Teaching a passenger to land in an emergency

Second would be the counterintuitive nature of controlling airspace with pitch, lower/higher with engine power.

That's only helpful for smaller aircraft in VFR operation. When on an ILS/LPV with the autopilot enabled (which is what the passenger should do), the throttle plus gear/flaps are used for speed control.

I never understood why instruction uses this throttle = angle and pitch = speed approach. It's not intuitive and it's not even true.

I never understood why instruction uses this throttle = angle (or rate of climb/descent) and pitch = speed approach. It's not intuitive and it's not even true.

The idea behind that is that beginners won't stall so easily in an attempt to stretch their glide when they come in low. When the aircraft is set up and trimmed for a constant pitch angle during final approach and this angle is maintained at all cost a stall is almost impossible. Very good for the instructor's peace of mind :-)

It only works with not-too-slippery propeller driven aircraft with a near-instantaneous coupling of ROC/ROD with power lever setting. On a jet and many turboprops it dosn't work at all. When I'm coming low on the glidepath and try to rectify this by adding power I will lose another dot or two on the GP indicator until something happens. Additionally, aircraft with high thrustlines (like most jets with rear mounted engines and many pusher props) will pitch downward when power is applied, making the too low condition even worse! Therefore novadays we teach our integrated ATPL students the "point&power"-method (i.e. elevator for going up or down/staying on glideslope/pointing at the touchdown point and power lever for speed) from day one. This method works well for every aircraft and when enough emphasis is put on observing the aispeed indicator they don't stall on final (at least not till today).

Fly an aircraft with only 65 HP and no flaps, requiring operation slower than best lift/drag to prevent float on approach, and you'll 'get it'. The only way to increase speed quickly is with the stick - throttle movement has very little effect on speed if you get slow.

Its been very interesting for me to fly both types of aircraft.

Thanks for confirming my experiences, Silvaire, I was beginning to doubt my own experience! Even if my pride and beauty boasts a whopping 80 HP, and does have (Junkers style) flaps.

It was quite an experience for me to transition to something with flaps, power and tricycle gear - dramatically easier but different. Instead of balancing the aircraft on the head of pin down final (with a throttle that was independently useful as no more than a trim control for descent rate), I found myself flying faster in relation to the drag bucket, but with flaps steepening the approach regardless. If I pushed the stick forward, nothing happened to airspeed very quickly. I learned to use the throttle to drag the thing up to a higher speed, instead of the little push forward on the stick. Different techniques for different aircraft, use the control that gets the desired effect most quickly on each.

It is an interesting question flying the turbine and one I was thinking about during our recent trip. Compared to a TB20 it is simpler in some ways, harder in others. The one positive is you can set one power setting (say400ftlbs) and fly straight and level and all the way to the threshold. The avionics are also helpful but tricky to operate if not very current. I am not sure whether it would really be feasible to teach a non pilot to land it.

The "pitch or power to adjust glide path" is the "what came first, the chicken or the egg" of aviation.

If you change pitch alone, you change both GP and speed. If you change power alone, you change both GP and speed.

So all we are really debating is which of the two you use first; if indeed you do not make the adjustments almost simultaneously. And of course, for some adjustments you can accept the speed deviation.

An aircraft with a "perfect" pitch/power couple in the approach configuration adjusts pitch by just the right amount on its own when you add power. Trim it right, and you can regulate the GP with power and never really touch the elevator. Looks like Socata did a particularly good job in the TB20 on that one.

Doesn't work in a C152 at all, and not really that well in a PA28.

If there were a single technique that works equally well in all aircraft, we would not need any training when moving between types.

Buy a Cirrus

On the initial topic, that depends strongly on the passenger.

My first "flying partner" was very keen to learn, so I paid her a few hours with an instructor after she'd handled our plane in the air with me quite a few times. After 4 hours or so, she landed it without the instructor's help. Was I confident that in the case of cases she could have landed? Yes, with about 80-90% confidence she would have gotten it onto the ground. She also knew basic RT, knew 121.5, 7700, as well as taking active part in the navigation.

I've seen other people however, who are totally hopeless and who in case of cases could probably not even be trusted to use the BRS of Cirrus. I always try to give my passengers some chance to participate in the flight, albeit within the law, but e.g. try to keep them up to speed what are we doing now and why, where are we, what is our heading, altitude, e.t.c. Some of them respond and are "in the picture" within minutes, others won't after hours. People like that will probably not take anything on board on a pinch hitter course and are just that, passengers.

It never ceases to amaze me how people with no small intellect (University degrees and higher) can be totally clueless and fail to even read the most basic map, fail to understand the very basics of aircraft controls and are disorientated even when leaving their home. If you get someone who will call home if the GPS of his car fails to work because he is utterly clueless to get home from his current position, which he doesn't know and can't relate, then trying to get them to land a plane "in case" is a totally lost cause. I know several such people for whom even basic geography is a book with seven seals they will never master even to open. Some of them never even graduated to cars.

So I reckon the best way to deal with this is to find out if there is any aptitude and interest at all and then possibly to let them fly with an FI on whatever school plane is available for the first basic lessons, then take them back on board the "complex" aircraft and let them apply what they learnt, always from the RH seat and always within the law :) If that works, chances of them not panicking but being able to get the airplane down in a survivable condition are not at all bad.