Books: Does anyone know ...

[Hinkelbein]

... if there is a good book on the principle of flying or aerodynamics, but then for 'newbies', of 'for dummies' if you will?

Cheers,

Hinkelbein

[snydersnapshots]

Originally Posted by Hinkelbein

... if there is a good book on the principle of flying or aerodynamics, but then for 'newbies', of 'for dummies' if you will?

Cheers,

Hinkelbein

The Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge

Stick and Rudder

Or just about any basic book geared toward private pilot training should give you what you're looking for.

I see you're in the Netherlands, so I don't know if they ship there, but you might try Sporty's Pilot Shop . If they don't ship to your location, you can check out the titles and then order from Amazon.com.

[Hinkelbein]

Thanks for your answer!

I see that the first title you mention is available in pdf on the FAA's website:
http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/a...ilot_handbook/

Cheers,

Hinkelbein

[Gabriel]

"See how it flies"

Introduction

This is a book about how to fly airplanes. As the subtitle suggests, the main topics are

•Perceptions: how to use your eyes, your ears, your fingertips, and the seat of your pants — to gather the information you need.
•Procedures: how to use your hands and feet — to make the airplane do what you want.
•Principles: how to organize your thinking — to make your flying easier and safer.
Several of the ideas in this book will seem new to most pilots. The ideas are actually quite old and straightforward, but they have been not been covered by traditional pilot training. Like so many basic truths, they will seem obvious in retrospect.

For example, consider the question: “How does the altitude respond if you pull back on the yoke?” The key idea is there are two responses: pulling back causes a short-term response and a long-term response. It is quite easy and quite useful to recognize the difference between the two.

Similarly, there is an important distinction between flight at cruising speed and flight at approach speed: procedures which are appropriate in one regime are inconvenient — or downright lethal — in the other regime. This book will tell you how to do things right at high speeds, low speeds, and everywhere in between.

As a third example, consider the “pitch trim” wheel. What does it really do? Some pilots use it (as the name might suggest) to trim for a definite pitch attitude (which is a really bad idea). Other pilots use it to trim for a definite rate of climb (which is perhaps an even worse idea). Good pilots trim for a definite airspeed, or, better yet, a definite angle of attack.
The best pilots all seem to know these things implicitly. The purpose of this book is to make these things explicit — to give them names and to draw pictures of them.

Some people may still be wondering: is it really necessary to learn new procedures, perceptions, and principles? After all, there are 700,000 pilots out there, most of whom seem to get by OK. The answer is simple: 2000 of those pilots had accidents last year. Many of those accidents would not have occurred if people had been taught the ideas put forward in this book.

Readership, Topics, and Goals

This book is intended to appeal to pilots and everyone else who is interested in how airplanes behave. The idea is to concentrate on ideas that are useful in the cockpit, and to explain them as clearly as possible.
In addition to describing how the airplane behaves, this book describes in some detail why the airplane behaves that way. This may not be strictly necessary, but it is often very helpful, because: (1) Knowing why gives you more confidence that you are doing the right thing. (2) Knowing why helps you know what to expect in unusual situations. (3) Explanations that make sense are easier to remember than explanations that don’t make sense. Human beings hate being told to do something without any explanation. If they are not told the true explanations, they will make up their own pseudo-explanations. All too often these pseudo-explanations cover only the everyday situations; they go haywire when applied to unusual situations, let alone emergencies.
Here are just a few of the topics to be covered:

• What happens if you push or pull on the yoke a little?
• What happens if you open or close the throttle a little?
• What does the trim wheel really control, and why?
• What is the best way to escape from a spiral dive?
• What happens if you go outside the weight & balance envelope?
• What do the airflow and pressure patterns look like near a wing?
• Why is a skid more dangerous than a proper slip?

This book is about piloting, not about engineering or aerodynamics. If you want to build airplanes, go read an aerodynamics book. If you want to fly airplanes, read this book.
Actually, there are two kinds of aerodynamics books on the market:

1. “Aerodynamics for engineers” — The good news is that these books are typically quite detailed and reliable. The bad news is that even the simplest ideas are expressed in mathematical terms; you will need years and years of study in order to understand what is being said. The other bad news is that even if you can follow the math, it won’t do you any good during flight. I don’t do calculations in the cockpit, and you shouldn’t either.
2. “Aerodynamics for pilots” — Many of these books are bad news all around. They don’t really tell you how to build an airplane, and they don’t really tell you how to fly an airplane, either. They might tell you that angle of attack is important, but they don’t tell you how to perceive angle of attack during flight, or how to control it. What’s worse, many of the ideas in these books are just plain wrong. For example, nearly all of the “aerodynamics for pilots” books say a wing produces lift because it is curved on top and flat on the bottom. Alas, this isn’t correct; it isn’t even a useful approximation. We all know that airplanes can fly just fine upside down, which indicates that the difference in shape between top and bottom can’t be all that crucial. Besides, some aircraft use symmetric airfoils (where the top is a mirror image of the bottom) and they work just fine.

Again, the purpose of this book is to explain how to fly an airplane. It concentrates on ideas that are useful in the cockpit. It explains things at a nontechnical level that should be accessible to almost everybody. Most people (including me) find the picture of an airflow pattern a lot easier to grasp than the equation that describes the airflow.

Non-Goals

This book does not cover pilot/controller communications, or flight by reference to instruments. Those are topics for another book.
Also there exist many flying situations (e.g. mountain flying) that require specialized skills. These topics are not covered in conventional pilot training, and are not discussed here fully, if at all. You (the pilot) are entirely responsible for recognizing such situations, and for avoiding them unless/until you have the appropriate training and skill.
At the other extreme, this book does not provide ultra-elementary information such as the definition of “aileron”. Presumably you already know that, and/or you can easily and reliably find out on your own.

This is the best I've seen, and is freely available on-line.
http://www.av8n.com/how/

[3WE]

Originally Posted by Gabriel's book

...Good pilots trim for a definite airspeed, or, better yet, a definite angle of attack...

...errrr...

...Good pilots trim very naturally...

however, THE FUNDAMENTAL RULE OF THUMB is that pilots should "only" trim to relieve control pressures, and should be able to make any needed control input or setting (within reason*) using only biceps and triceps, without the help of trim.

(*Disclaimer- I believe there are situations on airliners (with their huge speed range) that "trim surfaces' "must" be used to affect major changes in speed and configuration because the "primary" controls surfaces are not capable of doing it all).

Still it's one of those primary rule of thumb things- like pitch airspeed, power altitude and don't go pulling up hard with slow airspeeds and nose-high attitudes...

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by 3WE

...errrr...

...Good pilots trim very naturally...

Yes, but:

In addition to describing how the airplane behaves, this book describes in some detail why the airplane behaves that way. This may not be strictly necessary, but it is often very helpful, because: (1) Knowing why gives you more confidence that you are doing the right thing. (2) Knowing why helps you know what to expect in unusual situations. (3) Explanations that make sense are easier to remember than explanations that don’t make sense. Human beings hate being told to do something without any explanation. If they are not told the true explanations, they will make up their own pseudo-explanations. All too often these pseudo-explanations cover only the everyday situations; they go haywire when applied to unusual situations, let alone emergencies.

Amen and amen!!! I've been an all-times supporter of that!

And another nice thing, as the author said, this book is right. As simple as it seems, every other non-technical book I've seen contain errors that go from very utterly wrong (the lift is the reaction to the weight) to very naive (the air flowing above the wing has to make a longer trip and hence go faster than below to reach to the trailing edge at the same time) to simply stupid (watch your airspeed when turning downwind, the high-wing planes are more stable than low-wings ones due to the pendulum effect, and so on...).