By Kevin "Hognose" O'Brien

Upset is not how we like things to be. Upset is bad whether we're talking about your spouse, your stomach, or your airplane. But while an upset spouse or upset stomach can usually be tamed, an upset airplane might leave your relatives with no options for a chat with you, short of an Ouija board. But while most training focuses on keeping you far away from the edges of the performance envelope where upsets can happen, some increasingly popular training takes you there deliberately - and shows you how to come back. In upset recovery training, as offered by Aviation Safety Training (AST) of Houston, pilots are trained to bring the plane back to straight and level flight with minimum loss of altitude and minimum distress to the passengers (not to mention the plane). Upset recovery training isn't aerobatics; it's emergency procedures training.

At AOPA Expo 2003, AST's Rick Gillenwaters explained the need for and principles behind upset training to an enthusiastic crowd. Rick is a former military pilot, as are many AST instructors; he flew F-15s in the USAF. He's now a civilian 737 pilot, but still retains that fighter-pilot confidence. This broad experience makes him a good spokesman for AST. The company brings effective training techniques, honed over decades by the military, to the civilian pilot.

Many operators offer an upset training syllabus. AST's particular program is called AMP©, which stands for Advanced Maneuvering Program. Its objective: to train the pilot to recognize an upset and react correctly, instinctively, to one.

Task: recover from upsets/unusual attitudes
Conditions: given a T-34, standing in for anyplane; an instructor; and training
Standards: minimum altitude loss/minimum distress to those on board

OK, What's an Upset?

An upset is an unexpected departure from normal flight attitudes. Some favor a definition based on more objective criteria; one often cited is:

1. more than 25 degrees pitch up
2. more than 10 degrees pitch-down, or
3. more than 45 degrees bank angle.

Many things can lead to an upset, including wake turbulence, mechanical failure, storm conditions, icing, and unusual winds (i.e., mountain rotors, downbursts).

What Do You Do When It's Green Over Blue?

Underpinning the training is the philosophy that, in a sudden upset, a pilot will do what is instinctive. Since his natural instinct (We're headed down - pull back, pull back!) is incorrect (now he's headed down, and stalled), AST supplants those bad instincts with new ones, inculcated by practice, drill, repetition. The technique will be familiar to anyone who ever served in the military (or played on a sports team). The point is to get the recovery sequence ingrained to the point where it is all but a reflex - or as Rick put it, until it's stored in "muscle memory."

The basic recovery technique in AMP is called the "mantra,"  a term they've trademarked.

MANTRA: push/power/rudder/roll

Another phrase is sort of a mantra of its own: Step On The Sky

Here's what those words mean:

PUSH This is to unload the aircraft, to reduce Gs, and most especially to reduce angle of attack and prevent stall. This runs contrary to normal instinct, which is to pull back on the stick or yoke when the aircraft is pointed downhill, and pull back harder in proportion to how steep the nose-down attitude is (even if the plane is nose-down, but stalled). Such is the normal instinct, but it's wrong.

POWER Add power. The power is added for the same reason you pushed - to prevent stall. Again, this is counterintuitive for the usual 1G pilot. His normal reaction would be to cut power when pointed down

RUDDER Use rudder to raise the nose towards the horizon. Because this is for some a hard abstraction to visualize, Don Wylie, founder, president and chief pilot of AST adapted the sub-mantra STEP ON THE SKY. This also produces top rudder, but is easier to remember. The purpose of this is to prevent loss of altitude or overspeed. This is neither intuitive nor counterintuitive,

ROLL With the dangers of stall and overspeed prevented, the pilot can roll the machine back to wings-level.

These steps are learned as a matter of drill, through repetition, to make the student internalize this procedure. However, in practice, the steps are executed rapidly, even simultaneously. For instance, the PUSH need not (and should not) be held indefinitely, instead it's all but momentary.

The point of the thing is getting the lift vector oriented so as to move you away from danger (i.e. terrain). In an upset, the lift vector is often moving you closer to danger.

The Laundry List of Subjects Covered:

• Aerodynamics review
• Causes of "Upsets"
• AST Lift Demonstration ALD™
• "G" Demonstration
• Physiological and aircraft effects.
• Flight physiology
• Human Factors
• Temporal distortion Hypervigilance-Kinesthetics
• Unusual attitude recoveries
• AST MANTRA™
• AST Lift Vector Management LVM™
• Establishing Muscle Memory™
• Uncommanded excursions (Upsets)
• Runaway trim/hard-over rudder
• Yaw dampener malfunction, etc.
• Wake turbulence and windshear
• Accelerated stalls(recognition and recovery)
• Spins (recognition and recovery)
• Wake turbulence demonstration

That's quite a lot to pack into a rather few hours of training, but with the techniques developed by Don Wylie and others at AST, it's certainly do-able.

The Underlying Science

The course doesn't kick right into those muscle-memory exercises. It begins with an aerodynamic review or refresher - although sometimes, to Rick's chagrin, it seems more like Intro to Aerodynamics. To military pilots, managing angle of attack and lift vectors is second nature; to civilian pilots, even very experienced ones, these terms are much less well understood. The lift vector is, as every private student learns a product of angle of attack and speed. But what private students don't really internalize is that because the lift vector is a function of these things, it's completely independent of pitch.

That's not the only part where current training practices leave, in Rick Gillenwaters's opinion, students unprepared. Nowadays steep turns aren't even being flown at 60 degrees. As a result, an entire generation of pilots has been brought up without experiencing even 2 G. (One of the training drills rectifies this deficiency. The pilots find it surprisingly difficult to raise their feet off the floor of the machine to put them on the rudder bars, under constant 2G).

This is the latest salvo in a decades-old philosophical battle between those that believe that training should teach the pilot to always stay in the comfortable dead center of the plane's safe performance envelope, and those that believe that pilots should be taught to respect the edges, but be ready to operate in the whole envelope. Philosophical fights like this never end, but most everyone takes a side. Right now, the FAA seems to believe in the risk-reduction by narrowing the band theory, and aims to reduce exposure, while the upset-recovery instructors like AST, and their students, and most of the airlines, and the insurers, seem to believe in the grow-the-pilot theory, and aim to increase exposure.

The Administrivia

The two-day initial AMP course takes place at D.W. Hooks Memorial Airport (KDWH) just outside Houston. The class has a 1/2 day of academics in the morning, and the first of two training flights after lunch (lunch helps settle your stomach; paradoxically, you are more likely to lose your lunch if you haven't eaten lunch). Pilots will log about 1.15 to 1.30 that day, then debrief. The next day, there are no academics. A second flight of about the same duration, will a couple more techniques and reinforce the first ones. Again this flight is followed by a debrief.

The debriefings are enhanced by video; the planes have several video cameras installed. (You can see some of the resulting videos at the AST website).

The pilot gets to take home a video of his flights, along with a Certificate of Completion (no doubt suitable for framing) and his training records. In addition, the student gets his Spin Endorsement and BFR.

Why a T-34?

One is tempted to say that they chose T-34s because they already had them; AST is a subsidiary of "Texas Air Aces," a warbird-adventure outfit that primarily caters to nonpilots seeking to scratch a Walter Mitty itch; would-be aces tangle in T-34s equipped with laser target-scoring systems and smoke generators. Rick admits that it's handy to have planes available that can do double duty. But he continues, in quotes that sound quite like this material from the company website; "These aircraft are uniquely suited for this mission in that they closely approximate the performance… of the general aviation, corporate and airline fleet."  By performance, they mean  "maneuverability, power-to-weight ratios, wing loading and roll/pitch/yaw rates." Another factor is that the machines can stay up long enough to conduct the training in two longer, more efficient flights - rather than suffer the multiple takeoffs, landings and climbs to safe maneuvering altitude that a shorter-legged machine would require.

AST doesn't like competitive acro planes for this type of training because, to put it simply, they don't fly like the planes that have sufficient fuel capacity to complete the course with a minimum number of flights. Significantly, the aircraft used by some other training providers for unusual attitude training are specifically designed and engineered for "competitive" aerobatics. They, therefore possess much higher wing loading and power-to-weight ratios and produce roll, pitch and yaw rates as much as 8 times higher then that of the aircraft operated by our clients. "

But… What About the Spars?

As many Aero-News readers know, the T-34 had a near-death experience after the FAA reacted to a fatal accident involving a "warbird-adventure" type school, Sky Warriors, in Atlanta on April 19th, 1999. The spar failed under significant G loads and the wing separated from the aircraft in flight; both men on board were fatally injured. On May 28th the FAA issued an incredibly onerous inspection AD (AD 2001-13-18: http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAD.nsf/WebCurrentADFRMakeModel/3AD30B84E401B11B86256A7D00569653?OpenDocument ), which also drastically reduced the flight envelope for the machine. This rapid action (for the FAA) indicates how seriously they viewed the problem. Later, they updated and modified this guidance in SAIB 02-38. http://av-info.faa.gov/data/SAIB/CE-02-38R1.pdf [Adobe Acrobat .pdf file]. A new update is probably going to be issued soon.

Raytheon, which owns the type certificate for the T-34, and presumably any liability still attendant thereto, was bashed in the T-34 community as trying to eliminate the machine, and the T-34 owners and maintainers worked to develop alternate means of compliance with the AD. One of these reinforces the spar with a doubler, and cold-works the rivet holes. A second adds a strap. Aviation Safety Training takes another approach, and replaces the spars completely with Baron spars (this spar is actually a "common spar" used in several Beechcraft designs). This is called the "Nogle Common Spar Alternate Means of Compliance." Any of these mods satisfies the AD and, to the satisfaction of the FAA and the pilots that fly them, restores at least some of the strength of the T-34. The mod used by AST is arguably the best, but also one of the most expensive and $60,000 plus per plane. But it restores the full aerobatic capability of this retired veteran.

Do it in Your Own Plane?

Yes, AST will train you in your own plane - within the boundaries fixed by the plane's operating limitations and the FARs. The T-34s are aerobatic, and stressed for +6 Gs; most client planes aren't. "We had one guy come here in his King Air," Rick recounted, "and he didn't think the T-34 training would transfer." He wanted to do it in his plane. After he did the maneuvers in the T-34, he did it in his own machine. "We did the same maneuvers, or as nearly as we could do legally, in his plane," Rick remembered. While the skeptical pilot and another AST instructor did the maneuvers, Rick flew chase in a T-34, and shot video. "Except for the limitations imposed by the TC and regs, the flight looked the same. I put the video [of the pilot's King Air upset-recovery] on one side of the screen, and the video from his T-34 [upset training] on the other."

Cost??

Depending on how you look at it, AST's AMP could be the most expensive hours you ever logged, or the cheapest way you ever saved your life. The initial AMP course is $2,995. (You also have to figure the cost of travel and an overnight stay in Houston). 1-day refresher is also available, at $1,495, and according to Rick, it's popular. They also have an abbreviated "Introductory" Upset Recovery Training Course, which is (the website says): "a $1495 course consisting of 3 to 4 hours ground training addressing the aerodynamics of 'accelerated' flight and one flight of approx. 1.5 hours duration."

Flight departments that are interested in this training can contact AST to talk about tailored training. Company spokesmen indicate that they'll come to you, if it makes financial sense to do so. (Given the large number of accidents of transport and business type aircraft resulting from in-flight loss of control, many flight departments are sending all their aircrews. The pilots, who usually enjoy the training, often consider it a benefit.

This is the first time that AST ever presented the program to a Part 91, price-sensitive audience; they usually promote themselves to corporate and airline flight departments. As a result, they usually don't run into price complaints. The airlines and corporate G-IV and Lear 45 operators think this is money well spent. The airlines in particular are reputed to be tight-fisted with training dollars. But they buy this. You might want to think about that.

You can also get a substantial discount from some insurers for taking this course. The insurance certification is included in the bag of goodies you take home. Depending on your insurer, the AMP program may meet their requirements for recurrent training.

What to Do if you're Interested?

Aviation Safety Training has an excellent website at (what else?) aviationsafetytraining.com. You can also reach them at (800) 544-2237 or (281) 379-2237.

There are other vendors offering similar training; we're sure that Rick and Don would encourage you to check them all out before selecting one that meets your needs. After all, over 2,000 pilots did, and selected Aviation Safety Training.

FMI: www.aviationsafetytraining.com