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Old 06-29-2006 | 12:04 AM
  #16  
elenasgrumpy
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From: Tracy, CA
Default RE: Using the rudder - practice drills?

I am lucky in that I got into the habit of using my rudder while co-ordinating turns & as my primary control surface when landing. I'm really not sure how or why but it just felt like the thing to do right off the bat to me. It just seem to make since when I was learning to fly that when landing & getting pretty low in altitude that I didn't want to use the ailerons too much because that tips the plane one way or the other. Once level & coming in on final approach I wanted to keep my wings level so I would then do any steering adjustments with the rudder the rest of the way in. As it turns out I got the landing thing down pretty quick that way & am now able to land on a regular basis better than a lot of my flying buddies with much more experience that for some reason got into the habit of flying with the right stick only. Especially in the heavy crosswinds that we get all the time at our field.

So for me I think a good practice drill would be to simply do practice approaches using only the rudder as much as possible to keep yourself on your runway heading then as you get comfortable with it turn your practice approaches into touch & goes.

The other thing you can do with a Trainer is to try to increase the roll rate by using some rudder with your ailerons to straighten out those ugly slow Trainer rolls, & like someone already mentioned if your ready to start doing some knife-edges, that requires full rudder to hold a good edge for as long as you can. Good luck with your practice. You're trying to learn a good thing, too many people fly ailerons only & it shows in their limitations. You will make yourself a better pilot with what you are trying to do![sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif]