flight's concept of a 'good landing'

Richard Bartels rhbartels at watcgl.waterloo.edu
Wed Feb 22 00:21:49 AEST 1989


In article <27132 at sgi.SGI.COM> tarolli at dragon.SGI.COM (Gary Tarolli) writes:
>
>	Stalls are unpredictable in real-life.
>

Nope.  Neither are spins.  The aerodynamics of both are laid out
in any good pilot's instruction book.  Quite logical and quite
standard physics.  As a university teacher I could never fathom why one
of my students with a pilot's license thought the flight simulator
was so uninteresting.  After I got my own license, I see why.
Among other things, in real life you practise stalls and spins until you
get sick of them (sometimes literally to the point of severe nausea)
and learn through them, and sideslips, and take-offs, and landings,
and coordinated turns, and spiral dives, and etc. all of the quirks
and physical personality of a plane.  The behavior of the planes
on the iris is completely phony.  Part of this is evident in the
sheer caprice of their stall and spin behavior (or lack of it).

-Richard



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