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Unusual Attitudes

Unusual flight attitudes are taught to develop the student’s skills in recognizing the condition of the flight (stalled, spiralling, slipping, and skidding) when the normal visual references may be missing.  Once the student has gained experience in the various flight conditions, they can be introduced to more extreme situations and taught how to cope with less information on which to make flight decisions. A great deal of time has been spent to get the students to perform the normal flying attitudes. Once what is normal has been ingrained it is appropriate to introduce other attitudes, get the student to recognizethe condition of flight they represent, and exercise the appropriate recovery to the normal condition.

Generally students have to be able to judge how the attitude deviates from the norm. They should be able to detect if it is a slip or skid, stalled or unstalled condition. Typical situations that can be confusing involve loss of the normal, best visual reference, the horizon. Climbing non-stalled turns, climbing incipient spins, slipping and skidding manoeuvres in nose high attitudes, sharp stalls, sub-gravity manoeuvres in turns, etc. are all good examples of unusual attitudes. Acrobatic manoeuvres, such as rolls, loops, and stall turns should be avoided, as at this stage they would be dangerous for solo students to practise, and the skill levels for recovery are usually not well developed. The outline for this exercise is:

  1. Instructor checks student’s performance until in free flight.
  2. Instructor briefs the student that at all times they should either be flying the aircraft or be following through on the controls. The student is given to expect that the instructor will momentarily take control, produce the unusual attitude and then return the control to the student to recover to normal flight.
  3. The student is checked on the performance of a CALL check.
  4. The instructor induces several unusual attitudes and checks the student’s performance. Coaches where gaps in the student’s knowledge are apparent.
  5. Instructor checks the student’s performance of a normal circuit and landing.

Unusual attitude exercises are left until the end of the student’s flight instruction when they are essentially proficient enough from a pure skill point of view to go solo. Usually this exercise involves the instructor placing the glider in a steep stall, slipping turn, spiral dive, or exaggerated incipient spin and asking the student to return to the normal gliding attitude. A key ingredient is presenting a visually unusual manoeuvre and trying to get the student to recognize whether or not this is a condition of stalled flight and to do the proper recovery to the normal gliding attitude. There is of course a fine line between scaring students and presenting them with a bit of a puzzle. Any such manoeuvres should be done at a safe altitude with a CALL check.