11-20-2008, 05:34 AM
I teach flying. Aeronautical judgment is the hardest and most important thing to teach. You can teach a student how to do something, but when to do it is just as important or more important. Through practice you attempt to saturate them with all the different options open to them. Checklists are very much used to prepare the pilot for what might happen and what his choices are in different phases of flight.
I mention all this because it seems there is so much similarity between controlling an aircraft and controlling a gun. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, like steer between the trees and rip the wings off, but more often you wind up thinking "Jeez, why did the student have to do THAT?" He thought he did, but often there is a much better alternative.
There is a maneuver called a spin where one wing is still generating lift and the other is not. The plane is essentially falling straight down, and at a controlled rate of speed that is still fast enough to kill you, and spinning as it falls like a maple seed. If you are used to it and know how to recover it is no problem. It can actually be enjoyable as with any other aerobatic maneuver. It kills people though because if you let it happen unexpectedly and you are not trained how to handle it, you panic. Generally the nose is pointed almost straight at the ground so your instinct is to pull back on the stick to raise the nose but that won't work because you don't have sufficient speed to get the wing flying again. Instead, you have to push forward and get even steeper to break the stall before you pull back and level out.
This is one of the most fundamental lessons in flying. You can and do talk to the student until you are blue in the face but that's just theory. Pilots still die in stall/spin accidents, some with the controls bent backwards as they try with superhuman strength in the final seconds to pull the nose up. Pilots have frozen on the controls and do not hear the instructor sitting beside them as he screams in their face that he's got it, and only snap out of their frozen state when physically hit. It is called tunnel vision because you only see what is directly in front of you.
My point? The most important thing to learn is when to pull the trigger not how. People will do crazy things in such moments, which are by definition the scariest moments of your life. I was told a story by a hunter who was hunting with his brother in law. The BIL was walking in front with his pump action shotgun held properly across his chest with the muzzle pointed up. They stepped around a tree and there was a deer only 5 to 10 yards away. The BIL emptied his shot gun... into the tree above him. Fire, pump, fire, pump, fire...he did everything put aim. He could not be convinced otherwise after the fact.
My point is not that defense with a gun is not practical. It is that you should really plan how and when you will handle the gun at your home, and practice, somehow. Have some kind of a safe zone to which you retreat with your most valued stuff like your family, like having a fenced yard with dogs. Those who make it into that area without yur knowledge are a self selected group. Depending on the obstacles, locked doors, etc, you know more and more about them the deeper they get, like they know they are doing wrong and therefor are more of a personal threat. I know this is easier said than done. I am just trying to draw on the experience that I do have, which is flying. There are things like checking your spoilers before entering the pattern that you wouldn't do later, after you were in the pattern because while it is desirable to know that they will stick open ahead of time, it is bad to learn this later. If you just say, check your spoilers, its a good thing, maybe and maybe not. Keep a gun around for safety? Depends on how aware you are with all the things that might happen, both good and bad, and whether you are acclimated enough to the environment to remember to aim. If not you might literally shoot the person next to you not the intruder in front of you.
I mention all this because it seems there is so much similarity between controlling an aircraft and controlling a gun. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, like steer between the trees and rip the wings off, but more often you wind up thinking "Jeez, why did the student have to do THAT?" He thought he did, but often there is a much better alternative.
There is a maneuver called a spin where one wing is still generating lift and the other is not. The plane is essentially falling straight down, and at a controlled rate of speed that is still fast enough to kill you, and spinning as it falls like a maple seed. If you are used to it and know how to recover it is no problem. It can actually be enjoyable as with any other aerobatic maneuver. It kills people though because if you let it happen unexpectedly and you are not trained how to handle it, you panic. Generally the nose is pointed almost straight at the ground so your instinct is to pull back on the stick to raise the nose but that won't work because you don't have sufficient speed to get the wing flying again. Instead, you have to push forward and get even steeper to break the stall before you pull back and level out.
This is one of the most fundamental lessons in flying. You can and do talk to the student until you are blue in the face but that's just theory. Pilots still die in stall/spin accidents, some with the controls bent backwards as they try with superhuman strength in the final seconds to pull the nose up. Pilots have frozen on the controls and do not hear the instructor sitting beside them as he screams in their face that he's got it, and only snap out of their frozen state when physically hit. It is called tunnel vision because you only see what is directly in front of you.
My point? The most important thing to learn is when to pull the trigger not how. People will do crazy things in such moments, which are by definition the scariest moments of your life. I was told a story by a hunter who was hunting with his brother in law. The BIL was walking in front with his pump action shotgun held properly across his chest with the muzzle pointed up. They stepped around a tree and there was a deer only 5 to 10 yards away. The BIL emptied his shot gun... into the tree above him. Fire, pump, fire, pump, fire...he did everything put aim. He could not be convinced otherwise after the fact.
My point is not that defense with a gun is not practical. It is that you should really plan how and when you will handle the gun at your home, and practice, somehow. Have some kind of a safe zone to which you retreat with your most valued stuff like your family, like having a fenced yard with dogs. Those who make it into that area without yur knowledge are a self selected group. Depending on the obstacles, locked doors, etc, you know more and more about them the deeper they get, like they know they are doing wrong and therefor are more of a personal threat. I know this is easier said than done. I am just trying to draw on the experience that I do have, which is flying. There are things like checking your spoilers before entering the pattern that you wouldn't do later, after you were in the pattern because while it is desirable to know that they will stick open ahead of time, it is bad to learn this later. If you just say, check your spoilers, its a good thing, maybe and maybe not. Keep a gun around for safety? Depends on how aware you are with all the things that might happen, both good and bad, and whether you are acclimated enough to the environment to remember to aim. If not you might literally shoot the person next to you not the intruder in front of you.