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Old 04-12-2006
TomBobN20 TomBobN20 is offline
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Western Technique Talk: Grant Riley on "The Learning Curve"

Greetings from the West Coast. Here is the latest post-Vegas Blip. I encourage you to read it if for no other reason than to get the helpful perspective of Western Series Instructor, Grant Ryley. I'll see some of you at Laguna this week. I will also get the previous Blips run as soon as I can so you can see the other great articles by Grant and the rest of the instructors. Have a good one.

Tom Roberts


WESTERN
BLIP
FIVE



Okay, time for this years final installment by Grant Ryley, who, despite his very busy schedule, has managed to make this newsletter worth reading this again:



The Learning Curve




I’ve always liked a challenge and throughout my life I’ve tried many different things. I’ve come to realize that its not just the various activities I enjoy, its the learning. Recently, I’ve become a student pilot. It has been a fantastic experience so far and I’m learning a ton about myself and the learning process. The skills required to be a pilot are all new to me. The control inputs, visual references, theory and communication procedures are all very foreign. There is an added third dimension that I am training my eyes to understand. New sounds and smells that my brain frantically tries to process, the “seat of the pants” feel and don’t even get me started on crosswind taxiing in my tail dragger trainer.

I’ve been driving race cars for so long that most of the information that the car gives me, comes in without thought. I strap in the car, leave pit lane and switch on my personal data logger. Until very recently, I had forgotten what it feels like to not “feel”. Driving a race car and flying an airplane have very little in common and at the same time are eerily similar. While the skill set is totally different, the learning stages are nearly identical.

I took my first lessons and progressed rapidly. There were a couple of stumbling blocks along the way but overall, I was very pleased with how quickly I was getting it. That was until two days a go. I was in the pattern, practicing takeoffs and landings in a stiff crosswind. For the most part, my landings were horrible and I was getting very frustrated. My instructor, Shawn, is a very patient and through guy. He calmly kept telling me the same thing every trip around the pattern. “On final, your not recognizing the drift early enough and your making one or two large corrections instead of many early, small corrections” (sound familiar?) At the point of touchdown, the plane would be in a very unhappy attitude and Shawn would grab the controls and keep us from becoming a cart wheeling fireball of fabric and aluminum. On my second to last trip around the pattern, I finally got it. I have absolutely no car feel! (Or plane feel in this case)

I’m flying around like a total passenger, reacting to what the plane does. As soon as something happens, my brain has to process the information, figure out a solution and tell my body what to do. By that time, its too late. The plane has bounced off the tarmac once and now I have added mental stress and a mild case of the freak outs. This combined reaction totally locks me up and Shawn has to come in and save the day.

So your asking yourself, where is he going with this? Its simple, I’ve reached a plateau in my learning curve. One which is very similar to a plateau I once reached in my driving. I’ve isolated the problems to two key ingredients. 1. I’m not “looking” far enough ahead. Not only with my eyes, but with my mind as well. I’m in the now, I’m not ahead of the plane. 2. Not only do I have very little “car feel”, I don’t even really know what to feel for. (sound familiar?)

To cross this plateau, I have come up with a visualization strategy. When I was racing full time, I visualized often. If done correctly, the brain really doesn’t know the difference and as of now, I just can’t go fire up the airplane and practice. So not only is it cheap seat time, its the only seat time I can get between lessons. I visualize in two different ways. One is simple, I’m always thinking about it consciously. When I drive on the freeway and I am coming up to my exit, I do my pre landing checklist. At my exit, I’m turning “final” and my brain concentrates on where I want to be stopped and how my control inputs affect my plane (car). Sitting here in my office, I’m thinking about what the plane “feels” like when I push on the rudder pedal or pull the yoke back, at close to stall speed. My mind is always running scenarios and visualizing sight pictures, procedures or sounds.

The other type of visualization I do is a deep relaxation type. Its almost a meditation. I will sit in a quiet place and focus on my breathing. As my breathing begins to slow, I will run a program in my mind. Often times I will push pause on the program and really look into what is going on at that very moment in time. It can be an actual experience or a completely fictional scenario. Lets say, I’m at the turning point for turn 9, I initiate steering and push pause. What sounds do I hear? What is the car doing and can I feel it? Where are my hands on the Wheel? What are my feet doing and is it counterproductive to where I want to be in the next 100 yards? As I resume the program, I observe the results of my inputs and push pause again. If the car slid and it caught me off guard, I will go back and try to find the clue that I missed. If everything is perfect, I will continue to dissect the car balance, feel and my inputs until the exit of the corner and move on to the next corner. If I'm working on entry speed in a particular corner, I will mentally roll into it 10 miles an hour too fast and see what happens. Again isolating every little detail I possibly can.

These methods of visualization have always kept me in the car during the off season or while on a long break between test days or race weekends. I don’t really know the exact science of it, I just know that it works. The more detail you can put into visualizing the better it will be and the more you will get out of it. You can combine it with the exercises we have talked about in the past. As you drive, that onramp can become the carousel at Road America. (no tire noise, please) Visualizing and thinking ahead of your car will train your brain to do so automatically, leaving you much more mental energy to expend on the important things, like passing that guy in front of you.

For me, I’m visualizing landing a tail dragger perfectly every time. Shawn says that your not always going to make perfect landings, but I disagree. If I can learn what clues to look for, “feel” what’s going on underneath and around me and eliminate my low eyes, I’ll grease every last one of them. I’ll be flying an F18 off a carrier in no time. Actually, it will still be a Cessna 140 but I’ll visualize a Hornet.

See you at the track,

Grant Ryley

<o:p></o:p>

Last edited by sydude; 06-06-2006 at 08:46 AM.
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