Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about how our position on any given issue doesn’t represent who we are.
One of the hardest concepts to get students to connect when I was flight instructing was the relationship of yoke position to aircraft position especially during instrument flight.
First let’s do some aerodynamics 101 to establish the concept and then we can separate it from aviation.
An aircraft rolls by changing the amount of lift produced on each wing. In the picture below, the yoke is turned to the right and the mechanically (or in some cases hydraulically or electronically) connected ailerons move in opposite directions.
The aileron on the right wing moves up which results in less lift being produced on that wing, the aileron on the left is moved down which results in more lift being produced on the left wing. More lift on the left and less lift on the right causes a twisting motion along the longitudinal axis that we call roll.
When you are ready to stop your roll and fly straight and level you would reverse the process. Yoke left, more lift on the right wing to bring it back up to level, less lift on the left wing to bring it down to level.
So far so good right, pretty similar to driving a car. Stability of the longitudinal axis makes things a little bit more complicated as we will see in the picture below
When we move the yoke and roll our aircraft, it will respond based on its inherent level of stability. Like a ball rolled inside a bowl (top picture above) an aircraft with positive static stability will want to return to straight and level flight after it is rolled. When an aircraft has negative static stability, it will continue to roll after an initial displacement, like a ball pushed from the top of a hill (middle picture above).
So when we turn the yoke and start our roll, sometimes the aircraft will continue to roll. This requires the opposite input ie turn the yoke the opposite direction to displace ailerons and input roll a moment against the initial turn.
This results in a yoke (and hand position) that is opposite to the aircraft position (as we see in the picture below). The position of the yoke does not accurately represent the position of the aircraft.
This can obviously be a dangerous situation, especially for new aviators. It is easy to lose situational awareness of how your aircraft is positioned in space, and to then go on to make incorrect decisions or inputs that exacerbate the situation.
I think the same can be said right now about many of our polarizing issues. Regardless of where you stand or even what the issue is, your position on a single issue likely doesn’t accurately represent your overall state. Sometimes I wish it did, it would certainly make things easier.
It takes a lot of practice as well as mental energy to ascertain the aircraft’s position in space, and then determine how to maneuver it correctly. Likewise it takes a lot of practice and mental energy to really understand where our neighbors, friends, family, whoever, stands on a given issue. It takes even more to understand how and why they came to that conclusion.
I know I am guilty of finding one particular thing and using that as my indicator of a person’s overall state. It is a bad habit and a lazy shortcut. Just like a pilot mistaking the yoke position for the aircraft position it can be disastrous.
People, like planes, go through various ups and downs, smooth air and turbulence, and different degrees of stability throughout their lives. Trying to define them based on an individual metric taken at a single point in time is not only ineffective and inaccurate, but can often lead to some undesirable outcomes.
I hope to show my boys by example, the cool, level-headed, assessment of both situations and people that aviators are so often dramatized to have.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.
