# How hard is it to fly an Airplane? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 2, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792 "2013-03-02T03:00:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/101 "2013-03-24T16:55:17Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > OK, I’ll take your word for it. I do recognize that their primary purpose (and the biggest movements) are to counteract torque. However, they _can_ be used like the rudder. I remember reading that during level flight, they can be used to adjust direction (just as with rudder) when the correction is small. And they seem work fine to help produce a coordinated turn, in MSFS. It doesn’t make sense to me that you wouldn’t adjust yaw as well as roll during a turn, and that you don’t adjust the yaw using the collective as the primary control (though any change to the collective does affect yaw by changing torque, as you pointed out). I’m over-simplifying. If you bank, then your lift vector is no longer perpendicular to the ground. To maintain altitude you need to increase power (pull collective), so your torque increases and you have to adjust with the pedals. But in practice, out chopping holes in the sky, for a gentle turn you don’t pull collective, and you leave the pedals where they are. As I said, I slewed all over the place when I tried to make an airplane-style coordinated turn in a helicopter. > [@Learjeff](#): > > Well, that NEVER happened to me in MSFS, so it can’t possibly be true! 😉 There are couple of ways to have a Bad Day. Pitching over in a semi-rigid helicopter can chop off the tail boom. It can also cause ‘mast bumping’. Severe mast-bumping can cause the main rotor to depart the aircraft. Again, this is considered sub-optimal. Low rotor RPM can cause blow-back, which can chop the tail boom. The Robinson R22 POH actually uses the word ‘doomed’. > [@Learjeff](#): > > Yeah, I understand the concept and know what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s possible that my controls weren’t the ideal. I’ve had pilots say that MSFS can be a lot harder to fly than a real craft, largely thanks to things like latency and poor responsiveness. But still, my hat’s off to anyone who can hover, let alone do it in windy conditions in tight spaces, as we’ve seen SAR and military pilots do! Hovering is the hardest thing to learn in helicopters. It’s also the _first_ thing you need to learn. If you can’t hover, you can’t take off or land. Data Point #1 for helicopters is that they are inherently unstable. Most GA airplanes will return to equilibrium when disturbed. Helicopters don’t. You need to apply constant, minute control inputs to keep it stable. I like to say that flying a helicopter is very Zen; you fly it by not flying it. That is, if you _think_ about what you’re doing, you’ll always be behind the machine. You need to become ‘One with the Machine’. In other words, develop muscle memory so that your body applies the appropriate inputs faster than your conscious mind can. Here’s how it went for me: The instructor gave me the pedals, and he worked everything else. My job was to keep the nose pointed straight ahead at a target. It took several tries until my pedal inputs were subtle enough to do it. Next he gave me the pedals and cyclic. My task was to keep the nose pointed at the target, and to keep the helicopter over our hover position. Again, I was all over the place. Then he gave me everything. At the end of an hour I was able to keep the machine more-or-less over the spot and pointed in the right direction and at the right height. At least, it was acceptable for a first lesson. Subsequent lessons included more hovering practice; and starting with the second lesson I started learning how to pivot over a point, and turning a given number of degrees. Each lesson started with hovering practice, followed by turning practice, until I could lift the helicopter off of the ground and bring it into a stable hover. Once you have hovering down, everything else is easy. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/102 "2013-03-24T17:09:20Z")
On a sail, that yarn is called a “telltale”. No idea whether pilots use that term. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/103 "2013-03-24T17:18:56Z")
‘Yaw string’. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/104 "2013-03-24T19:43:08Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Hovering is the hardest thing to learn in helicopters. It’s also the _first_ thing you need to learn. If you can’t hover, you can’t take off or land. Well, I’ve managed to take off and land without it, but I’m sure it’s not the recommended way! Takeoff is a bit wild: jump and get to forward flight asap. Landing is almost plane-like, as slow as possible, with a flare at the end. My game silly was to see if I could survive the pilot croaking mid-flight, without being one myself (rather than really learning how to fly one). So, you probably won’t want to take a ride with me in the left seat. That would probably be sub-optimal. > [@](#): > > Here’s how it went for me: The instructor gave me the pedals, and he worked everything else. [etc.] Thanks – that makes perfect sense. I get the sense that flying a chopper is more like riding a bike than driving a car: your muscles need to know how to do it, moreso than your brain. Learning one control at a time makes perfect sense. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > ‘Yaw string’. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2013, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/105 "2013-03-25T06:43:58Z")
so what’s the approach speed of most jets if there are no flaps deployed? As a student pilot I remember pacing a jet on a parallel runway and it was a 140 knot approach. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2013, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/106 "2013-03-25T14:43:08Z")
About 190 knots in our machine, no doubt faster in something heavier and more slippery like a B737. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/107 "2013-03-25T20:13:00Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > About 190 knots in our machine, no doubt faster in something heavier and more slippery like a B737. wow, that would make for an exciting landing in my scenario. I think I’d have to try to get the flaps out. It was a bitch getting a Cherokee 140 down when crossing the threshold at 140K. the tower folks had to be laughing or scratching there heads watching me. Engine to idle, flaps deployed and cross controlling it down the center line until It slowed enough to touch down. My student pilot days were a lot of fun. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/108 "2013-03-26T19:46:00Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > So, you probably won’t want to take a ride with me in the left seat. Helicopters tend to be flown from the right seat. (At least the ones I’ve flown.) Why? Tradition! Dunnnnh-tradition! TRADITION…! Oh, sorry. Where was I? I haven’t looked it up, but small helis need the pilot to hold onto the cyclic at all times. When using a stick, pilots tend to like to hold it with their right hand. Flying from the right seat allows the pilot to reach the console with his left hand, while being able to keep the machine under control with his right hand. That’s my hypothesis, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/109 "2013-03-26T23:27:04Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Helicopters tend to be flown from the right seat. (At least the ones I’ve flown.) Why? Tradition! Dunnnnh-tradition! TRADITION…! Oh, sorry. Where was I? I haven’t looked it up, but small helis need the pilot to hold onto the cyclic at all times. When using a stick, pilots tend to like to hold it with their right hand. Flying from the right seat allows the pilot to reach the console with his left hand, while being able to keep the machine under control with his right hand. That’s my hypothesis, anyway. It can be traced to one particular training helicopter according to [this article](http://www.airspacemag.com/need-to-know/Need-to-Know-Why-Do-Helicopter-Pilots-Sit-in-the-Right-Seat.html). > [@](#): > > Connor goes on to explain that when Igor Sikorsky built the world’s first mass-produced helicopter, the R-4 (“and no, Flettner Fl 282 prototypes were not in mass production beforehand,” he adds), weight was a serious issue. “The R-4 was intended as a trainer, but was so underpowered that Sikorsky was looking for any potential savings, so Igor and his engineers decided to let the instructor and student share a single collective. The only place to put it then was in the middle between the two seats. Given the coordination and strength required to manipulate an R-4 cyclic for any length of time, the student always flew from the right. > > “Thus, the first generation of U.S. Army Air Forces, Coast Guard, and Navy pilots, along with those from Britain and its Commonwealth who learned on the R-4, and its follow-on, the R-6 (also with a single collective), flew exclusively from the right.” These days it seems to be a mixture of personal preference and what the job demands. The only flight I’ve had in the front of a helicopter, I sat in the right with the pilot in the left. This footage of [live deer capture](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaSxqxTmV1Q)\* shows Morgan Saxton flying from the left as well as the right. He probably prefers the right when by himself (witness him carrying a sling-load on his own early in the clip) but maybe the shooter prefers the right as well, so when he’s carrying a shooter he sits in the left. \*Clip mainly included because I thought **JohnnyLA** would like to see what the crazy Kiwi pilots get up to. Note that the deer are captured for the purpose of stocking local deer farms and therefore you can assume they are not physically harmed by the process. ---
**Author:** ![pilot141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e0b2c6/32.png) [@pilot141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pilot141)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/110 "2013-03-27T00:20:21Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > wow, that would make for an exciting landing in my scenario. I think I’d have to try to get the flaps out. It was a bitch getting a Cherokee 140 down when crossing the threshold at 140K. the tower folks had to be laughing or scratching there heads watching me. Engine to idle, flaps deployed and cross controlling it down the center line until It slowed enough to touch down. My student pilot days were a lot of fun. In my current airplane these speeds can quickly get into sporty territory. The MD-11 has a very efficient wing, but it likes speed. Normal, 35-flap approach speed (Vref+5) at a normal landing weight (call it 440K lbs) is 159 knots. If for some reason you can’t get the flaps down and have only the slats out, Vref is now 170, but Vapp is now Vref+15, so you are crossing the fence at 185. If you can get flaps but no slats you are in even worse shape. Flaps 25/Slats retracted Vref is 190, but Vapp goes back to Vref+5, so only 195 across the fence. Clean wing - no slats, no flaps? Vref is 209, so 214 Vapp. And this is for a normal landing weight, after burning off a lot of fuel. Yeah, those last 50 feet can be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/111 "2013-03-27T03:22:28Z")
It’s more difficult–I’m purposely not making a pun with OP header–when you’re having sex in the cockpit. **NSFW** : [spoiler] It may not suitable for home also, in that it is a picture of (amateur, I think) consensual sex.[spoiler] http: [//ivoyer.tumblr.com/image/](https://ivoyer.tumblr.com/image/) 46367084887 What airplane is that, BTW?[/spoiler][/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![pilot141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e0b2c6/32.png) [@pilot141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pilot141)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/112 "2013-03-27T03:58:34Z")
Not that I need to see it, but your link points back to this thread for me. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792/113 "2013-03-27T20:02:08Z")
I added spaces per SDMB rules on dicey links. Did you close them up? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-an-airplane/651792.md?page=5)