Primary Instruments

In instrument flying, you have what is called the Primary Instruments. Which is the most useful instrument for that phase of flight? The heading indicator and the altimeter are primary instruments when flying straight and level. The idea is that you scan between the attitude indicator and heading indicator and the attitude indicator and altimeter. We are going to use other instruments, but those are our primary instruments for straight and level flight. It is a way to organize your scan.

Glider pilots seem to be a lot less organized in where they look. Back and over their shoulder at the other glider might not be where they should be staring. This is especially true when you stall and continually input inside rudder, and as the nose drops, you steadily pull back on the stick because you do not recognize why the nose dropped. This got my student's attention as he spun the 2-33 while thermalling with a 1-26.

On Tow

On tow, the new student is staring at the towplane. Not recognizing what our bank angle or nose is doing. Generally, the nose is at some attitude that will quickly get us to rocket from behind the towplane or some bank angle that will get us to the outside of the towplane. But if we watch the horizon in front of us and keep paying attention to the nose with relation to the horizon, the odds are better that we will stay behind the towplane. For most of us, looking straight ahead doesn't give us enough information for our bank angle. We need to turn our head and look at the wing with relation to the horizon. I always encourage students to turn their head and look at what the wing is doing with regards to the horizon.

Thermalling

While thermalling pilots want to look for traffic and where we are going, the instruments, etc., however, the nose is wandering all over the sky. It is essential to maintain a constant airspeed because that will maintain a constant turn radius. I find it much easier to adjust my turn radius with my bank angle for centering. Watching the nose with relation to the horizon, then the wingtip to check your bank angle and repeat. Sometime during that scan we need to add in the vario, traffic, altimeter, average climb, going Pee, looking for a better climb, flight computer information, etc. while looking at all of these things we need to make sure we are keeping a constant speed and adjusting our bank angle appropriately to center the thermal.

Scan

You have to learn how to scan as instrument pilots do effectively. However, a lot more emphasis is put on scanning when flying on instruments. I teach my students to look at the nose with relation to the horizon, then the airspeed indicator, back to the nose, then to the wingtip, then back to the nose, look for traffic, back to the nose, variometer, back to the nose, etc. When you start staring at one thing, you lose a lot of what is going on.

Banner Photo by Kryštof Peterka

 Garret Willat holds a flight instructor rating with over 8000 hours in sailplanes. His parents have owned Sky Sailing Inc. since 1979. He started instructing the day after his 18th birthday. Since then, Garret has represented the US Junior team in 2003 and 2005. He graduated from Embry-Riddle with a bachelor's degree in Professional Aeronautics. Garret represented the US Open Class team in 2008 and 2010 and the Club Class team in 2014. Garret has won 3 US National Championships.