So to prove how “safe” theTutor is you have quoted one other aircraft with dubious spinning characteristics. My point was that any light aircraft with a civil C of A would have a good safety record, although I am not sure whether or not the Firefly ever had civil certification.
As far as the Tutor’s spinning characteristics are concerned, it would seem to be similar to a Tiger Moth - predictable and responds not only to normal spin recovery, but also to putting your hands over your eyes and doing nothing.
The high crosswind limit of the Tutor at 25kts is also a welcome capability for despatch rate, in comparison the Aquila for the flying scholarships is 15kts which is the order of most GA types (PA28 17kts).
I used the Firefly purely as an example of a fairly ubiquitous type of aircraft on the civil register with similar performance capabilities to our current AEF aircraft.
I don’t understand why there is such a defence of military flying and that it’s the best way for cadets, given it is exposed to the foibles of MoD cuts.
How many places housing AEF/VGS have been closed or are due to closed in the next few years? When they do it throws the whole provision up in the air while they try and find somewhere suitable to house them and when it does get resolved it invariably means cadets having to travel further for what can be wasted journey. Cadets don’t put their names down to go flying just to sit and watch films or concurrent activities. I have to admit the weekend model suggested for gliding doesn’t fill me an warm fuzziness. Where I live there are 6 flying clubs some co-located on 4 airfields and these have all been in the same places for as long as I can remember, all within a hour’s drive. How many AEF and VGS can boast the same?
It would be far better to have more (in parenting terms) flying clubs on tap in closer proximity to sqns than sitting in a car / minibus for 2-3 hours and then not getting to fly, in RAF (or former RAF) Miles From Anywhere. If it was no more than hour away you wouldn’t mind a no fly day, as you have an easier journey.
As for the military flying training, 99.99999% of cadets couldn’t careless as they know they won’t fit the narrow criteria or don’t want to be military flyers. The world of civil aviation might be a much better prospect and by flying with a instructor not linked in any way to the military, might open them to something far more accessible.
Our Region is looking at this with respect to BGA gliding options.
For me, I can give up a day off to take cadets gliding / AEF, etc, but for a complete weekend event at a “super-VGS” = not a chance. It won’t go down well with mums & dads either, little Johnny will be allowed out for one day, but the other day will be allocated to school / college work, part-time job, etc.
Out of interest does anyone know if the Tutor crosswind ‘limit’ is a limit in the POH or a max demonstrated?
(For non-pilots the difference is a limit is a limit; a max demonstrated is not. E.g. Cessna 152 has 12kts max demonstrated crosswind but you are free, legally, to land it in more. Insurance companies may disagree.)
Exactly. It’s the Air Training Corps after all and, pertinent to this thread, AEF flying it is current form provides a tangible link to what the RAF does day in day out as stated in the aims of the Corps.
It’s not just about making them want to be pilots though. You can engender an interest in other facets of the service through the same medium, by giving a young person possibly one of the best experiences they can have as a school aged person. A few thousand flying ours later I can still remember each of my AEF sorties as a cadet (4 in 5 years) with some detail. Good god, it may even motivate some of those that can to make sure they get into that “narrow criteria” (which isn’t too much narrower than that for a civilian aircrew career).
In the same vein, why does the UAS system exist? Does the RAF recruit 30 pilots a year from each Sqn? No. Does the RAF rectruit 30 Junior Officers from each? No. But what it should do is leave memories of a positive experience with an organisation within or very closely associated to the Armed Forces to those who don’t and move into other sectors.
Hardly ubiquitous, The firefly’s major purchaser (almost half the entire production run) was the USAF who grounded the entire fleet on safety issues only 2 years after the last one was delivered. They stayed grounded until they were deliberately destroyed (not sold to the civilian market) some years later.
Whether the USAF were right or wrong in their action, I cannot recall any other light aircraft that was considered that dangerous.
If we got a first rate service as we did for years, fine, but in recent years the service has got worse and worse and there doesn’t seem to be any improvements on the horizon. Who suffers, the cadets, the young people who join full of expectation only to be let down and it’s us having to explain why they are being let down.
I joined the ATC because of the opportunity to fly, not because I had any burning ambition to fly, but because it seemed exciting and it was, for me at any rate. The notion of leaving the ATC with cuddly memories of the RAF is long lost. I had good memories of the ATC, but that was not due to direct RAF connections, it was about doing things with mates and when we’ve had renunions, it’s all the things we did as mates on the sqn that come out mainly. How many cadets now get a direct view of the RAF each year, ie through annual blue camps? When I was a cadet you went on camp with at least a dozen of your sqn and did things that you’d remember. At best now annual camps throw cadets in groups of 2-6 on average from a sqn, which isn’t the same experience. I’ve sent two or three ‘little ‘uns” with a big ‘un and they’ve not enjoyed it as they aren’t there with their peer group. The only thing that ever gets a mention if they did it is flyin
I would say that the ‘military’ have let youngsters who join us and the ACF down continually and they (the people getting paid handsomely at the top of the CF tree and associated areas) are lucky that there isn’t greater scrutiny and we are hog tied to them. Increase the scrutiny and do a customer satisfaction survey and they’d be stacking shelves in Everything A Quid.
Believe me if this was out there in the wide world and the service failures we’ve experienced happened, there would be no keeping on because of some fanciful and historic connection. They would be gone and a more reliable provider found.
As for flying there are hundreds of organisations called airlines that do far more flying than the RAF. The RAF’s flying ‘footprint’ has diminished massively in my lifetime and if some of the soothsayers are correct, the RAF will stay independent until next year (ie centenary) and then moved to become little more than a “flying regiment”, so its flying become less. The only thing that makes it different is flying fast jets and they are getting less and less.
As for public funding, as a taxpayer I would love to know where the proportion paid for AEF is going, as it’s not funding getting cadets into aeroplanes. Or is it because it’s public funding it gets lost in the system and there is no requirement for someone to be accountable?
We always used to blame accidents on “pilot error” when what we meant was that the pilot was the last person who might have been able to save the day and didn’t.
The Firefly’s spin recovery procedure is described in the AAIB report as “type specific” as opposed to standard. It sounds very much like the Chipmunk in that full forward stick may be required.
Maybe some “fault” could be at the door of the person who accepted a light aircraft with a “type specific spin recovery” procedure.
Maybe some “fault” could be the person who accepted a change in standard spin recovery teaching from “Full opposite rudder and with the ailerons neutral, move the stick progressively forward until rotation stops, pause and pull out of the dive”, to “full opposite rudder and put the stick in the middle” merely because it worked on the Tutor. As an instructor I was always acutely aware that possession of PPL would allow my pupil to fly aircraft such as the Chipmunk and they should know the full spin recovery procedure.
Just to be clear, if a light aircraft has civil certification, the “Full opposite rudder and with the ailerons neutral, move the stick progressively forward until rotation stops, pause and pull out of the dive” will always result in a a recovery even if other procedures will work equally well (or even better). That is that procedure that gets the aircraft certificated.
Spinning is one of those subjects that is very little understood by pilots and many instructors. The movement of the controls is generally NOT to stop the rotation that you would expect. In a spin the aircraft is essentially a gyroscope rotating in three axis (Yaw and roll in the direction of spin and nose up in pitch). The controls are used to apply forces that precess through 90 degrees to stop one of the rotations. The forward stick movement opposes the yaw. Of course, the moment the rotation stops the forward stick then lowers the nose reducing the angle of attack.
All sorts of other factors can effect the outcome. In the Chipmunk a high idle RPM (or a pilot opening the throttle) gave the aircraft another gyroscope in the form of the heavy metal FaireyRead propeller. Chipmunks often recovered from flat spins if the mags were switched off.
By the way, it wasn’t me that brought the Firefly into this thread
XN150, you are correct in that the forces acting in a spin are rarely fully understood. However I do believe that they are more easily explained by showing the interaction of the inertial moments around the three axes. It also clearly shows the importance of the B/A Ratio.
Maybe I preferred that approach because i was cr*p at drawing gyro diagrams!
just to put some things to rest from what I know now
There is no intention to use the G120 at AEFs or UAS’ at this time
Civilian flying for cadets has been looked at but is now no longer an option due to cost and experience of PPL pilots. Personally, I’d rather have my sone fly at an AEF with a pilot who has 10,000 hours > rather than a chap who has 100 hours SEP.
3.There is currently no intention to remove AEF’s from UAS’. From my pov it wouldn’t be cost effective and would be an administrative nightmare for those AEFs without an Adjutant or the support of there affiliated UAS’
I agree with Chaz that most UAS students join as they want to do something better with their time than sat in their accommodation playing on their xBox
You will not find an AEF operating without air traffic.
I very much doubt 6 FTS or 3FTS will allow AEFs to operate as a VGS does. AEF pilots are not that way inclined and wouldn’t be happy doing BFs and AFs every day.
[quote=“Teflon, post:45, topic:2939”]
The world of civil aviation might be a much better prospect and by flying with a instructor not linked in any way to the military, might open them to something far more accessible.
[/quote] 98% of our pilots are current civilian airline pilots
[quote=“chaz, post:44, topic:2939”]
I used the Firefly purely as an example of a fairly ubiquitous type of aircraft on the civil register with similar performance capabilities to our current AEF aircraft.
[/quote] Firefly was a little more powerful that the 115 but was deemed at end of life.[quote=“XN150, post:41, topic:2939”]
As far as the Tutor’s spinning characteristics are concerned, it would seem to be similar to a Tiger Moth - predictable and responds not only to normal spin recovery, but also to putting your hands over your eyes and doing nothing.
[/quote] correct. the ‘all else fails’ drill is to let go of everything and the aircraft will, and does, correct itself.
As for the Tutor spin recovery, the reason it isn’t the same as “everything else”… actually, let’s not go there. As for the recent incident, maybe the apparent single circuit check flight of the P1 was a major contributor rather than any subsequent ineffective recovery techniques.
Unless the controls have been centralised first. Then it’s fun.
