Learning to Aviate with Rich Stowell
How were you taught to perceive the effects of the flight controls? I got my private pilot certificate in 1984. Thinking back, I don’t recall specific instruction on what roll, yaw, and pitch should look like.
The 1980 Flight Training Handbook tried to “make understanding of the functions of the controls much easier.”[1] It described the result of control pressures as things that will rise, lower, and move left and right.[2] The words didn’t make much of an impression. I don’t think I could’ve explained what I was sensing. At least not beyond the rote level of learning.
I began teaching the Emergency Maneuver Training (EMT) program a few years later. While developing the lesson plans, I came across a training manual from 1978. In it, air show pilot Debbie Gary described elevator inputs as moving the nose of the airplane toward the pilot’s head or feet.[3] That was a huge aha moment for me!
Head-to-feet. Easy to visualize. You could see it by looking over the nose of the airplane or at the wingtips. And you could see it regardless of the attitude of the airplane.
But the manual described aileron and rudder inputs merely as left and right. Motivated by the head-to-feet cue for pitch, I applied the same idea to roll and yaw. The result was head-to-hip and ear-to-ear motion cues. This pilot-centric language made sensing roll, yaw, and pitch more intuitive. Thus, it became part of the DNA of the EMT program.
Over the years, others have picked up on this approach to describing roll, yaw, and pitch as well.
For example, my approach resonated with colleague Linda Caster. She built the language and concepts into her Women Take Flight workshops in New Jersey. High school teachers and college professors learned about roll, yaw, and pitch. They sat in a wheelbarrow and experienced the motions. Participants then did short training flights that included roll, yaw, pitch exercises.
Each participant got 30 minutes of hands-on flying and got to observe from the back seat for another 30 minutes. Facilitators deliberately used the same roll, yaw, pitch language throughout the workshops. The experience in the wheelbarrow mirrored what participants saw in the airplane. Afterwards, participants exhibited an amazing understanding of the effects of the controls.
In 2010, my pilot-centric language appeared as a core concept in an upset recovery training publication by the Royal Aeronautical Society.[4] It also found its way into the FAA’s 2016 Airplane Flying Handbook.[5] Ditto the 2021 handbook.[6] The language and concepts will be part of a research-based Flight Instructor Toolkit being developed in Australia, too (see https://www.flightenvelope.com.au).[7]
“Roll, yaw, and pitch make up one of the nine principles of light airplane flying. Their relevance to controlled flight cannot be overstated.” – The CRAAP Test
Incredibly, the 40-year anniversary of the EMT program is on the horizon. I’ve begun a retrospective look at the impact the program has had on the flight training landscape. It’s led me down several unexpected paths. It’s also revealed excellent training material that has been lost over time. For instance, I stumbled on pilot-centric descriptions of airplane motion as far back as 1943. Civil Aeronautics Bulletin No. 32 used the phrase “toward your head” to describe the result of aft elevator pressure![8] Why did that nugget disappear from government training manuals?
“The Evolution of Descriptions of Roll, Yaw, & Pitch Relative to the Pilot”
It took preparing to teach for me to take a deeper dive into the effects of the controls. To reinvent—or finish—a wheel that had been started decades earlier. Such lost knowledge needs to be rediscovered and reintroduced into flight training. Especially if that knowledge deals with stick and rudder skills.
“All curricula should be designed in accordance with the philosophy that manual flight
is the foundation upon which other technical flying skills are built.” – Flight Path Management, AC 120-123.
Student pilots today have a mountain of material to learn. Yet our obligation as pilots-in-command hasn’t changed. Above all, we must be able to aviate. That starts with better understanding of the effects and use of the controls.
Roll, yaw, pitch. Actions pilots take with the controls. Head-to-hip, ear-to-ear, head-to-feet. Consequences pilots can learn to see in any attitude. It’s a first principle of light airplane flying. If we’re serious about reducing fatal loss of control accidents, we’ve got to focus on the fundamentals on day one.
Grab a model airplane and play with roll, yaw, and pitch. Watch the nose and wingtips rotate, head-to-hip, ear-to-ear, and head-to-feet. Do you see the head-to-hip motion as you roll the model into a coordinated, steep bank? Do you see the nose pitching toward your head as you pull the model around the horizon in a level turn? How about hip-to-head as you roll back to level flight? Look for these same motions next time you’re flying.
How else will you incorporate these ideas into your flying?
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[1] FAA, Flight Training Handbook, AC 61-21A, 1980, 42.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Debbie Gary, Pilot Proficiency Training Manual, Bellanca Aircraft Corporation, 1978, 22.
[4] Capt. John M. Cox, FRAeS, Aeroplane Upset Recovery Training, History, Core Concepts & Mitigation, Royal Aeronautical Society Flight Operations Group, August 2, 2010, 18.
[5] FAA, Airplane Flying Handbook, FAA-H-8083-3B, 2016, 3-1–3-2.
[6] FAA, Airplane Flying Handbook, FAA-H-8083-3C, 2021, 3-2–3-3.
[7] Email correspondence with Flight Envelope co-founders Kristy How and Lorraine MacGillivray, October 1, 2024.
[8] Civil Aeronautics Administration, Fundamentals of Elementary Flight Maneuvers, Civil Aeronautics Bulletin No. 32, February 1943, 7.
>> This post was written by a human <<
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