Douglas Walker Daniel

What to Do When Your Airplane Becomes an Aluminum Balloon

No landing is perfect. To be realistic, every landing, good, bad, and indifferent, is a series of recoveries from things gone wrong. The secret is identifying the 'problem' early and taking the corrective action quickly enough that only you know that some... Read >

Three Ways To Learn Landings You Want To Show To Your Friends

How many touch-and-goes can you do in an hour? I can only do at most one every 6 or 7 minutes. That means that, if every thing works out just right, I might get 10 touch-and-goes in an hour. Now suppose I told you that you could get ten times as much p... Read >

Rudders Aren't Just for Taxiing and Turning

My face still turns red when I think of the time I was being checked out in a Cessna 182. We took off and reduced the power to cruise-climb. I was pretty excited about the constant speed prop and manifold pressure gauge - both firsts for me. My instructor... Read >

Easy NDB Approaches

The NDB approach is the hardest instrument approach and the oldest. For me, it is the approach of last resort. A non-directional beacon is a very simple AM, low power radio transmitter located near an airport. It sends out an audible Morse code signal for... Read >

Airplanes Don't Stall, Pilots Stall Them

When smooth airflow separates from your wings they stall, losing most of their lift. If you are lucky the airplane drops like a brick, pitches down, accelerates and starts to fly normally again. If you are not so lucky, one wing stalls, rolling your airpl... Read >

Flight Training Essentials: The Most Fundamental Piloting Skill

This is the one skill that makes the difference between good pilots and so-so pilots. It applies to visual flying and instrument flying, to gliders, land planes and seaplanes, to single engine planes and multiengine planes, to jets and props. Often referr... Read >

Flight Training: Three Lessons from Steep Turns

I was asked the question, "Why can't I keep my bank angle and speed steady in 45 degree turns?" While this question looks quite simple, it is a very good one. There are several very useful concepts you can learn by understanding what happens in a const... Read >

Flight Training: NDB Instrument Approaches Made Simple

It was an instrument lesson and an actual approach. We were flying a Piper Arrow into the Monterey Peninsula Airport just north of the famous Pebble Beach Country Club. The localizer was out of service. The only available approach was the NDB (non-directi... Read >

The Five Essential Techniques for Instrument Flight Training

A heavy pilot workload makes instrument flying hard. This article shows you, the pilot, how to reduce your cockpit workload and greatly simplify instrument flying. The truly positive side effect is you will fly more precisely and make fewer mistakes. A... Read >

Two Really Dumb Ways of Whacking the Ground with Your Wndtip

I was recently asked about the possibility of a wingtip strike when landing in a typical light plane like a Cherokee or a Cessna 172. Specifically, I was asked about how far tha aileron control could be deflected without hitting the tarmac when one or bot... Read >

How to Land without Bending the Airplane

There are two ways to know if you can land in a crosswind. One is to land and see if you skid off the runway or ground loop. The other is to cross control the airplane before landing to see if you can get your main landing gear aligned with the runway. I ... Read >

Cheap Landing Practice

She said, "I'm having trouble with landings." Then she asked, "Is there any practice away from the plane I can do?" Well, yes there is. It is remarkably cost effective. I recommend it to all my students. Here it is: Think about landings. This techni... Read >

Why Should Landings be Hard to Learn?

There are just three fundamental skills you need to know to land an airplane safely and consistently. They are airspeed control, projected glide control, and controlled slow flight. You can learn each separately. But you use them all to land safely and co... Read >

Flying through Thunderstorms

A very senior pilot was asked, "How might I fly through a thunderstorm that I could not avoid?" The answer he wanted to give was either, "You can't." or "Don't try." But the question needed to be answered. Here is his advice: Just about the only ... Read >

Do Dutch Rolls Help Pilots Land Airplanes Better?

Landing is the most challenging maneuver most pilots will ever perform. Not surprising, it is the most dangerous few moments of any trip. I stumbled on an exercise that shortened the time that pilots needed to learn landings and dramatically improved thei... Read >