Viewing page 109 of 206

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR'S MANUAL   105

  3.  Poor eyesight, depth perception, or muscle balance of the eye, which prevents rapid refocusing of the eyes. 
  4.  Tension or nervousness.
  Most students will be more or less familiar with the meaning of the term "reaction time" since several studies of it have been widely publicized in connection with the driving of automobiles.  The change of focus from a long distance to a short one requires a definite time interval, and even though it is small, the speed of the airplane is such that it covers an appreciable distance, both forward and towards the ground, during this interval.  
  Therefore, the student who alternates his focus from one extreme to the other will probably seriously overcontrol in an attempt to make his reactions take care of a situation which he did not expect.  If the focus is changed gradually, being brought progressively closer as speed is reduced, this interval and its attendant reactions will be materially reduced and the whole process smoothed out.  
  When seated in the airplane, the student should look along a line on the left side that will include the nose of the airplane, and focus on a distance ahead of the airplane as though he were driving a car at an equivalent ground speed.  He must be conscious of the angular attitude of the nose and wing while the focus is maintained at this distance ahead-not on any object, but at the distance.  Then, as speed is lost, the focus will be brought back and the change in angularity of the nose observed without the necessity of actually looking at it.  If the student has had a sufficient background in glides and stalls, this action will be easily understood and the sensations of speed loss registered in his consciousness at the same time.   
  Do not allow the student to lean out of the cockpit during or after the landing in an attempt to see better, as this invariably results in a wing being carried low and pressure on the rudder, which will initiate a nasty ground loop before it can be caught or corrected.  Although he is permitted at first to look out of one side only during the actual landing, he must maintain his erect position in the cockpit.  However, this must not be carried to the extent of causing him to sit tense and unmoving.  
  It will complicate matters and confuse the student if, in the early stages of landing instruction, the instructor insists that he look out of both sides alternately.  The refocusing time will apply here as in the case of the extremes of distance.  However, as soon as the student has made considerable progress, this practice should be required and the habit of looking out of one side only eliminated.  Such a habit, if not eliminated, will:
  1.  Tend to make the student land with one wing low, which is the one toward which he looks, usually the left.  
  2.  Cause the student to be blind on one side and fail to observe any obstructions or hazards that may loom up.
  The student should, of course, have formed the habit of constantly looking on both sides while in flight, and this should be carried on throughout the glide until the leveling off process is started and a final check made before full attention is given to the landing on another aircraft or into some obstruction.