planning and weather a most. I have to say that 100 hrs logged on my bucker are worth 500 on the turbine.
Pig wrote:
No matter what I am doing, I always find a way to take it to / past the limit in the safest (oxymoron if ever there was one) environment I can
I agree with the concept. I am not sure I would agree with your methods. Unless you have this kind of mindset, if you simply thing staying legal will keep you safe…well then, good luck to you (literally)
Pig wrote:
No matter what I am doing, I always find a way to take it to / past the limit in the safest (oxymoron if ever there was one) environment I can.
I agree we don’t grow unless we are going outside our comfort zones. Just curious how you actually do this in an aircraft. In a sim, I’m happy trying weird stuff, like engine failure at 200 feet during climb-out. In my RV-8, not so much. Standard stuff like chopping power on downwind and “dead-stick” to a landing is fun and I think is good practice, and I’m interested to see what other things you are doing.
Unless they ask…..
Some always come and ask for more
