Theory vs Practical

Every pre-flight brief I've delivered has been like teaching physics to a Year 10 science class. For every flying manouvre taught, there's a scientific explanation behind it which is briefed to the student before he or she performs the manoeuvre in the aircraft.

What makes teaching to fly much more interesting than a secondary school science lesson is that we always combine the theory with the practical flying. So rather than accepting the theory at face value, to actually demonstrate this to the student pilot in-flight is so much more convincing and it's a whole lot more fun than showing diagrams and Powerpoint slides in the classroom.

So you could say flight instructing is like conducting a science experiment (a costly one at that!) where aerodynamic theory is proven in the air by conducting the practical flying. Yesterday's pre-flight brief was on Climbing Turns, a procedure that's performed usually after take-off.

There are very few resources out there which show all the forces acting on an aircraft in a climbing turn. I've developed my own 3D diagram of this by combining two 2D diagrams; diagrams of forces in straight climb and forces in a level turn. After the brief, it was back in to the air again for the application of the theory where my grade 1 instructor pretended to be the student, with me showing him how to conduct the manoeuvre. We immersed ourselves in aerodynamic forces once again.