Ask My Sky Mom. Aviation wit and wisdom.

Hey Mom,

I love your blog and I hope you’ll answer my question. I’m a student pilot. I have 18 hours and my flight instructor says I will probably solo soon. I’ve only been flying since August so this is my first winter flying and I want to know if there is any sort of standard when people say the braking is good or poor. If a pilot is really good, will they maybe say that the braking is good where a newer pilot might think it’s poor? How bad is the difference between good and poor? I just wondered.

Thank you,

Slipping and Sliding Towards Confusion

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Good question,  Slip ‘N Slide,

There is indeed a standard, although  I’d agree that you should always take other pilots’ reports with a grain of salt. Speaking of which, you’d best keep that salt off the runway-aging aircraft present enough challenges without adding corrosion to the mix. So how do we help our landing gear make clean contact with the tarmac? Urea, glycol, and other non corrosive ice melters should do the trick and when they don’t, the spreading of sand on top of that glacier will help at least a little. So be careful out there. That taxi recommendation about “no faster than a brisk walk” is suddenly starting to sound about right, isn’t it?

As far as cautious interpretation, I’m not implying that your fellow aviators don’t necessarily know the standard, I’m reminding you of the potential for changeable conditions and the unavoidable subjectivity you get when asking another human being to judge anything. So how good is good braking action, you ask? Here’s the breakdown on braking terminology.

Good: No degradation of braking action

Fair: Somewhat degraded braking conditions

Poor: Very degraded braking conditions

Nil: No braking action

Clear as rime ice? I agree. What’s a little degradation between friends, and where do you draw the line between somewhat degraded braking and very degraded conditions? Just as importantly, how did the last pilot (whose cryptic report you’re considering now) determine the difference? Should you be the type who desires a little more specificity, you can always use the mu (coefficient of friction) values. .4 or better gets you good braking, .36-.39 lands you in good to fair territory, .35 down to .30 finds braking fair, .29-.26 starts you sliding (hopefully not literally) into the fair to poor zone, and anything less than .25 is decidedly poor braking. Nice to know, but do you think that Skyhawk pilot who just landed knew his mu? Me neither. So we’re back to being cautious and exercising situational awareness.

Let’s ponder the practical aspects of landing on an icy runway. You’ll want to touch down early on your runway of choice, and at a reasonably slow speed. Stay off those brakes, if you can, and use back pressure on the controls to take advantage of aerodynamic braking. Dance gingerly on those rudder pedals; no stomping around as your airplane slows. Minimize your crosswind component where possible, remembering that the aerodynamic wonder you’re piloting will weather vane into the wind when it can. This has the potential to be exciting as the aircraft slows and the controls lose their effectiveness at holding you in that pretty slip you’ve been practicing. After all, what is a cross wind landing but a slip? As always, plan ahead, be careful, and don’t be shy about inviting your favorite CFI (or least favorite, if you’re really out of practice) out for a few circuits around the icy patch.

Have fun, and keep it on the runway,

Mom

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You’ve got questions? I’ll find you an answer. Email your aviation related question to mom@myskymom.com and check out myskymom.com to read the answers to questions previously posted. An educated pilot is a safe pilot is a happy pilot.  Remember, the only stupid question is the one you didn’t ask! Fly smart, fly safe, fly happy.

~ by myskymom on January 7, 2010.