Are we losing our stick and rudder skills? If so, how much does it matter?

We got an email from a reader the other day, a former Air Force fighter jock who was shocked by what he saw as the lack of flying skills on the part of the pilot flying the Q400 that crashed in Buffalo earlier this year. In his email, the reader went into exacting detail about exactly how he would have extricated himself from the mess (that in real life quickly ended in disaster) and what he saw as the root cause of the crash: poor stick and rudder skills.

It seems to be a widely held belief, that pilots today suffer from a serious lack of basic flying skill and that their inability to fly the airplane makes them particularly vulnerable when the chips get down.

But is it true?

Unfortunately, it's impossible to say with any certainty if our hand flying skills have eroded over time. Are there indications that they might have? Sure. And there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to support that view. But how does one measure that? If one were to look at accident statistics as a yardstick, one might come to the opposite conclusion. There are fewer accidents per hour these days compared to the good old days of spinning before solo, so our hand flying must be better, right? Okay, probably not, but my point is, it's a hard thing to quantify.

Back to Buffalo. Let me say that while the NTSB hasn't issued a final report on the crash, it's hard if not impossible, based solely on the transcripts, to defend the conduct of the flight.

But the questions remain: would the pilots have had a chance to recover if they had flown the airplane more proficiently at the point that the airspeed started to erode? And what could they have done to ward off the incipient stall in the first place?

Now, I'm not attempting any in-depth analysis of the Buffalo crash; I'm only using it as means to discuss the kind of thinking that I hear all the time from pilots about upset recovery.

First, I think the answer to the first question--could they have saved the day?--is probably "yes." But only if the pilots had executed recovery techniques quickly and without mistake. Neither of those things happened. Pulling back on the elevator when the airplane is stalling is good technique only as part of an aerobatics routine. Had the crew pushed the nose down, powered up and commanded gear up as soon as they became aware they were in trouble, could they have recovered? It would have been close, but probably. 

That said, this kind of Monday morning quarterbacking (Tuesday morning, that is: my Pats got killed last night) is a tempting thing to do. And predictably, our performance with nothing but time to think about it and absolutely nothing at stake is remarkably good. I know I always save the day, at least in my own mind. (For the record, I have also saved the day once in real life, as well. Hooray for me.)

Part of this strong (too strong?) self belief might stem from the psychological need we have to protect ourselves from perceived risk. After all, who wants to believe that we have no little or no power to ward off disaster in our daily flying? Not me. I want to think I could save myself if the need ever arose (again).

And let's be realistic. When the chips are down in the sim, pilots, good pilots, pilots with ten times as many hours and skill as me, crash all the time. Any pilot can be overcome by circumstance. That's just a fact.

The second question is much easier to answer. What could they have done to ward off the incipient stall? Just paying attention to airspeed would have done the trick. That simple awareness would have saved 50 lives that day.

That doesn't mean that stick and rudder skills are irrelevant or even overrated. It just means that keeping yourself out of situations where you need those skills to save your life is a much more prudent approach. Had the Buffalo pilots simply been aware of their airspeed, there would have been no need to recover from anything. Risk management was a much easier and more clear cut answer to cutting risk. Paying attention would have eliminated the need for upset recovery techniques.

That might not be a comfort to pilots, like you and me, who want to believe we have the right stuff and can save the day when the chips are down, but it's far more realistic, and far more likely to save lives than heroic measures.

by Robert Goyer

Comments

[Rayman]

I want to add to the discussion with this question: let us define "stick and rudder." Technology has always pushed pilot skill to adapt to the machine in its hands. The basics were slow to advanced since the 1920s as airplanes moved from muscle controls to hydraulic assists, from fixed gear to retractables, from tail wheels to nose wheels. I flew T-38s, C-130s, B-737,B-757/767 and A-320/319s. I could tell the difference mostly on the B-757/A-320/Z-319 due to the wing configuration more than anything as far as flying the aircraft. The A-320 fleet, however, had no functional throttles so flying was totally different. What has never changed for pilots, and in my opinion a major factor in the Buffalo crash, is the need for pilots to focus on the job. More recently illustrated over MSP with distracted, and now unemployed, pilots. If we then define stick and rudder as being in the moment with the aircraft, the pilots at the controls over Buffalo would have been able to predict the nascent situation and taken proper action. Chatting and not paying attentin to basic instruments caused the confusion as to the warning bells. Over Greece a B-737 accident also illustrates the point as a bell rang to announce lack of pressurization. The Captain believed it to be the take off gear horn! Not at 11,000 ft. plus! Not being in the moment is crucial and I wonder if this is a subject in need of being included in training programs and manuals. Skill level is one thing. When to apply them is the critical measure of a good pilot. Remember the definition of a good landing? Of course, when you walk away. But the definition of an excellent landing escapes a lot of us. And excellent landing is when you can use the plane once more. Think up!

[Joe Gauthier]

I agree with Goyer that vigilance and situational awareness are the pilot qualities that we believe can "Save the day" when things start to go wrong. I believe that poor stick and rudder skills are to blame for many events leading to accidents. Take for example the number of accidents that occur when pilots try to go around on landing. Proper stick and rudder skills can save the day when a pilot yanks the plane, nearly stalled off the runway and pushes the throttle full forward with flaps deployed.

The number of pilots I fly with that execute stall recoveries poorly (unsafely) during flight reviews is astounding. Poor stick and rudder skills brought on by poor training are the root cause of this accident causing behavior. There are few pilot in that group than can hold a decent heading while recovering from even the most gentle stall. Picking up a wing without the use of rudder, relying only on the ailerons is the root cause of this poor performance.

Others have said so, written it more eloquently and dwelled on it at length, all of which I will not do.

The question is, what should be done about this? Who will someday finally focus on this and put together a "Program with bells and whistles" to draw attention to it so it can be corrected.

Sincerely
Joe Gauthier CFI

[Octavio Dalmas]

Robert:
I recently sent a letter to a magazine asking opinions on if spinning training was a good, necessary idea. I sent my opinion, which also includes what I just read you wrote, so here it goes.
------------------------------

To spin, or not to spin…

I definitely agree with you.

When I started flying in 1973 in this, my country (Uruguay, in South America) it was expected of the student pilot to get in and out of a normal spin for Private (at least one complete turn), and a “precision spin” of two and a half turns (or three and a half if you wanted to show off) to make it to Commercial. Period.

No one asked if you were afraid of it. Which I somehow was, when starting the training, but then learnt to enjoy it and later -of course- used it to impress some uruguayan ladies.

And let me add a detail: my now dusty log book says: June 13th-1973 - first flight. Two days later it shows that, with a couple more flights and a total experience of TWO hours, the third hour was dedicated to spin training. Before my solo, or anything else.
I am proud of it, and glad my old fashioned instructor did choose to do so.

Four decades (and 11K hours) after those days, I can see how convenient that was.
I was not the bravest, smartest or best “natural” pilot in town, just average. So I assume what proved good for me should be good for the average flying Joe.

And let me tell you that, after a brief introduction to what it feels to have the control of an aircraft, it is a good idea to address the Big Unspoken Issue most students have: what is The Worst I can expect, what is the most awful situation I can get into, what is the most fearsome problem I can run into.

To gently usher them into -and hopefully out of- some nice spins in an adequate plane will give them that experience and -like I always say when I get caught in the unending hangar discussions on the subject- it will move far away, way out of where you usually are, the “Fear Fence”: the boundary, the envelope inside which you feel comfortable, in control, and within the range of normal situations. It will make you a better pilot, more at ease with your flying.

Never again will a steep turn or even a lazy eight worry you, since you have been several times way beyond that: at the “plummeting into the rotating plowed farm” situation and images we have seen so many times in those old fashioned aviation movies, normally followed by thick smoke, howling 1948 Ford ambulances and long skirted crying ladies.

You have been there, and you know it is no big deal; no such ending is likely to happen, if you know what to do.
So you will do what you have to do if –for whatever reason- you find yourself on the dreaded “windshield full of rotating farm” situation. Which will obviously not include crying or screaming; you will automatically do as they do in Ukraine.
Which is: center your stick and kick opposite rudder.
(Bad joke, forget this last line).

But I fully agree on your point, and wish I was the one making the rules so as to make them students spin, at least a couple times. It wouldn’t hurt anybody.

And I have thanked ever since my long gone instructor for taking me through that, and also for teaching me to master an untamed J3 Piper Cub on cross winds that made me wish I could land across the runway rather than along it, and so many other basic things that have flown with me all these years.
Because I insisted on flying (although mother kept saying I should get a real job), and started doing it all over the globe, and eventually ended up being able, me also, of telling the difference between China and Arizona.

And so I had the chance to fly big four engined cargo turboprops that resembled a J3 on cross winds, as well as taking them across so much water in seemingly endless flights that made you wonder if there would be anything else beyond that blue circle you seemed to be forever encrusted on. And doing it on “TF”, Track and Faith: sticking to the compass for hours and hours until you somehow ended up hitting a continent, somewhere.

And being able, after hitting now and then on the unemployment line instead, to either make it to an isolated farm with no runway on a 185, or towing a banner so heavy your summertime suffering would start the moment you saw it lying on the taxiway, or driving a Boeing to a happy landing in Frankfurt, on a rainy winter Friday night; whatever it took to make a living, and raise a family, in this our remote neck of the woods.

And, spinning and all, it all started on those forty some hours on that J3, and the joy of flying it well.

[Eric Fichtner]

Not to be critical, but I just wanted to correct the record a little bit. You said in your article that the crew of the buffalo crash "Pulling back on the elevator when the airplane is stalling (which the Buffalo pilot apparently did)." This isn't exactly true. What actually happened was a classic trim stall. The autopilot was on during the approach giving more and more nose up trim as the airplane slowed which was considerably fast because the crew added gear and flaps without any additional power. So by the time the airplane was about to stall it was at almost full nose up trim. It was the addition of power that caused the abrupt pitch up motion.

With all that being said I liked and agree with one of your last statements: "It just means that keeping yourself out of situations where you need those skills to save your life is a much more prudent approach...Risk management was a much easier and more clear cut answer to cutting risk."
This should help advocate scenario based training to help evaulate situations that put us in risk of such scenario's.

[Todd Miller]

The classic rant about 'stick and rudder' skills will go on and on. In the pure sense, it matters mostly for lightweight, low wing loading planes. LSA's and Cubs. For everyone else, simply paying attention is far more important.

[Diane Miller]

I do believe in stick and rudder training. Maybe everyone should rent a tail dragger and get some real rudder time. Old time pilots with lots of tail dragger time over-control so much on a C-150 that it is almost dangerous.

Also, teaching how not to get into a stall with rudder control is as important as teaching how to get out of the stall. More instrument time should be given with unusual attitudes for a private rating.

[Michael Bradley]

As a student pilot, my instructor spent a lot of time dealing with unsafe attitudes, recoveries and 'stick & rudder skills. I'm glad he did I believed it saved this student pilot's life. While getting ready for my check ride I was practicing power on and power off stalls in a C-150. During a power on stall I wasn’t watching or concentrating on keeping the ball centered. Just as I realized it, the left wing dropped and now I’m not only looking straight down at mother earth put the plane is stared spinning. For that slit second there was fear and the realization that my actions caused this and I was the only one that could solve the problem. Mels training was there to help me.

5 years latter I still "keep the Ball centered" and practice my basic skills as a private pilot.

[SkyMachines]

Airplanes are pretty forgiving of bad technique. At this point, as a CFII, I'm more concerned about folks keeping their heads down and not looking out the window anymore. (Synthetic vision will make that worse!) Sure, the ball doesn't seem to be getting as centered by today's crop of pilots, but I'm not sure that's going to be a big problem.

I'm finding that simple VFR attitude flying is a thing of the past. The current crop of pilots doesn't seem to know that putting the cowl on the horizon means a good climb rate, or putting the top of the glareshield "four fingers" below the horizon means level flight in a typical Cessna.

If we ARE going to fly "all inside, all IFR, all the time," pilots at least need to know what pitch setting is needed for each phase of flight. For example, 6 deg. for a max climb. -2 deg. for an ILS, or whatever. The point is, pilots do not seem to be learning attitude flying anymore. THAT is more of a problem than basic stick and rudder at this point.

[Jon Croghan]

Octavio Dalmas post made me think he could have a future as a writer. Michael Bradley's experience is a mirror for my own. When I recovered I was a 1,000 feet lower and headed 180 degrees to my previous heading.

Even with spin training for my CFI, I feel, does not truly prepare one for flying on the edge. Years later, a half hour in a Pitts illustrated how flying on the edge can be fun as well improve my flying skills. Pilots training today is in how to recognize a deteriorating situation and to back off from it. As a consequence pilots don't necessarily have the skills for flying on the edge if it should come to that. Even then, we are always reading about the very experience pilot(s) with thousands of hours flying into the side of a mountain somewhere.

[Robert W Tucker]

Previous generations tend to see the current generation going to hell more quickly than we think they should.

As an academic, I witness the tendency in older professorial types to lament what they describe as a decline in the academic skills of the current generation of students. The problem is that the test scores say otherwise. Today's students know more than ever before and have greater proficiency than ever before.

Similarly, I hear the old hangar rats lamenting the same thing about the absence of stick and rudder skills in new pilots. Here, too, the facts may say otherwise. In the aggregate, and smoothing for noise, accident rates are lower than ever. We can speculate as to the relative contributions of mechanics, technology, ATC, training, and pilot skills to these facts but they are facts nonetheless.

Evidence that the hangar rats may be wrong can be seen perhaps most clearly in the GA accident rate at untowered airports, especially in the northwest where we fly mountainous terrain to get wherever we want to go. Aside from GPS, we get no help from anyone and we fly tail-draggers that were typed in the 1940's. They are not especially forgiving aircraft. One can make a case that the contributions of pilot skills (or the lack of them) is most likely a significant factor in any accident rate changes. The rates are falling as much or more than any other aviation sector at the same time that the oldest pilots are hanging up their wings in increasingly large numbers. These declines do not necessarily prove that newer generation pilots have better stick and rudder skills. However, unless we want to place greater importance on a single enabling objective (S&R skills) than the goal served by the objective (safety), it does prove that they are better pilots, whatever the reason.

Should we all be good in recovering from unusual attitudes? Yes, of course. Would it be desirable if we could all fly tail-draggers with proficiency? I'm not so sure. It's fun but its definitely not a part of the 21st Century. Should we be even better at avoiding unplanned unusual attitudes? I think so.

(Lest I be accused of some kind of ageism, I am hangar rat age myself.)

[JAMES A. VAN dRIESSCHE]

Are we losig our Stick and Rudder skills?

Until recently I would have said NO! But last summer I went to Jack Browns Seabase training site to add a float plane rating to my license. They use J3 cubs there with nothing but the basic equipment including hand starting.WOW what an experience. To begin with the training was excelent. This I know 1st hand because I tried two different places before going to Jack Browns. But point I want to make is that it was all stick and rudder flying and it really helped me in my flying skills and improved my flying performance but most of all it was great fun. My hats off to you wonderful people at Jack Browns and now I try to get back into the basics stick and rudder airplane at least once a month to help keep me and my skills sharp.