12 ms·

Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)

103 points by JasonFruit 8y ago

AceyMan 8y ago
A true classic; I read (and re-read) the dead-trees version (a library copy, even!) many moons ago. A similar and more modern take on these same fundamentals of flight dynamics titled "See How It Flies" is freely online at https://www.av8n.com/how/ https://www.av8n.com/how/ — enthusiastically recommended. /Acey
- JasonFruit 8y ago
  I've read through at least half a dozen times, and I'm re-reading it in preparation for my first real flying lessons. (I'm very excited.)
- lutorm 8y ago
  I really like SHIF, if you have a physics-y bent it's great.
travisjungroth 8y ago
I have no idea how it ended up on the front page of HN, but this is an amazing book. Highly recommended for any pilot, especially those flying small airplanes. Don't let the date scare you, it holds up incredibly well. Wolfgang figured out how to describe things that good pilots do unconsciously in a way I've never seen matched. I'd like to share one passage that because of a small aside in the middle of a sentence has stuck with me for years. Of course it is conceivable that a perfectly maintained airplane, perfectly trimmed and flying in smooth air, might continue to fly straight ahead indefinitely simply because it would never be disturbed, would never get that first slight deflection from straight flight which starts the spiraling. But it is also conceivable that a pencil, stood on its point, might be so perfectly balanced and so completely shielded from all disturbances that it would stand on its point indefinitely. Both things are philosophically possible; both are so highly improbable as to be practically impossible. And anyway, the stability of a thing, just like that of a man, does not consist in its being shielded from all disturbances and thus preserving a precarious balance; it consists in the ability to recover from disturbances that inevitably will occur, and to regain lost balance.
- userbinator 8y ago
  Don't let the date scare you, it holds up incredibly well. Indeed, the laws of physics have not changed. It seems like a lot of people are turned off by old books, when I've found that my experience has often been the exact opposite --- for subjects like maths and electricity, the very old books had a way of explaining things that makes them quite easy to understand and perhaps even better than the new ones which simply glance over a subject and almost assume knowledge.
  - slazaro 8y ago
    > Indeed, the laws of physics have not changed. That's not the reason people might be hesitant to read a book from the 1940s. Technology changes a lot, and maybe things changed in airplanes to make it obsolete, maybe not. That's why that comment was necessary.
    - mseebach 8y ago
      Also: our understanding of physics has evolved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Alternative_explanations,_misconceptions,_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Alternative_expla...
      - oldcynic 8y ago
        That explanation hasn't exactly died out these days even if you won't find it in official sources.
- hyperpallium 8y ago
  An example from hang gliding: the wings form a shallow "V", with you at the centre. If it tilts left, there's more lift area downwards on the left (and less on the right), so it tends to tilt back, righting itself. I'm not sure what prevents oscillation; nor how pitch is stablized (pointing downwards vs pointing up), but I've found hang gliders very stable.
  - 8y ago
_s 8y ago
I have a recent hardback version that I lend out to folks interested in flying or are going through their training. While not to everyone’s taste, the style of writing is approachable and distils many somewhat technical concepts (for folks with a poor physics background) into very easily understandable passages. The book is centred around on more how to fly an aircraft, rather than how an aircraft flies, but covers both equally well, and is quiet a refresher in all the current flight training manuals and regulations that one has to go through.
tr352 8y ago
This is still (after 74 years) a hugely popular book among student pilots to understand the basics of fling. Technically, very little has changed over all those years. Popular training and GA aircraft like the Cessna 152/172 are built and powered in the exact same way as back then.
JKCalhoun 8y ago
So happy to see a well-illustrated book endure the test of time. I still look for old texts on science, physics, chemistry ... even (especially?) electronics.
- travisjungroth 8y ago
  In the chapter on landing, there's a series of illustrations[1] of a giant building with white and gray horizontal stripes. They're used to show how you can tell how high you are when landing. During a ground lesson, I'd show the student the picture and say "of course, it's not like you'll have a building like that actually next to the runway!." They'd agree, then I'd point out the window at this building[2], right next to the runway. 1. https://i.imgur.com/i4qlsYQ.png https://i.imgur.com/i4qlsYQ.png 2. https://i.imgur.com/vZXZOIp.jpg https://i.imgur.com/vZXZOIp.jpg
  - escherplex 8y ago
    Hope you teach your new students 'crabbing' techniques during cross-wind landings before sending them off solo. I remember during one solo cross country taking-off from a V-shaped private field lined with 50 foot trees, zero evident or forecast winds, and after second rotation (which just happened to be at tree-top level) was hit by a cross-wind from the left. Now as we know it's not particularly healthy to attempt flying sideways 70 feet AGL so full right rudder was applied until the wings 'bit' and ascent was stable. Interesting that early exposure to cross-wind landings did trigger that immediate corrective response.
  - airwebster 8y ago
    is that a grass strip and where is it?
mcguire 8y ago
This book is also available as a boxer set with Weather Flying Robert Buck and Instrument Flying by Taylor. The first of those is almost as good as Stick and Rudder.
kazinator 8y ago
Even if the content of this book were bunk, I'd still conclude that this author is great. Good reading for anyone who wants to write an instruction manual for anything.
symfoniq 8y ago
Anybody here fly commercially? I always wanted to, then 9/11 happened in my 18th year and caused a lost decade for the aviation industry. Thinking about a mid-life career change now, but it’s going to be a very expensive endeavor.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I don't fly, but it's a tough road. Senior pilots at the big airlines make good money, but it takes a lot of years working for peanuts at the regionals to get there.
  - mbrameld 8y ago
    This is somewhat outdated information, it's gotten quite a bit better over the last year or two. Regionals are paying pretty good these days. Starting pay still isn't amazing, most are in the high 40s, but it doesn't take very long to move up and the average regional pilot is making $70k. Senior captains at the majors are making high 200s. Most of the regionals have signing bonuses, too.
- base698 8y ago
  I'm debating taking the commercial checkride and doing it part-time. It's expensive to get the time for even basic commercial and seems impossible to get ATP unless your full-time.
- bronco21016 8y ago
  It is definitely an expensive road but the regional level pay has gotten much better. The regional I just left was paying new pilots upwards of $55,000 first year. As a junior captain I left making around $120,000. Probably nothing among a crowd of software devs but far above the $23,000 I made my first year, 7 years ago. If you already have a 4 year degree and a relatively stable financial situation then I’d say go for it! Major airlines are hiring like crazy and just about anyone without skeletons in their closet should be working for a major over the next 10 years because of mandatory retirement.
  - 8y ago
mastazi 8y ago
It's amazing how literally everything in this book is still relevant in 2018, it really is the bible of flying. Take for example this line: > The so-called "elevator" is really the airplane's speed control, the throttle is really its up-and-down control. This is hard to believe but is one of the keys to the art of piloting.
- F00Fbug 8y ago
  That is one of the most important facts about flying; it is also one of the most misunderstood. When I read it as a student pilot, I found the book to be oddly written, but so applicable. That one sentence will do wonders for final approach and landings!
HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
I don't recall ever reading this book, but as a student pilot, I was given a copy of "You have 178 seconds to live" and it had a tremendous impact on me. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/fai/local_more/alaskan_articles/media/178-Seconds_to_Live.pdf https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/fai/...
- ChristianGeek 8y ago
  It’s a shame JFK Jr. didn’t read this.
  - chopin 8y ago
    When that happened I saw a photo of his plane with doors open so that you could see the cockpit panel. From the glance it was equipped with everything you could wish for. Afair he was caught by darkness but otherwise reasonable visibility. I had a hard time to understand why he failed this (but I admittedly have only simulator experience).
    - hblanks 8y ago
      It'd be hard to understand without feeling it for yourself, but in actual instrument conditions (IMC), it's easy for your sense of balance to mislead you into thinking you're level, when in fact you're turning. There's some physiology to explain this, but one key point is that once you're in a coordinated turn, even a descending one, your weight is still going straight down the vertical axis of the seat. So, you'll think you're doing fine, and possibly even pull the turn tighter (the graveyard spiral), and fixate on things other than the attitude indicator and your plummeting altitude.
- chopin 8y ago
  I do not hold a license but have plenty of simulator experience. Do they not teach how to use an attitude indicator even for a VFR license? Or how to do an instrument scan? I thought this is pretty basic. Even with a good forecast, you can get caught badly by weather. The linked document indicates that invertion can happen with no visibility, but can't this being prevented bay paying attention to the attitude indicator.
topspin 8y ago
I'm not a pilot. My father flew small planes for a time and obtained a commercial license. This is just me reminiscencing about two experiences I've had as a passenger in small aircraft. I hopped on a six or eight passenger tour plane operating from the grass field at Grand Marais Airport in Michigan around 1993. I was in the first row behind the pilot. There were high, gusty winds off Lake Superior and the pilot had to really work the yoke and throttle. It was almost athletic; the pilot was reacting to strong wind gusts -- big deflections of every control surface every second or two -- and yet the plane felt rock stable; if you had closed your eyes you could not have known there was this amazing pilot working it that hard. This went on from the moment he cleared the trees till just before touchdown. Really astonishing. Around 2003 I took another flight in a Schweizer sailplane out of Boulder Municipal Airport in Colorado. I was amused by how the pilot somehow knew exactly where to find lift. He would deliberately fly along ridge lift, entering and exiting like there were signs in the sky; never a doubt where to find it even though the foothills were so far below there was no obvious correlation between the contours and the lift. I think piloting is far removed from just about everything else. Non-pilots don't even suspect things that experienced pilots take for granted.
- upofadown 8y ago
  Gliding is more or less all the stick and rudder stuff with actually staying up and going places a whole other layer on top.
airwebster 8y ago
this is a good compliment to Stick and Rudder: https://www.amazon.com/Compleat-Taildragger-Pilot-Harvey-Plourde/dp/0963913700/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528950509&sr=8-1&keywords=the+compleat+taildragger+pilot https://www.amazon.com/Compleat-Taildragger-Pilot-Harvey-Plo... if you are interested in getting into actual "stick and rudder" flying - tailwheel flying (while a bit of a dying art) is kind of key for all test, aerobatic, bush, and most "fun" types of flying where your "involved" with the machine
- blendo 8y ago
  If you’re in the SF Bay Area, Palo Alto airport has several clubs offering primary flight training in the Citabria 7ECA (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Champion_Citabria https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Champion_Citabria). Student in the front, instructor in the back (and out of your line of sight), right hand on the stick between your knees, and left hand on the throttle. Tailwheel. 1120 lbs empty weight. Thrilling. An intro flight will cost about $200.
js2 8y ago
Seems like this might be a good place to link to The Turn (1993): > At the very heart of winged flight lies the banked turn, a procedure that by now seems so routine and familiar that airline passengers appreciate neither its elegance and mystery nor its dangerously delusive character. The author, a pilot, takes us up into the subject. https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/langew/turn.htm https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/langew/turn.ht...
- JasonFruit 8y ago
  That is a great article --- he had the knack of making difficult concepts not only clear but enthralling.
magicbuzz 8y ago
In my bookshelf. I think that the most fundamental statement in Stick & Rudder is that you are flying a Wing. And a Wing is something that is inherently non-intuitive to most human beings.
hudibras 8y ago
Hate to be that guy, but I'm pretty sure this book is still under copyright; the author passed away in 2002. HN is probably not the right place to post this...
ubermonkey 8y ago
My understanding is that this book is still basically the bible of aviation. Of additional potential interest to smart folks who like to read is the fact that the author's son is of note as well; he's written a lot of really great long-form journalism, often but not exclusively about aviation as well, both in high-profile magazines and in book form. He's on the short list of authors whom I read automatically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Langewiesche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Langewiesche Seek out "The Crash of EgyptAir 990," which ran in the New York Review of Books in 2002. It's STELLAR, but then his work across the board is especially solid. Of his books, I think my favorites are "Inside the Sky," about flight, and "The Outlaw Sea," about shipping. "The Atomic Bazaar" is also great, if terrifying.

103 points by JasonFruit 8y ago

A true classic; I read (and re-read) the dead-trees version (a library copy, even!) many moons ago. A similar and more modern take on these same fundamentals of flight dynamics titled "See How It Flies" is freely online at https://www.av8n.com/how/ https://www.av8n.com/how/ — enthusiastically recommended. /Acey

JasonFruit 8y ago
I've read through at least half a dozen times, and I'm re-reading it in preparation for my first real flying lessons. (I'm very excited.)
lutorm 8y ago
I really like SHIF, if you have a physics-y bent it's great.

travisjungroth 8y ago

I have no idea how it ended up on the front page of HN, but this is an amazing book. Highly recommended for any pilot, especially those flying small airplanes. Don't let the date scare you, it holds up incredibly well. Wolfgang figured out how to describe things that good pilots do unconsciously in a way I've never seen matched. I'd like to share one passage that because of a small aside in the middle of a sentence has stuck with me for years. Of course it is conceivable that a perfectly maintained airplane, perfectly trimmed and flying in smooth air, might continue to fly straight ahead indefinitely simply because it would never be disturbed, would never get that first slight deflection from straight flight which starts the spiraling. But it is also conceivable that a pencil, stood on its point, might be so perfectly balanced and so completely shielded from all disturbances that it would stand on its point indefinitely. Both things are philosophically possible; both are so highly improbable as to be practically impossible. And anyway, the stability of a thing, just like that of a man, does not consist in its being shielded from all disturbances and thus preserving a precarious balance; it consists in the ability to recover from disturbances that inevitably will occur, and to regain lost balance.

userbinator 8y ago
Don't let the date scare you, it holds up incredibly well. Indeed, the laws of physics have not changed. It seems like a lot of people are turned off by old books, when I've found that my experience has often been the exact opposite --- for subjects like maths and electricity, the very old books had a way of explaining things that makes them quite easy to understand and perhaps even better than the new ones which simply glance over a subject and almost assume knowledge.
- slazaro 8y ago
  > Indeed, the laws of physics have not changed. That's not the reason people might be hesitant to read a book from the 1940s. Technology changes a lot, and maybe things changed in airplanes to make it obsolete, maybe not. That's why that comment was necessary.
  - mseebach 8y ago
    Also: our understanding of physics has evolved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Alternative_explanations,_misconceptions,_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Alternative_expla...
    - oldcynic 8y ago
      That explanation hasn't exactly died out these days even if you won't find it in official sources.
hyperpallium 8y ago
An example from hang gliding: the wings form a shallow "V", with you at the centre. If it tilts left, there's more lift area downwards on the left (and less on the right), so it tends to tilt back, righting itself. I'm not sure what prevents oscillation; nor how pitch is stablized (pointing downwards vs pointing up), but I've found hang gliders very stable.
- 8y ago

_s 8y ago

I have a recent hardback version that I lend out to folks interested in flying or are going through their training. While not to everyone’s taste, the style of writing is approachable and distils many somewhat technical concepts (for folks with a poor physics background) into very easily understandable passages. The book is centred around on more how to fly an aircraft, rather than how an aircraft flies, but covers both equally well, and is quiet a refresher in all the current flight training manuals and regulations that one has to go through.

tr352 8y ago

This is still (after 74 years) a hugely popular book among student pilots to understand the basics of fling. Technically, very little has changed over all those years. Popular training and GA aircraft like the Cessna 152/172 are built and powered in the exact same way as back then.

JKCalhoun 8y ago

So happy to see a well-illustrated book endure the test of time. I still look for old texts on science, physics, chemistry ... even (especially?) electronics.

travisjungroth 8y ago
In the chapter on landing, there's a series of illustrations[1] of a giant building with white and gray horizontal stripes. They're used to show how you can tell how high you are when landing. During a ground lesson, I'd show the student the picture and say "of course, it's not like you'll have a building like that actually next to the runway!." They'd agree, then I'd point out the window at this building[2], right next to the runway. 1. https://i.imgur.com/i4qlsYQ.png https://i.imgur.com/i4qlsYQ.png 2. https://i.imgur.com/vZXZOIp.jpg https://i.imgur.com/vZXZOIp.jpg
- escherplex 8y ago
  Hope you teach your new students 'crabbing' techniques during cross-wind landings before sending them off solo. I remember during one solo cross country taking-off from a V-shaped private field lined with 50 foot trees, zero evident or forecast winds, and after second rotation (which just happened to be at tree-top level) was hit by a cross-wind from the left. Now as we know it's not particularly healthy to attempt flying sideways 70 feet AGL so full right rudder was applied until the wings 'bit' and ascent was stable. Interesting that early exposure to cross-wind landings did trigger that immediate corrective response.
- airwebster 8y ago
  is that a grass strip and where is it?

mcguire 8y ago

This book is also available as a boxer set with Weather Flying Robert Buck and Instrument Flying by Taylor. The first of those is almost as good as Stick and Rudder.

kazinator 8y ago

Even if the content of this book were bunk, I'd still conclude that this author is great. Good reading for anyone who wants to write an instruction manual for anything.

symfoniq 8y ago

Anybody here fly commercially? I always wanted to, then 9/11 happened in my 18th year and caused a lost decade for the aviation industry. Thinking about a mid-life career change now, but it’s going to be a very expensive endeavor.

ams6110 8y ago
I don't fly, but it's a tough road. Senior pilots at the big airlines make good money, but it takes a lot of years working for peanuts at the regionals to get there.
- mbrameld 8y ago
  This is somewhat outdated information, it's gotten quite a bit better over the last year or two. Regionals are paying pretty good these days. Starting pay still isn't amazing, most are in the high 40s, but it doesn't take very long to move up and the average regional pilot is making $70k. Senior captains at the majors are making high 200s. Most of the regionals have signing bonuses, too.
base698 8y ago
I'm debating taking the commercial checkride and doing it part-time. It's expensive to get the time for even basic commercial and seems impossible to get ATP unless your full-time.
bronco21016 8y ago
It is definitely an expensive road but the regional level pay has gotten much better. The regional I just left was paying new pilots upwards of $55,000 first year. As a junior captain I left making around $120,000. Probably nothing among a crowd of software devs but far above the $23,000 I made my first year, 7 years ago. If you already have a 4 year degree and a relatively stable financial situation then I’d say go for it! Major airlines are hiring like crazy and just about anyone without skeletons in their closet should be working for a major over the next 10 years because of mandatory retirement.
- 8y ago

mastazi 8y ago

It's amazing how literally everything in this book is still relevant in 2018, it really is the bible of flying. Take for example this line: > The so-called "elevator" is really the airplane's speed control, the throttle is really its up-and-down control. This is hard to believe but is one of the keys to the art of piloting.

F00Fbug 8y ago
That is one of the most important facts about flying; it is also one of the most misunderstood. When I read it as a student pilot, I found the book to be oddly written, but so applicable. That one sentence will do wonders for final approach and landings!

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago

I don't recall ever reading this book, but as a student pilot, I was given a copy of "You have 178 seconds to live" and it had a tremendous impact on me. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/fai/local_more/alaskan_articles/media/178-Seconds_to_Live.pdf https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/fai/...

ChristianGeek 8y ago
It’s a shame JFK Jr. didn’t read this.
- chopin 8y ago
  When that happened I saw a photo of his plane with doors open so that you could see the cockpit panel. From the glance it was equipped with everything you could wish for. Afair he was caught by darkness but otherwise reasonable visibility. I had a hard time to understand why he failed this (but I admittedly have only simulator experience).
  - hblanks 8y ago
    It'd be hard to understand without feeling it for yourself, but in actual instrument conditions (IMC), it's easy for your sense of balance to mislead you into thinking you're level, when in fact you're turning. There's some physiology to explain this, but one key point is that once you're in a coordinated turn, even a descending one, your weight is still going straight down the vertical axis of the seat. So, you'll think you're doing fine, and possibly even pull the turn tighter (the graveyard spiral), and fixate on things other than the attitude indicator and your plummeting altitude.
chopin 8y ago
I do not hold a license but have plenty of simulator experience. Do they not teach how to use an attitude indicator even for a VFR license? Or how to do an instrument scan? I thought this is pretty basic. Even with a good forecast, you can get caught badly by weather. The linked document indicates that invertion can happen with no visibility, but can't this being prevented bay paying attention to the attitude indicator.

topspin 8y ago

I'm not a pilot. My father flew small planes for a time and obtained a commercial license. This is just me reminiscencing about two experiences I've had as a passenger in small aircraft. I hopped on a six or eight passenger tour plane operating from the grass field at Grand Marais Airport in Michigan around 1993. I was in the first row behind the pilot. There were high, gusty winds off Lake Superior and the pilot had to really work the yoke and throttle. It was almost athletic; the pilot was reacting to strong wind gusts -- big deflections of every control surface every second or two -- and yet the plane felt rock stable; if you had closed your eyes you could not have known there was this amazing pilot working it that hard. This went on from the moment he cleared the trees till just before touchdown. Really astonishing. Around 2003 I took another flight in a Schweizer sailplane out of Boulder Municipal Airport in Colorado. I was amused by how the pilot somehow knew exactly where to find lift. He would deliberately fly along ridge lift, entering and exiting like there were signs in the sky; never a doubt where to find it even though the foothills were so far below there was no obvious correlation between the contours and the lift. I think piloting is far removed from just about everything else. Non-pilots don't even suspect things that experienced pilots take for granted.

upofadown 8y ago
Gliding is more or less all the stick and rudder stuff with actually staying up and going places a whole other layer on top.

airwebster 8y ago

this is a good compliment to Stick and Rudder: https://www.amazon.com/Compleat-Taildragger-Pilot-Harvey-Plourde/dp/0963913700/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528950509&sr=8-1&keywords=the+compleat+taildragger+pilot https://www.amazon.com/Compleat-Taildragger-Pilot-Harvey-Plo... if you are interested in getting into actual "stick and rudder" flying - tailwheel flying (while a bit of a dying art) is kind of key for all test, aerobatic, bush, and most "fun" types of flying where your "involved" with the machine

blendo 8y ago
If you’re in the SF Bay Area, Palo Alto airport has several clubs offering primary flight training in the Citabria 7ECA (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Champion_Citabria https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Champion_Citabria). Student in the front, instructor in the back (and out of your line of sight), right hand on the stick between your knees, and left hand on the throttle. Tailwheel. 1120 lbs empty weight. Thrilling. An intro flight will cost about $200.

js2 8y ago

Seems like this might be a good place to link to The Turn (1993): > At the very heart of winged flight lies the banked turn, a procedure that by now seems so routine and familiar that airline passengers appreciate neither its elegance and mystery nor its dangerously delusive character. The author, a pilot, takes us up into the subject. https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/langew/turn.htm https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/langew/turn.ht...

JasonFruit 8y ago
That is a great article --- he had the knack of making difficult concepts not only clear but enthralling.

magicbuzz 8y ago

In my bookshelf. I think that the most fundamental statement in Stick & Rudder is that you are flying a Wing. And a Wing is something that is inherently non-intuitive to most human beings.

hudibras 8y ago

Hate to be that guy, but I'm pretty sure this book is still under copyright; the author passed away in 2002. HN is probably not the right place to post this...

ubermonkey 8y ago

My understanding is that this book is still basically the bible of aviation. Of additional potential interest to smart folks who like to read is the fact that the author's son is of note as well; he's written a lot of really great long-form journalism, often but not exclusively about aviation as well, both in high-profile magazines and in book form. He's on the short list of authors whom I read automatically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Langewiesche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Langewiesche Seek out "The Crash of EgyptAir 990," which ran in the New York Review of Books in 2002. It's STELLAR, but then his work across the board is especially solid. Of his books, I think my favorites are "Inside the Sky," about flight, and "The Outlaw Sea," about shipping. "The Atomic Bazaar" is also great, if terrifying.