This is closer to a problem that happens all the time with coaching. You describe, or draw, accurately, the geometry errors to the pilot. They do something to compensate, which entails creating ANOTHER problem.
The following is a real case that I have seen and a real interaction with accurate but ineffective coaching.
4-leaf clover. The coach sees the drawing. The first loop is OK to first approximation, but the exit of the loop is too low. The pilot compensates somehow, but that doesn't matter, the mistake has already been made and the rest of it is damage control.
Coach says, "OK, you came out of the first loop low again", which is entirely accurate. However, the real problem is not at the intersection or the loop exit, it's right as they enter - maybe the hands are a bit lazy and they have to prevent it from slipping too far out to the left, or for whatever reason, the loop radius is not round near the 90 degree mark, it's too tight. That makes the rest of the loop tend to be too low - note that it doesn't make it to the top. And it comes out low when it gets to the intersection.
OK, swell, the pilot takes this *correct* advice and tries to fix it. He didn't see the tight radius part, the low horizontal exit, and no one said anything about the tight radius at 90 degrees part. Maybe the coach doesn't see that, either. So he goes out, gets to about 270 degrees around the first loop, and then hammers the controls to make it come out higher, which it does. So he compensated for the thing you told him about by making an even more obvious mistake, putting a corner at about the 300 degree mark that makes it blindingly obvious that he is making a correction. Arguably, that is worse than the low intersection, and it's certainly more obvious.
Note that this would be even more obvious in motion, because the attitude of the airplane would reflect the change in radius, making it far more clear that there was a correction applied. Of course the same issue happens in other places, like the second loop. A pilot of my acquaintance routinely does the tightest corner of his entire flight right at the bottom of the second loop where, after several minor mistakes earlier on, he has to keep it from flying past the intersection.
So, many times, if *all* you do as a coach or a pilot is respond to obvious and correct geometry descriptions, without really thinking about it why, you can end up doing no good or making it worse. Some combinations of pilots and coaches work, and others don't, and it has NOTHING to do with the skill or knowledge of the participants, even the *very best* (and I know and spend time with the *very best* for the last 35 years) can have ineffective interactions.
Which brings up another issue, maybe tomorrow night.
Brett
Topic: Incessant problems #3 - mindless coaching (Read 1141 times)