Plastic Pilot

Each aircraft type has specific performances, and performance can even vary for the same type, depending of the load on board. Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) sometimes use speed restrictions to maintain separation between aircrafts flying along the same route, but as they don’t know all the details of daily aircraft performance, some standards have been defined.

If you’re pilot, or a well-equipped aviation fan, you might have heard the terms “minimum clean” or “final approach speed”, and wondered what it was. This is usually used by ATCOs when issuing clearances like “Flight XXX, reduce to minimum clean / final approach speed”.

“Final approach speed” is rather easy to understand: the speed to which the pilot slows down immediately before landing. But what about minimum clean ? This as nothing to do with the cleaning done by cabin-crew before the approach starts, but with aerodynamic configuration of the airplane.

For take-off and landing, the flaps are extended, to create more lift at lower speed, and to help slowing down. Flaps are the mobile part of the wing on the aft edge, which seems to slide behind the wing. The landing gear is also extended for obvious reasons and it does contribute to reduce speed.

Without extending the flaps, the wing can generate less lift (the upwards force making the plane fly), so it’s not possible to slow down too much before the flaps are extended. In pilot’s jargon, the plane’s configuration is said “clean” when no “dirty” elements like the flaps or the landing gear slows it down.

After take-off, the process of retracting the gear and flaps is known as “cleaning up” the plane, or configuration. The minimal speed to which a plane can slow down without using flaps is thus known as “minimum clean”. Pilots normally wants to maintain speed higher than minimum clean as long as possible, to avoid the extra fuel consumption coming with flaps extension if flying level.

One of the funny thing when flying high-performance single engine planes like Saratoga or Bonanza in the IFR system is the speed range. Flying 160kts on final makes integration with airliners possible, but the final approach speed is much lower (80 or 90 knots, compared to 120 - 140 for a typical airliner).

A controller once asked me to reduce to final approach speed to permit a departure, when I was still more than 10 Nautical Miles away from the airport. Before slowing down, I asked to confirm, mentionning that my final approach speed was 85 knots. After that, he simply asked me to reduce speed to 120 knots.

Here again, knowing ATC business helped to keep good co-operation and an optimal traffic flow. For various safety and procedural reasons, pilots don’t like to retract flaps on final, so when speed has been reduced, it normally don’t increase again, except on go around. If on that day I slowed down as required, the airliner behind me (well behind, but 95 is really slow) would probably have received a “go around” clearance… or more likely my own approach would have been interrupted by ATC !

Dear Flight Instructors,

As a private pilot with instrument rating, I spent several dozen of hours seating beside one of you in a light aircraft. I want to thank you for the excellent job you do. I’m convinced you’re the cornerstone of aviation, and carry a huge responsibility.

You teach us, train us, help us developing our flying skills, guide us towards new ratings. Long story short, you make pilots out of normal persons, and always staying on the safe side. Many of you do that for astonishing low salary, when not for free.

Flying is your primary activity, or a side job, and you share is with us. Most of you are paid on a flight-time basis, but you know we also need you and your time on ground. So you don’t try to save every minute, nor do “hello - jump in - fly - jump out - good bye” flying lessons.

You don’t try to act as “gurus” or “Grand Masters” either, nor to look impressive. You’re always available, and we respect you for the job you do, and how good you do it. As we know you’re always open and find time for all our stupid questions, we never hesitate to ask, and ask again.

The harder part of your job (correct me if I’m wrong) is also to be examples for all the other pilots. When you’re on board, be it for instruction or as a safety pilot, you always do everything as needed. No slight deviation, bad practice, deviation from procedure, or other silly things. No cow-boys allowed in that business.

No complacency either. As important members of the flying community, you have lots of pilot friends, but you also know how to address remarks in a good way, even negative ones. How hard can it be to tell to a friend that his flying skills are not sufficient ?

I’ll may be someday become a member of your family, and help a new generation of pilots to earn their wings. If so, I’ll do my best to achieve the same level of excellene, and perpetuate the tradition of teaching from within the community, to ensure the future of aviation.

If you don’t recognize yourself in the portait I depicted here, please let me know why. I could have called this post “My dream of a perfect instructor”, but it would have been unfair to all those of you who perfectly match it.

Mrs. and Mr. Flight Instructor, Thank You. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart.

The core of the “Principles of Flight” course (a.k.a. PoF, a.k.a. Aerodynamics) is the chapter about the four forces. This piece of propaganda and disinformation has been designed to make pilots think that four forces apply to an aircraft and govern its spatial evolution: lift, weight, thrust, and drag.

This is a fundamental mistake, and I’ll unveil here what are the true four forces involved in flight physics. If you’re a pilot you probably know them, and if you envisage to become a pilot, it’s good you know them before.

At first. it’s not lift that moves the plane upwards, it’s only pilot’s dreams and hopes. No flight can take place without a pilot, which by definition is a dreamer. Otherwise, he would work in a bank, or worse, an administration (more on that later - no offense. May be not.).

The force that opposes to dreams and hope, tending to bring the airplane down is not the weight. It’s the strong power of reality. All the “because it is so”, “you can’t do that”, “no way”, and other silly answers.

Theory says that the force making the plane go forward is thrust. This is also wrong. The only thing that can possibly accelerate a plane is money. Try  to get it out of the equation, and the plane will stop. It’s sad, but it’s so. Oops, part of “reality”.

Finally, the force opposing to forward movement is not drag, but administration. You don’t believe it because you think administration is part of reality ? True. Administration is so strong that it is by itself counter-acting dreams AND money !

That being said, there is only thing to add: the propeller is not used to pull planes forward, but rather to refresh the pilot. To demonstrate that, stop the engine, and look how quickly the pilot starts to sweat.

Part of this post has been inspired by a funny drawing found on a blog in french: Penpen au Quebéc. Thank you, and see you tomorrow for something slightly more serious !