Hey everyone,Yesterday, I decided finally to shell out some money for a lesson up in a 152. (I've only got 8 hours)We took off from my local Delta field, KRYY. We headed up to a another close-by non-towered field to practice touch and go's. I really liked my instructor. He was very honest and didn't sugarcoat things. If I messed up something, he'd tell me straight up rather than let me slip by pulling off stuff that wouldn't pass if I were taking a checkride. We did patterns up at the untowered fie;ld for about 45 minutes. My first pattern was *awful*. It is runway 1 and winds were 330@11 gusting 15. (Give me some slack!) I have this issue as to where I believe throttle is for speed! My instructor "slapped" my hand off of the throttle at one point. He couldn't stress it enough, you HAVE to use throttle for ascent and descent and pitch for speed. I feel that FSX has somewhat messed me up on this. Zachary Waddell better respond to this post. The 2,3,4 patterns were much better. I actually tried my hardest to use his idealogy. It works! I actually did a nice job the last few patterns. So, what it all boils down to is this single principle. Throttle for ascent and descent. Pitch for speed. *I need to hardcode this into my brain.Anyone else had an experience as such?

Edited January 29, 201214 yr by benorg

Hey everyone,Yesterday, I decided finally to shell out some money for a lesson up in a 152. (I've only got 8 hours)We took off from my local Delta field, KRYY. We headed up to a another close-by non-towered field to practice touch and go's. I really liked my instructor. He was very honest and didn't sugarcoat things. If I messed up something, he'd tell me straight up rather than let me slip by pulling off stuff that wouldn't pass if I were taking a checkride. We did patterns up at the untowered fie;ld for about 45 minutes. My first pattern was *awful*. It is runway 1 and winds were 330@11 gusting 15. (Give me some slack!) I have this issue as to where I believe throttle is for speed! My instructor "slapped" my hand off of the throttle at one point. He couldn't stress it enough, you HAVE to use throttle for ascent and descent and pitch for speed. I feel that FSX has somewhat messed me up on this. Zachary Waddell better respond to this post. The 2,3,4 patterns were much better. I actually tried my hardest to use his idealogy. It works! I actually did a nice job the last few patterns. So, what it all boils down to is this single principle. Throttle for ascent and descent. Pitch for speed. *I need to hardcode this into my brain.Anyone else had an experience as such?

You're further ahead than many private pilots if you've learned that point! "PITCH FOR AIRSPEED" is a major point I like to drive home. It's a fundamental idea many never learn.Congrats Ben! Sounds fun!

Edited January 29, 201214 yr by ZachLW

You're further ahead than many private pilots if you've learned that point! "PITCH FOR AIRSPEED" is a major point I like to drive home. It's a fundamental idea many never learn.

It took me the 2nd time in the pattern to understand. It just seems almost like backwards logic to any normal citizen....

Hey everyone,I have this issue as to where I believe throttle is for speed!

Hi Ben,This is discussed very often in forums and, actually a lot of instructors around the world will teach you that throttle is for speed !On an airliner, if you look at what the autothrottle and autopilot do, you'll notice different methods can be used on the same plane depending on the flight regime :- in climb mode, power is often fixed and speed/climb rate will indeed be adjusted with pitch.- but when flying an ILS, the autothrottle will maintain speed and slope will be controlled by pitchAnother well-known example is fighter aicraft landing on an aircraft carrier (close to 2nd regime) : speed is adjusted by pitch and slope by throttle !I was surprised to find out that every airliner pilot I know learned to control speed with the throttle and always fly their approaches this way (even on light aircraft). Maybe this is because of the response time of jet engine?So in summary do what your instructor will tell you, and fly safely !Bruno

Edited January 29, 201214 yr by fencer

So in summary do what your instructor will tell you, and fly safely !

Only thing I can do without getting my hand slapped off of the throttle! :(

Now that I'm home, I can refine what I've said. Pitch and power are going to correlate with each other in altitude and throttle. The understanding of the relationship between throttle and pitch becomes more sound around solo time (hopefully).Instead of PITCH FOR AIRSPEED, keep in mind rather TRIM FOR AIRSPEED!Btw, slap the instructors hand when he slaps yours. Me and my IFR instructor used to trade licks back and forth while I tried to concentrate on flying. We must've looked like Larry and Curly up in the front...

You're further ahead than many private pilots if you've learned that point! "PITCH FOR AIRSPEED" is a major point I like to drive home. It's a fundamental idea many never learn.

Another.........................of the longest lasting arguments of flight!! Yes, pitch for airspeed is best for the landing phase, and that's what needs to be primarily taught to students. Pitch for airspeed in formation flight is a disaster! For that, it's throttle, with pitch becoming secondary. And it's the same for many other phases of flight, in which it's a combination of both methods. With research, one will see that the FAA, Boeing, Airforce, Navy, etc. all have varying views on this subject. IMO............it's just not one or the other.........period.L.Adamson

Since we're on the subject of flight simulation and real lessons.....There is now a thread at the Pilots of America forum, in which some are saying that MSFS is purely a game, has no usefulness for real flight, is nothing like real flight, and is instead....... a hinderance. Of course, I disagree. Desktop simulation has certainly changed and improved over the years.

Edited January 29, 201214 yr by LAdamson

Since we're on the subject of flight simulation and real lessons.....There is now a thread at the Pilots of America forum, in which some are saying that MSFS is purely a game, has no usefulness for real flight, is nothing like real flight, and is instead....... a hinderance. Of course, I disagree. Desktop simulation has certainly changed and improved over the years.

Ridiculous. Though it holds no candle to real flight, MSFS at it's best is no "hindrance", proves to be a valuable tool, and certainly does represent real flight as I know it provided I have it set up the "right way". Anyone that suggest otherwise is simply an ignoramus or wants to steal the thunder from a simmer, IMHO. For instance, I was certainly better at flight with reference to instruments when I started my private.... Make of that what you will!That being said, any avid simmer should experience real flight at least once in a small aircraft; get a demo flight and see what you're made of. This way you can get a feel for what the sim is missing.Thanks for sharing!(BTW, has anyone noticed how dead the Hangar Chat Forum is since PMDG's NGX release? Use this forum, people. Stay out of the PMDG General Forum! ) :(

Hello,Ben...I work part time and have my 150 hangered over at the next airport west of RYY(4A4 Cedartown)...You,re welcome to come over and do pattern work ,also..John Mann,manager,is also an FAA DE for your oral and practical when you get ready...Just wanted to say Hello and stay with it,it will become addictive...Lou N5261Q

Hi Ben,This is discussed very often in forums and, actually a lot of instructors around the world will teach you that throttle is for speed !On an airliner, if you look at what the autothrottle and autopilot do, you'll notice different methods can be used on the same plane depending on the flight regime :- in climb mode, power is often fixed and speed/climb rate will indeed be adjusted with pitch.- but when flying an ILS, the autothrottle will maintain speed and slope will be controlled by pitchAnother well-known example is fighter aicraft landing on an aircraft carrier (close to 2nd regime) : speed is adjusted by pitch and slope by throttle !I was surprised to find out that every airliner pilot I know learned to control speed with the throttle and always fly their approaches this way (even on light aircraft). Maybe this is because of the response time of jet engine?So in summary do what your instructor will tell you, and fly safely !Bruno

The only reason an aircraft can be controlled by using pitch to control altitude is because the aircraft is flying fast enough to be on the front side of the power curve. When an airliner is landing, it deploys enough flaps and slats that the aircraft is still being flown on the frontside of the power curve. When you learn to fly IFR and make an ILS approach in a Cessna 172, you fly it at 90kts, which is near cruising speed. The reason you do this is to keep the plane on on the frontside of the power curve so that your pitch inputs are able to directly affect the glideslope position of the aircraft, making an ILS approach an easier proposition. The tradeoff is that once you break out of the clouds and sight the runway, you must make a quick transition to the slower actual landing speed in order to safely land the 172. An airliner is expensive enough that the manufacturers incorporate enough high lift devices to allow it to give you frontside behavior all the way down to the landing speeds so that a stable approach on an ILS can be flown without having to make a last second transition to landing speed.The laws of physics do not change whether a pilot is an airline pilot or a fighter pilot, or a plane is an airliner or a fighter jet. The same thing is happening. Pitch inputs affect airspeed the same way, no matter what regime an airliner or figher jet is flying in. However, pitch inputs affect an aircraft's altitude differently depending on the flight regime. That is why you cannot teach a student "Pitch is for altitude" because that can someday cause them to keep their Q400 in a stall, right into an unsuspecting Buffalo neighborhood. To teach a student pitch is for altitude requires the instructor to caveat it with exeptions. Exceptions such as what the airplane will do when on a landing approach in the plane the student is flying. On a landing approach, the pitch inputs have an opposite affect on altitude as it did when the plane was at cruising speed. In the end, the instructor will have to just resign to saying that "it's complicated, it's a combination, you'll understand it someday, I hope" to his student if his startpoint was "pitch for altitude." Unfortunately, this is the most disservice an instructor could do to a primary student, because this is where the instructor is supposed to build basic fundamentals that are hardwired into the student so that someday, when he is over the Atlantic on a stormy night, and the other pilot is saying "I don't know what is happening!" he can instinctively push his A330 out of the stall when nothing else makes sense except that the plane seems to have no airspeed and is falling. The most important job of a pilot's first instructor is to instill the correct basics of flying so that everything else has the proper foundation to build on and that he has something correct to draw upon if he is ever completely overwhelmed by a situation and his brain can only comprehend 1% of what is happening. That is why you will see instructors slap their students if they try to pitch for altitude and throttle for speed.

Edited January 30, 201214 yr by KevinAu

... That is why you cannot teach a student "Pitch is for altitude" because that can someday cause them to keep their Q400 in a stall, right into an unsuspecting Buffalo neighborhood... .../...... when he is over the Atlantic on a stormy night, and the other pilot is saying "I don't know what is happening!" he can instinctively push his A330 out of the stall when nothing else makes sense except that the plane seems to have no airspeed and is falling.

Hi Kevin,I think the topic we are discussing is control during normal flight, especially during the approach and landing phases while the two accidents you use as examples have more to do with loss of situation awareness and stall/spin recovery techniques (btw, as you know, one of them is still under investigation).Bruno

Hi Kevin,I think the topic we are discussing is control during normal flight, especially during the approach and landing phases while the two accidents you use as examples have more to do with loss of situation awareness and stall/spin recovery techniques (btw, as you know, one of them is still under investigation).Bruno

There is no difference. There is nothing different about a "stall recovery" than normal flight. The controls work exactly the same in both situations. And those examples are exactly why instructors should begin with pitch for speed. If your basic foundation was built on "pitch for speed" then if you woke up in a critical slow speed situation, your natural instinct would be to push forward on the stick. Which would save you every time. If your foundation was built on "throttle for speed" then your natural instinct would be to push on the throttle, which may or may not help. In normal flight, the exact same thing happens. A push of the stick also increases airspeed. Try it yourself, cover up the altimeter and vsi, then just push and pull on the stick to your heart's content and watch how the airspeed indicator moves. And depending on where in the flight envelope you are at the moment, will also cause either a descent or a climb. In normal flight. a push on the throttle will not cause an increase in airspeed unless a sympathetic action is performed on the stick to allow an airspeed increase instead of a climb. So how can anybody justify saying throttle for speed when throttle alone cannot make any adjustment to speed. That is why throttle for speed people always say that it is complicated. It's really not complicated when you realize that all the elevator does is control angle of attack and thus, airspeed. It's too bad that those guys in the Q400 and A330 only had "it's complicated" to grasp onto. Just as you learn how to swim, you should learn what each individual part does before you combine them. Once a student has the most basic of fundamentals that allow him to safely operate all the way to the margins, then you can add to it refinements for fine control of the machine, such as pitch+power=performance, etc. that will help him maintain perfectly level flight when he has plenty of envelope room on either side, and he will have the bonus of actually understanding why it works and not just demonstrate that he can do it. When instructors teach their student pitch+power=performance right at the beginning, it puts the cart before the horse for them. Fine control of altitude is not the most important thing on a student's first lesson, understanding what each of your controls do and how your controls affect the most critical thing for flight, angle of attack and airspeed, is the most important thing on a student's first lessons.

Edited January 30, 201214 yr by KevinAu

That is why you cannot teach a student "Pitch is for altitude" because that can someday cause them to keep their Q400 in a stall, right into an unsuspecting Buffalo neighborhood.

+100

So how can anybody justify saying throttle for speed when throttle alone cannot make any adjustment to speed. That is why throttle for speed people always say that it is complicated. It's really not complicated when you realize that all the elevator does is control angle of attack and thus, airspeed.

As I said, when flying tight formation (on the front side of the power curve), don't even think of using pitch for speed. It will be throttle first, and pitch as a secondary function.In the end, we're all on the same page. We know what the control functions will ultimately do, and why. However, like so many others...........I've just never fell into the "pitch for airspeed" & "throttle for altitude" camp as an absolute. As it's been pointed out many times over the years.........power ratios have changed since the days of "Stick and Rudder". However, I still agree with teaching the student the use of pitch for speed first. It's only when instructors stick with that notion for all events.............that I go out of my mind.

Edited January 30, 201214 yr by LAdamson