An excellent full scale book for RC pilots
07-17-2007, 08:26 AM
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An excellent full scale book for RC pilots
Mods/Admins : Perhaps this would be better placed in the aerodynamics forum, but I was hoping for a more general discussion, reaching a larger audience. By all means, if it's inappropriate here, please move it.
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Last year I began taking full scale pilot lessons, and shortly into it learned of a book many consider to be a "bible" of sorts within that discipline; Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying by Wolfgang Langewiesche. ([link=http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Rudder-Explanation-Art-Flying/dp/0070362408/ref=sr_1_1/104-4278064-9278357?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184678242&sr=1-1]amazon.com listing here[/link])
It was written during the early and mid 1940's, right at the height of WW-II. Interestingly, it was seen as something of a "sacrilege" at the time, for it challenged many of the commonly held perceptions about airplanes and aerodynamics, including some taught by the Germans to their own pilot. The amazing thing (or, perhaps not so amazing, when one considers that we ARE, after all, talking about the laws of physics here) is that it is as timely today, some 60 years later, as it was then.
I bring it up here simply because I've found myself to be a better pilot...both RC and scale...for having read it (multiple times now) AND I find myself better able to prepare new RC students, as well as better able to engage yunger prospective pilots in the science behind the art.
Because of this, I wanted to start a thread for both discussion of the book (as I'm sure many of you have read it...particularly those who are also scale pilots) as well as to encourage other RC pilots to read it. While it is certainly written from a scale pilot's point of view, our smaller airplanes are still airplanes, and they do all the things "real" airplanes do for all the same reasons.
So...err....discuss away!
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Last year I began taking full scale pilot lessons, and shortly into it learned of a book many consider to be a "bible" of sorts within that discipline; Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying by Wolfgang Langewiesche. ([link=http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Rudder-Explanation-Art-Flying/dp/0070362408/ref=sr_1_1/104-4278064-9278357?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184678242&sr=1-1]amazon.com listing here[/link])
It was written during the early and mid 1940's, right at the height of WW-II. Interestingly, it was seen as something of a "sacrilege" at the time, for it challenged many of the commonly held perceptions about airplanes and aerodynamics, including some taught by the Germans to their own pilot. The amazing thing (or, perhaps not so amazing, when one considers that we ARE, after all, talking about the laws of physics here) is that it is as timely today, some 60 years later, as it was then.
I bring it up here simply because I've found myself to be a better pilot...both RC and scale...for having read it (multiple times now) AND I find myself better able to prepare new RC students, as well as better able to engage yunger prospective pilots in the science behind the art.
Because of this, I wanted to start a thread for both discussion of the book (as I'm sure many of you have read it...particularly those who are also scale pilots) as well as to encourage other RC pilots to read it. While it is certainly written from a scale pilot's point of view, our smaller airplanes are still airplanes, and they do all the things "real" airplanes do for all the same reasons.
So...err....discuss away!
07-17-2007, 09:14 AM
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RE: An excellent full scale book for RC pilots
Actually, the book didn't challenge things, but explained them from the pilot's point of view. The author acknowledged that his book didn't explain the principals of flight from a scientific basis per se, but explained them from the basis of how things looked and felt from the pilot's point of view. It's about the practice flight, not the theory.
Mr. Langeweische wrote about a myriad of subjects. He was a "Roving Editor" for Readers' Digest magazine for decades, and could be counted upon to have several articles per year in that publication, alone. I was privileged to meet him in 1970 when I was an office "go-fer" at Air Facts Magazine.
Mr. Langeweische wrote about a myriad of subjects. He was a "Roving Editor" for Readers' Digest magazine for decades, and could be counted upon to have several articles per year in that publication, alone. I was privileged to meet him in 1970 when I was an office "go-fer" at Air Facts Magazine.
07-17-2007, 10:10 AM
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RE: An excellent full scale book for RC pilots
ORIGINAL: Bax
Actually, the book didn't challenge things, but explained them from the pilot's point of view. The author acknowledged that his book didn't explain the principals of flight from a scientific basis per se, but explained them from the basis of how things looked and felt from the pilot's point of view. It's about the practice flight, not the theory.
Actually, the book didn't challenge things, but explained them from the pilot's point of view. The author acknowledged that his book didn't explain the principals of flight from a scientific basis per se, but explained them from the basis of how things looked and felt from the pilot's point of view. It's about the practice flight, not the theory.
I'd submit, however, that what I said was accurate...I agree, it did not challenge science, but it DID challenge "many of the commonly held perceptions about airplanes and aerodynamics"...later articles by Langeweische himself mention this, in fact. Consider, for example, the idea that the stick is an "up down" device...a misconception STILL held, and indeed TAUGHT in many places (certainly at RC fields).
And it is there, at least imo, that its value to RC pilots lies.
