Pilot guitarists unite!

Musical_Mystery_Tour

Anybody any experience of having done both - able perhaps to comment on how they compare / contrast ?

Here goes:

A big difference in gliding compared to powered flight, is the position you are seated in and what that does in terms of feel. Sat in a spam can Cessna or Piper, you tend to feel like you are riding along in a chair (because you are), whereas since you are sitting in a fairly laid back position in a glider (this helps reduce the frontal area of the aircraft), you get a feeling of the wings sprouting from your shoulders, and this, in combination with the fact that it is your flying skill which keeps you airborne rather than your wallet and how much fuel you can afford to put in the thing, makes you feel more like a bird, so it is it is cheaper, more rewarding and a more visceral experience in general with that big unrestricted view through a fighter-like perspex canopy. You willl find too, that you have to use the rudder a lot more skilfully in a glider, since there is no propwash helping it be more effective, which means giving it a big bootful of rudder to overcome the adverse yaw of a big wingspan when you want to throw it into a steep turn. A big benefit to that too, is that there is no need to counter prop torque either.

What is also worth noting and what a lot of people tend to forget with gliders, is that since the basic principle of gliding is that you are always descending, but you seek to locate air that is rising faster than your descent rate, so you still climb (think of it like walking down an up escalator). But when you run out of rising air, you make a rapid dash to another potential area of lift, thus you spend as little time as possible in air which is not rising, and when you do that, you typically put on negative flaps and get the nose down to pick up a lot of speed for your dash to the new area of lift. Those dash speeds can easily top 160 knots in many performance gliders, which is actually a lot faster than many powered aeroplanes can manage, so the notion that it is only a serene floaty experience when flying a glider, could not be further from the truth. It can be, but it can be fairly fast and furious too.

It's also interesting to observe that you tend to chuck gliders about a lot more. Banked turns in order to stay in thermals are often very steep. Winch launches are very steep too and aerotows force you to learn how to fly in formation with another aircraft, so there are a fair few things in gliding which involve stuff you rarely get to do in a typical powered aeroplane.

Landing too is more of a challenge, since every one of them is basically similar to a forced landing in a powered aeroplane, requiring good circuit planning, because there is no 'going around' if you were to misjudge things. This inevitably turns you into a better than average pilot.

Last but not least, gliding gives you a better appreciation for weather and improves your knowledge of what the air mass is doing, since the more you know about it and the better your observation is, the longer you stay airborne which is a useful observational meteorology skill if you fly powered aeroplanes too.

drofluf

Leftian said:

drofluf said:

Leftian said:

20 Years flying in the RAF (mostly C130) and then an Airline Captain and instructor before getting fed up with the roster running my life and moving into business (still aviation related). I have more flying hours than guitar hours, but that’s still a work in progress!

My father spent most of his career on the C130 as Flight and running the OCU

When did he leave? We may have crossed, I arrived at Lyneham in 1992 and left 2008. 

Mid 90’s I think. He ended his career heading training for 38 Group- Jim Fulford if the name rings a bell. 

Deadman

ICBM said:

Despite being a lifelong aviation geek I don't think I'd ever be able to train as a pilot - certainly not in a light aircraft - since I suffer from severe motion sickness. Last time I very inadvisedly went on a fairground ride no more violent than the chairs on chains that whizz round and go up and down a bit - I'm guessing the forces are under 1G in any direction - I was nauseous and disorientated to the point of being unable to walk or even sit upright properly for more than half an hour, and felt ill for three days. I'm very envious of any of you who can actually fly something that you can make do stuff like that properly.

So my favourite aircraft is the Boeing 747. It's not only probably the most iconic airliner ever built, it's the nearest to flying without a feeling of movement I've experienced. (I know the 747 is capable of being flown more 'excitingly', but civil pilots don't!)

Before I went up in a Tornado F3 everyone was saying “you’ll decorate the cockpit with sick”, “good luck with THAT” etc etc and I was meant to go up with the season display pilot who reputedly was a bit of a nutter so I was a little apprehensive. I eventually went up with “The Boss” who was a Wing Commander. He read the ‘pax’ rules and followed them to the letter. We did pull 5G over the North Sea and he kept asking me if I was ok and I kept saying yes I am. At that point I realised I wasn’t going to puke and wished the display jockey had took me up at that point. I was actually up for it! 

When we landed the boss told me I’d been a good pax and I hadn’t felt unwell because I’d looked with my eyes rather than moving my head around (I’d been instructed to do that in my ejection seat/pre-flight training and was a good little airman)  

A few months later when I went up in the Lancaster it was a completely different story. Couldn’t believe how much that pilot chucked it about for an older historic aircraft. That’s the difference between sitting static and moving around (I sat in every part of the Lanc throughout the flight) I didn’t puke but my God it was close and so much fun. 

Deadman

drofluf said:

Leftian said:

drofluf said:

Leftian said:

20 Years flying in the RAF (mostly C130) and then an Airline Captain and instructor before getting fed up with the roster running my life and moving into business (still aviation related). I have more flying hours than guitar hours, but that’s still a work in progress!

My father spent most of his career on the C130 as Flight and running the OCU

When did he leave? We may have crossed, I arrived at Lyneham in 1992 and left 2008. 

Mid 90’s I think. He ended his career heading training for 38 Group- Jim Fulford if the name rings a bell. 

I only worked with the guys at Brize, ground though, mostly ex-RAF GE’s Martin Easey, Bob O’Brien, Simes Handley and Gordon Gerrard. All top blokes. Did any of you get to the final Hangar bash with Bruce Dickinson playing? Was a brilliant night.

Nitefly

Blackjack said:

Wow, a thread I can comment on at last!! Haha
i am much more pilot than guitarist - my playing has never managed to progress beyond the crap beginner stage sadly despite my best efforts hence me saying about a thread I can contribute to!!
I have been involved with aviation at Biggin Hill since the tender age of 3 through my family. Knew my phonetic alphabet long before I went to school as the instructors loved it that a pre school aged little girl was so into aircraft so they were happy to teach me stuff.  Have worked in aviation most of my adult life, largely involved with running a flying school and got about 150 hours of various flying in my logbook (not all ppl training, a real mixed bag of stuff) but sadly never got to finish my ppl training due to my club closing. I am now living the dream working for Fly A Spitfire at Biggin Hill, who do two seat Spit flights! Not been in the Spit but have flown in our chase plane in very close formation with the Spit - an awesome experience!! I am one VERY lucky lady!!

Hey @Blackjack nice to hear from you again!

Mention of Biggin Hill reminds me that I tried to get into the RAF to train as a pilot in 1966,as I was about to leave school at 17.

I got on to an assessment group at Biggin Hill, four days of interviews, tests and medicals.  I remember one of the tests was a crude early "video" game where you had to use a joystick to follow a moving dot on a screen with a gun-sight.

I passed everything except the eyesight test, so they said I couldn't be a pilot or navigator, but I could apply for anything else in the RAF career portfolio.  Stupidly, I said "no thanks" as it was fly or bust for me at the time.

I've often wondered since how my life would have been different if I'd accepted...

I did manage to become bar-billiards champion of the group in the mess, so it wasn't a total write-off! 

bazxkr

I admire people who can cover two or more very disciplined activities such as playing pro guitar and  flying. Steve Morse still does both and did for a while and when younger flew for airlines apparently the long downtime on flights gave him the chance to practise lol buddy of mine thinks nothing of flying an F35 around or landing an a carrier but goes white when I hand him a guitar haha not sure I can even single task anymore so respect to all

greggreg66

ICBM said:

Despite being a lifelong aviation geek I don't think I'd ever be able to train as a pilot - certainly not in a light aircraft - since I suffer from severe motion sickness. Last time I very inadvisedly went on a fairground ride no more violent than the chairs on chains that whizz round and go up and down a bit - I'm guessing the forces are under 1G in any direction - I was nauseous and disorientated to the point of being unable to walk or even sit upright properly for more than half an hour, and felt ill for three days. I'm very envious of any of you who can actually fly something that you can make do stuff like that properly.

So my favourite aircraft is the Boeing 747. It's not only probably the most iconic airliner ever built, it's the nearest to flying without a feeling of movement I've experienced. (I know the 747 is capable of being flown more 'excitingly', but civil pilots don't!)

I was sick after my first lesson, just felt really dizzy when I got back to my car. There’s a trick one can do to break the nausea that the aeromedical examiner showed me. Take motion sickness tablets everyday for a couple of weeks, go flying whilst taking them, abruptly stop taking them and then go flying immediately after. Has to be a fairly strongish dose. 

It worked pretty well and I felt fine for ages until my lesson this morning. I haven’t flown for over 2 months and the turbulence was quite strong this morning. We were doing low level navigation simulating bad weather (ironically!) and tracked a small portion of the M25 at about 850ft. Was quite good even though I felt a bit rough! 

greggreg66

Blackjack said:

Wow, a thread I can comment on at last!! Haha
i am much more pilot than guitarist - my playing has never managed to progress beyond the crap beginner stage sadly despite my best efforts hence me saying about a thread I can contribute to!!
I have been involved with aviation at Biggin Hill since the tender age of 3 through my family. Knew my phonetic alphabet long before I went to school as the instructors loved it that a pre school aged little girl was so into aircraft so they were happy to teach me stuff.  Have worked in aviation most of my adult life, largely involved with running a flying school and got about 150 hours of various flying in my logbook (not all ppl training, a real mixed bag of stuff) but sadly never got to finish my ppl training due to my club closing. I am now living the dream working for Fly A Spitfire at Biggin Hill, who do two seat Spit flights! Not been in the Spit but have flown in our chase plane in very close formation with the Spit - an awesome experience!! I am one VERY lucky lady!!

Excellent! That spitfire flies over my parents house in Kent everyday in the summer. Would love to go up in it. 

hollywoodrox

Leftian

Deadman said:

drofluf said:

Leftian said:

drofluf said:

Leftian said:

20 Years flying in the RAF (mostly C130) and then an Airline Captain and instructor before getting fed up with the roster running my life and moving into business (still aviation related). I have more flying hours than guitar hours, but that’s still a work in progress!

My father spent most of his career on the C130 as Flight and running the OCU

When did he leave? We may have crossed, I arrived at Lyneham in 1992 and left 2008. 

Mid 90’s I think. He ended his career heading training for 38 Group- Jim Fulford if the name rings a bell. 

I only worked with the guys at Brize, ground though, mostly ex-RAF GE’s Martin Easey, Bob O’Brien, Simes Handley and Gordon Gerrard. All top blokes. Did any of you get to the final Hangar bash with Bruce Dickinson playing? Was a brilliant night.

The name Jim Fulford rings a bell, but I can’t put a face to him. Remember some of those GEs!  I was at the hangar bash, it was like time folded back 20 years, most of my era on 47 and LXX seemed to be there! Back in the day I played in the Sqn band, we never got Bruce singing with us then, what an experience for them! They played great as well! 

Deadman

Nice one @Leftian they got the crowd going more after Bruce went off imo. Killing in the name was banging! 

Sorry for the thread derail OP….

Blackjack

greggreg66 said:

Blackjack said:

Wow, a thread I can comment on at last!! Haha
i am much more pilot than guitarist - my playing has never managed to progress beyond the crap beginner stage sadly despite my best efforts hence me saying about a thread I can contribute to!!
I have been involved with aviation at Biggin Hill since the tender age of 3 through my family. Knew my phonetic alphabet long before I went to school as the instructors loved it that a pre school aged little girl was so into aircraft so they were happy to teach me stuff.  Have worked in aviation most of my adult life, largely involved with running a flying school and got about 150 hours of various flying in my logbook (not all ppl training, a real mixed bag of stuff) but sadly never got to finish my ppl training due to my club closing. I am now living the dream working for Fly A Spitfire at Biggin Hill, who do two seat Spit flights! Not been in the Spit but have flown in our chase plane in very close formation with the Spit - an awesome experience!! I am one VERY lucky lady!!

Excellent! That spitfire flies over my parents house in Kent everyday in the summer. Would love to go up in it. 

Hey @greggreg66 , it’s a fabulous thing to do if you have a large enough bag of gold with nothing better to do with it! If not then the hangar tours that we run are fab too! You don’t get to fly obviously but it’s an incredible place to visit if you are into warbirds. I love my job!

Blackjack

Hi @Nitefly thank you for the warm welcome! I kinda stopped posting after a bad experience with someone.  Have been lurking every so often but couldn’t resist posting on this thread. Do miss the banter but I am just not up to the grade, I have never got beyond being an open chord strummer - wish I could get further though!
i remember the selection centre well! The building is still there which is good.  I have heard that some of the assessments were pretty tough so it sounds like you did really well. Just such a shame that your eyesight test let you down. You can only but wonder how things might have been but hopefully you have had good times along the way! 

Nitefly said:

Blackjack said:

Wow, a thread I can comment on at last!! Haha
i am much more pilot than guitarist - my playing has never managed to progress beyond the crap beginner stage sadly despite my best efforts hence me saying about a thread I can contribute to!!
I have been involved with aviation at Biggin Hill since the tender age of 3 through my family. Knew my phonetic alphabet long before I went to school as the instructors loved it that a pre school aged little girl was so into aircraft so they were happy to teach me stuff.  Have worked in aviation most of my adult life, largely involved with running a flying school and got about 150 hours of various flying in my logbook (not all ppl training, a real mixed bag of stuff) but sadly never got to finish my ppl training due to my club closing. I am now living the dream working for Fly A Spitfire at Biggin Hill, who do two seat Spit flights! Not been in the Spit but have flown in our chase plane in very close formation with the Spit - an awesome experience!! I am one VERY lucky lady!!

Hey @Blackjack nice to hear from you again!

Mention of Biggin Hill reminds me that I tried to get into the RAF to train as a pilot in 1966,as I was about to leave school at 17.

I got on to an assessment group at Biggin Hill, four days of interviews, tests and medicals.  I remember one of the tests was a crude early "video" game where you had to use a joystick to follow a moving dot on a screen with a gun-sight.

I passed everything except the eyesight test, so they said I couldn't be a pilot or navigator, but I could apply for anything else in the RAF career portfolio.  Stupidly, I said "no thanks" as it was fly or bust for me at the time.

I've often wondered since how my life would have been different if I'd accepted...

I did manage to become bar-billiards champion of the group in the mess, so it wasn't a total write-off! 

Hootsmon

Thought it was about the guitarist in Pilot....he was GREAT!

kjdowd

I got my PPL in 2022 after some stop/start Covid affected training. Weather has been a bit rubbish recently but I get up when I can. Currently starting training towards IR(R) and looking for a share. 

topdog91

Got a lesson in today, first one since mid-November! Was nervous as don't like such a long gap as things are hardly ingrained, but actually it went well.

First time doing circuits, EGTR is a bit "challenging" because of noise abatement, but it felt really good, just follow the green bits... It possibly helps that I grew up close by and know the area.

Mad crosswind, not too strong (7-8kt) but almost square on to the runway. I rather enjoyed the challenge and my instructor didn't have to do anything too drastic, my penultimate landing was nearly all me!

He is happy, he said the crosswind compensation made it hard for me to focus to the flare at the very end, but he feels I got a lot out of it. Hopefully when the wind is less challenging we'll be able to focus more on the eyes to the end of the runway bit.

For my last landing I was a bit high, I was concentrating on the crossed controls which makes more sense in practice than on paper, but I probably left too much power in because I was worried about slipping too much. It's easy to say "just look outside" (nobody said that to me, I'm saying it to myself) but it's a skill to learn via practice.

It was also really interesting actually feeling like I was giving the rudder some for once and compensating with aileron and approaching the runway straight on. Quite a lot of this stuff is about not trusting your traditional senses.

So as usual, the new bits occupy most of my cognition but the previous bits became more natural. Fantastic fun and a real privilege, I never have buyer's remorse when I tap the card at the end.

AK99

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

Anybody any experience of having done both - able perhaps to comment on how they compare / contrast ?

Here goes:

A big difference in gliding compared to powered flight, is the position you are seated in and what that does in terms of feel. Sat in a spam can Cessna or Piper, you tend to feel like you are riding along in a chair (because you are), whereas since you are sitting in a fairly laid back position in a glider (this helps reduce the frontal area of the aircraft), you get a feeling of the wings sprouting from your shoulders, and this, in combination with the fact that it is your flying skill which keeps you airborne rather than your wallet and how much fuel you can afford to put in the thing, makes you feel more like a bird, so it is it is cheaper, more rewarding and a more visceral experience in general with that big unrestricted view through a fighter-like perspex canopy. You willl find too, that you have to use the rudder a lot more skilfully in a glider, since there is no propwash helping it be more effective, which means giving it a big bootful of rudder to overcome the adverse yaw of a big wingspan when you want to throw it into a steep turn. A big benefit to that too, is that there is no need to counter prop torque either.

What is also worth noting and what a lot of people tend to forget with gliders, is that since the basic principle of gliding is that you are always descending, but you seek to locate air that is rising faster than your descent rate, so you still climb (think of it like walking down an up escalator). But when you run out of rising air, you make a rapid dash to another potential area of lift, thus you spend as little time as possible in air which is not rising, and when you do that, you typically put on negative flaps and get the nose down to pick up a lot of speed for your dash to the new area of lift. Those dash speeds can easily top 160 knots in many performance gliders, which is actually a lot faster than many powered aeroplanes can manage, so the notion that it is only a serene floaty experience when flying a glider, could not be further from the truth. It can be, but it can be fairly fast and furious too.

It's also interesting to observe that you tend to chuck gliders about a lot more. Banked turns in order to stay in thermals are often very steep. Winch launches are very steep too and aerotows force you to learn how to fly in formation with another aircraft, so there are a fair few things in gliding which involve stuff you rarely get to do in a typical powered aeroplane.

Landing too is more of a challenge, since every one of them is basically similar to a forced landing in a powered aeroplane, requiring good circuit planning, because there is no 'going around' if you were to misjudge things. This inevitably turns you into a better than average pilot.

Last but not least, gliding gives you a better appreciation for weather and improves your knowledge of what the air mass is doing, since the more you know about it and the better your observation is, the longer you stay airborne which is a useful observational meteorology skill if you fly powered aeroplanes too.

Thanks MMT.  After doing the PPL I managed to get a couple of hours in a microlight 2-seater with a pusher prop called a CFM Shadow, which really needed you to manage the rudder and was a totally different flying experience to the Cherokees and C172s in the local club - so really do get the appeal of flying in something that makes you fly it properly.

The only time I looked at a gliding club after that, it seemed to involve lots of pushing aircraft around on the ground, and waiting for long periods of time for the chance of a 5-10 minute aero-tow and glide back to earth for another couple of hours worth of 'ground ops'  

Is that still generally how you go about building up time and experience in order to obtain a gliding qualification ?

kjdowd

topdog91 said:

Got a lesson in today, first one since mid-November! Was nervous as don't like such a long gap as things are hardly ingrained, but actually it went well.

First time doing circuits, EGTR is a bit "challenging" because of noise abatement, but it felt really good, just follow the green bits... It possibly helps that I grew up close by and know the area.

Mad crosswind, not too strong (7-8kt) but almost square on to the runway. I rather enjoyed the challenge and my instructor didn't have to do anything too drastic, my penultimate landing was nearly all me!

He is happy, he said the crosswind compensation made it hard for me to focus to the flare at the very end, but he feels I got a lot out of it. Hopefully when the wind is less challenging we'll be able to focus more on the eyes to the end of the runway bit.

For my last landing I was a bit high, I was concentrating on the crossed controls which makes more sense in practice than on paper, but I probably left too much power in because I was worried about slipping too much. It's easy to say "just look outside" (nobody said that to me, I'm saying it to myself) but it's a skill to learn via practice.

It was also really interesting actually feeling like I was giving the rudder some for once and compensating with aileron and approaching the runway straight on. Quite a lot of this stuff is about not trusting your traditional senses.

So as usual, the new bits occupy most of my cognition but the previous bits became more natural. Fantastic fun and a real privilege, I never have buyer's remorse when I tap the card at the end.

Are you learning with FTL? Which instructor?

topdog91

Indeed I am, as discussed in PM.

January was kind to me, managed to get two lessons in two weeks, you may call now me Johnny Circuits Nuts. Second week of circuits was calmer and opposite side so have now done both sides of the airfield (RH both times).

FI complimentary about my approaches and now it's all about the last few feet, but I'm feeling good and I feel every lesson I put more of the puzzle together which is probably the point. He's talking about looking further ahead and looking for the ground to "rise" in my peripheral vision, then hold it up and let the airspeed bleed off. Or something.

Sadly, TAF looking underwhelming for tomorrow.

Bork

Last time I very inadvisedly went on a fairground ride no more violent than the chairs on chains that whizz round and go up and down a bit - I'm guessing the forces are under 1G in any direction - I was nauseous and disorientated to the point of being unable to walk or even sit upright properly for more than half an hour, and felt ill for three days.

Westchester County Fair, New Hampshire, USA  August 1996.  I went on a spinning fairground ride where the main arms spin in a circle and a group of seats on the ends of each arm also spin.  The ride went on for longer than I could handle and I ended up doing (what was known at my university as) 'a helicopter'.  Some of it hit the line of people waiting below and, once the ride stopped, I beat a very hasty exit before someone else on the ride pointed me out to the now highly irate crowd.  I've never been on a fairground ride since.