Flight training vs. Riding a motorcycle

M

motospeed9058

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Messages
118
Location
Colorado Springs, CO
Display Name
Display name:
rhall9058
The more I get into studying the general aviation requirements and the characteristics of a plane, I find myself reverting to my years of riding motorcycles the similarities in the two. Things like the effect on movement and mechanics related to weight and balance, the more you bank (turn) the more risky and potentially dangerous it can be, adjusting the trim and throttle to adjust the wheel speed to the road speed which is similar to the prop throttle being adjusted to a certain point to maintain a safe flight speed. Safety checks before each ride could be compared to pre-flighting, and each situation as an expected checklist to achieve a certain result.

I guess I'm not really making a point here other than brain storming on why the studying has been relatively simple so far. I guess I've impressed myself with the similarities. :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
Very true -- two wheel riding helps you viscerally understand energy management and vectors in a way non-riders cannot easily appropriate.

That said, my FZ "pre-flight" consists of tire pressure ("They look about right?") and brake light and turn signal check.
 
Very true for me as well on the pre-flight except add fuel and mirrors to that, but scanning the horizon, never looking where you don't want to go, continually looking around. It's all about the same.

You know the one thing that is way different is the weather. Riding a bike, you look at the weather and say, "hhmmmm, red blob over the road I want to be on"......and you make sure you are waterproofed and go knowing it won't last long. With the flight planning, you have to get into aloft winds and everything else. That's the major difference that I'm gonna struggle with. Can't just go with the "red blob" theory. When I signed up to learn to fly, I didn't realize I was gonna get my meteorlogic degree in the process.
 
motospeed9058 said:
The more I get into studying the general aviation requirements and the characteristics of a plane, I find myself reverting to my years of riding motorcycles the similarities in the two. Things like the effect on movement and mechanics related to weight and balance, the more you bank (turn) the more risky and potentially dangerous it can be, adjusting the trim and throttle to adjust the wheel speed to the road speed which is similar to the prop throttle being adjusted to a certain point to maintain a safe flight speed. Safety checks before each ride could be compared to pre-flighting, and each situation as an expected checklist to achieve a certain result.

I guess I'm not really making a point here other than brain storming on why the studying has been relatively simple so far. I guess I've impressed myself with the similarities. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Right, welcome to the world of physics, the rules of motion energy and resistance are all transportable between disciplines. I came to flying already a sea captain. I taught my CFI tricks to navigation. Landing an airplane is the exact same thing as docking a boat just on a different axis. The visual cues and ability to asses and control perspective control to account for operating in a fluid environment. The only thing is in an airplane you make the trasition from fluid to firm at a higher speed, but with a greater ability to control the moment of interface.

For motorcycles one of the key crossover traits is the requirement for constant vigilance as well as gyroscopic principles and the fact that when you're in trouble, more often than not adding throttle will aid in your salvation.
 
Henning said:
Right, welcome to the world of physics, the rules of motion energy and resistance are all transportable between disciplines. I came to flying already a sea captain. I taught my CFI tricks to navigation. Landing an airplane is the exact same thing as docking a boat just on a different axis. The visual cues and ability to asses and control perspective control to account for operating in a fluid environment. The only thing is in an airplane you make the trasition from fluid to firm at a higher speed, but with a greater ability to control the moment of interface.

For motorcycles one of the key crossover traits is the requirement for constant vigilance as well as gyroscopic principles and the fact that when you're in trouble, more often than not adding throttle will aid in your salvation.
Click to expand...

Growing up on boats has helped already as well. Especially in the concept of backing off of your changes a few degrees before you get to where you want to be and ultimately letting the craft finish doing what it's doing and getting there on it's own. That whole planning ahead concept and adjusting to it ahead of time definately helps.
 
One thing I realized when I was learning to ride a motorcycle is that you do not get to have an instructor sitting next to you. You have to solo the first time!
 
It's been probably 25 years since I was on a motorcycle and about 40 years since I learned to ride at a significant level. I was a serious motocross and cross country off road racer in the early seventies.

It's been a long time, but I see very little in the area of skill development that transfers from a motorcycle to flying. Getting the feel of a motorcycle before flying is not a bad thing, but I can't see it as much value.

You can learn to ride a motorcycle MUCH quicker than you can solo an airplane, but going fast on a motorcycle without busting your kiester takes lots of time.

What is interesting about this thread is that it made me think back on my motorcycle time and realize that things that seemed difficult in the beginning, became second nature given enough "hours" on two wheels, or maybe also in the air. WAIT A MINUTE! I just realized, I flew 40 years ago on a motorcycle. It certainly wasn't sustained flight, but 20 or 30 feet in the air on a motorcycle can seem that way. I wonder if I should add it to my logbook as flight time?

Doc
 
It's a safe bet that the aptitude and psychomotor skills required to safely operate a motorcycle are the same as what's required for basic airmanship.

Beyond that, flying requires much higher aptitude from a conceptual and planning standpoint.

I've yet to see an IFR motorcycle running abound with a duct taped visor.
 
I can see similarities and differences with pretty much all modes -- cars, motorcycles, airplanes.

I've been paying more attention to how I drive & ride recently, as a direct result of getting back into a flying frame of mind. We tend to think of driving a car or, to some degree, riding a motorcycle as an easy, thought-free process compared to flying. Certainly a lot of drivers do it completely thought-free! But... if you'd been flying nearly every single day for the past 35 or so years like I've been driving, I'm sure a most aspects of flying would become similarly smooth and reflexive.

When we drive, we make constant speed adjustments to maintain following distance and try to manage traffic behind us. We stay centered in the lane without conscious thought, just based on our overall "picture". We maintain (well, some of us) situational awareness while navigating, figuring speed, roll-in and roll-out for corner approaches, and generally managing a very complex, high-risk environment fluidly and naturally. But it's all because we have developed that through many years, and hundreds if not thousands of hours of driving - mostly in high stress, crowded conditions full of idiotic drivers who will kill you if you're not quick and careful.

But hey, what do I know? I'm still under 2 hours. :)
 
Doggtyred said:
It's a safe bet that the aptitude and psychomotor skills required to safely operate a motorcycle are the same as what's required for basic airmanship.

Beyond that, flying requires much higher aptitude from a conceptual and planning standpoint.

I've yet to see an IFR motorcycle running abound with a duct taped visor.
Click to expand...

Duct tape no. I've driven through rain. I've also driven in fog thick enough to cut with a knife though. That's as unpleasant as IFR.
 
MBDiagMan said:
WAIT A MINUTE! I just realized, I flew 40 years ago on a motorcycle. It certainly wasn't sustained flight, but 20 or 30 feet in the air on a motorcycle can seem that way. I wonder if I should add it to my logbook as flight time?

Doc
Click to expand...

Category of Aircraft: Ballistic Launch. Thinking about it, over the years I've probably accumulated over an hour of ballistic launch time...:D
 
Yeah I have about 100 horizontal feet of flight distance on a motorcycle. The landing went very badly.
 
If you pay attention to driving a car, it helps you, as well. The parts about racing a car or motorcycle (smooth, precise inputs, planning ahead, etc.) translate well to flying. Doubly so if you're used to Cannonballing, since that's pretty much what a cross country is.

I think flying incorporates aspects of both driving and motorcycling, as well as a number of new concepts (as one would expect). There's a correlation to be drawn. More than anything, a technical mind and one that knows how to operate vehicles will serve you well.
 
DaleB said:
We maintain (well, some of us) situational awareness while navigating, figuring speed, roll-in and roll-out for corner approaches, and generally managing a very complex, high-risk environment fluidly and naturally.
Click to expand...
What I find interesting is somewhat the reverse of this discussion - how many pilots have told me they've become better drivers as a result of flight training. It seems nobody ever taught them the concept of situational awareness before.
 
I got situational awareness from the bike. If you don't, you get mangled or die. I got energy management from the ship. Never thought about applying it to a car before, but now that I have I'm the better driver. Energy management doesn't work with my bike as it has little momentum, being very light.
 
I learned to fly well before I took the controls of an airplane

(on the left)
207592_1003460492465_1403430025_30032646_5235_n.jpg


188685_1003460052454_1403430025_563536_5529_n.jpg



One of the biggest things I learned while riding a motorcycle - that applied to flight training was "let the bike do the work for you". A motocross bike is made to hit jumps, rail corners with ruts and soak up huge braking and accleration bumps. If you stay flexible, and ahead of the bike with your body positioning / throttle / braking you can let the bike do its job. Look where you want to go, if you just look past that nasty 8" deep rut in a corner and lay the bike over with some confidence, it will magically track straight through it. If you fixate on the rut you're going to enter it awkwardly and take a "dirt nap"

Same thing with an airplane, if you are coming down final on a gusty or bumpy day and you have the pitch / power and flaps all about right, very little input is needed to end up where you want to be. You might bounce around all right but the airplane "knows" how to fly and if you just keep in mind where you want to be, you'll usually end up there with very little fuss.

And racing with 40 riders at a time on a track definitely teaches you situational awareness.
 
Last edited:
steingar said:
Energy management doesn't work with my bike as it has little momentum, being very light.
Click to expand...

I learned lots of EM riding bicycles (road race, mountain, and tandem). Brakes on bikes are basically a way to slow down -- not stop.

So you learn to see, avoid, and manage your energy around or over obstacles.

Just this morning I was riding down hill and came upon a nasty pothole -- up came the bike (bunny hop) and the pothole was cleared.
 
I would have some pictures like that except I raced Motocross and Cross Country back before cameras were invented.

Doc
 
You all have a point or two. Good. Everything is relatively true. I think I got some experience too. Relatively.. I have been flying for more than forty years. Piston and multi engine turbine helicopters, as well as single to four jet aircrafts. I still ride my off road motorcycle and my Harley. I enjoy my twin-engine speedboat and as we understand, I am still alive.
I can really follow your different points about the similarities between all the different vehicles. They do connect quite a lot, one way or another. Do not forget bicycles.
We all think we are quite good performers.
I used to think that excessively, until I looked at the attached video, how to bicycle.
Now I know, I never learned how to use a bicycle and therefore I am afraid I never really understand how to fly.
Enjoy and reflect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o&feature=player_embedded
 
dell30rb said:
I learned to fly well before I took the controls of an airplane






One of the biggest things I learned while riding a motorcycle - that applied to flight training was "let the bike do the work for you". A motocross bike is made to hit jumps, rail corners with ruts and soak up huge braking and accleration bumps. If you stay flexible, and ahead of the bike with your body positioning / throttle / braking you can let the bike do its job. Look where you want to go, if you just look past that nasty 8" deep rut in a corner and lay the bike over with some confidence, it will magically track straight through it. If you fixate on the rut you're going to enter it awkwardly and take a "dirt nap"

Same thing with an airplane, if you are coming down final on a gusty or bumpy day and you have the pitch / power and flaps all about right, very little input is needed to end up where you want to be. You might bounce around all right but the airplane "knows" how to fly and if you just keep in mind where you want to be, you'll usually end up there with very little fuss.

And racing with 40 riders at a time on a track definitely teaches you situational awareness.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was getting at. Thanks for better verbalizing for me. :idea:
 
I've not really posted much on this forum, but I figured this would be a good place to start...

Coming from an amatuer road racing background, and now as a student pilot, I'm finding a few parallels in skillsets, but I imagine the same parallels can be drawn from any activity requiring situational awareness, coordination, and effective stress management.

In the racing environment, any control inputs must be very very subtle. While leaned over in a curve, any sudden adjustments WILL result in a crash. Transitions between heavy acceleration to heavy braking and vice versa while leaning the motorcycle require smooth and decisive control inputs. Determining the most efficient (fastest) lines on a race track, and holding them consistently through every turn, lap after lap, is a primary objective.

But as much as anything, and besides being smooth and consistent, controlling the motorcycle while going fast is ultimately requires knowing the limits of rider and equipment and staying within them.

So there are definitely parallels. Riding a motorcycle, for racers anyway, is considered a "learned art". Anyone can learn to be fast, but it takes talent and natural ability to win consistently.

Being a student pilot, I'm finding my situational awareness and a learned ability to process a LOT of information calmly and objectively to be most helpful. Focus and concentration is required to quickly commit complicated combinations of thought and control coordination to memory so that it quickly becomes routine is important in both disciplines. Learning to be a pilot is waaaay more intellectual than riding/racing motorcycles though.

By the way, you guys that ride motorcycles on the street are crazy... Way too dangerous. That said, I have done a few barrel rolls that resulted in flying bike bits and broken bones.

 
The OP makes some good points, but all of them are readily understood by anybody who's ridden a bicycle more than once. Granted, bicycles are quieter... unless you have a couple of baseball cards clothes-pinned to the frame so they drag across the spokes. :D And how many future pilots imagined they were flying while tearing around on bikes in their youth?

Here's a more arcane example: anyone learning to handle a taildragger will benefit directly from experience riding a tricycle... while sitting on it backwards. :D
 
Yeah, I rode my tricycle backwards, but I crashed alot.

When my boy was a pre schooler (he's now 31) he had a Big Wheel. I was envious and wished they had such a thing when I was four, instead of my tricycle of which it's height was much greater than it's width. I have some good home movies of him sliding around on that Big Wheel.

The whole thing was made of hard plastic, so the front (driving) wheel would get minimal traction on the sidewalk. I glued an inner tube around it so it would get traction. He was the fastest Big Wheeler on the block.

He was riding a 50CC dirt bike when he was five and driving a hay truck when he was six. He flew an airplane a few times and was a natural pilot, but never did any more with it. Maybe after I get my CFI he will learn to fly.

Doc
 
rottydaddy said:
Here's a more arcane example: anyone learning to handle a taildragger will benefit directly from experience riding a tricycle... while sitting on it backwards. :D
Click to expand...

...or driving a forklift.

Or a Marx Big Wheel. :thumsbup:

Big-Wheel.jpg


While the steering was up front, the CG was so far aft it didn't take much to slide out.

They were after my time, but my sister and all her friends had one.

I tried to buy one for our granddaughter last year -- good luck finding them!!

EDIT: Sorry, just saw Doc's mention of the Big Wheel before my post
 
Big wheels were way cool. One of the more wholesome props of my childhood. I'm sure you can find a knockoff somewhere. Those things were way too neat to disappear entirely.
 
Big Wheel - Awesome! Had one of those.

The kinetics learned there were first applied to the first Toyota Corolla I owned, just me and the center handled e-brake and an empty parking lot late at night. ;)

Also had a Green Machine. Anyone remember that one? ;)
 
OT, but had to share...

Neighbor's daughters were out riding their bikes in my little patch of Suburbia the other day.

He was out blocking off half our street with cones. When I pulled up and asked him what was up, he (in a complete panic) blurted out that he was trying to keep the kids safe and, "CARS drive up and down this street! Some of them SPEED!"

Yeah, Chief. Maybe you should teach the daughters and their friends how to watch for cars like we did... Go figure.

It has now become the running joke between me and my wife, "Did you run over any neighbor kids today? I noticed the safety cones aren't deployed."
 
denverpilot said:
Big Wheel - Awesome! Had one of those.

The kinetics learned there were first applied to the first Toyota Corolla I owned, just me and the center handled e-brake and an empty parking lot late at night. ;)

Also had a Green Machine. Anyone remember that one? ;)
Click to expand...

Yes, my sons playmate down the street had one. As I recall, it was a tail dragger with one wheel in the back and two steerables in the front or maybe two steerables in back. If I had been a toddler I would have rather been riding a Big Wheel.
 
denverpilot said:
He was out blocking off half our street with cones. When I pulled up and asked him what was up, he (in a complete panic) blurted out that he was trying to keep the kids safe and, "CARS drive up and down this street! Some of them SPEED!"

Yeah, Chief. Maybe you should teach the daughters and their friends how to watch for cars like we did... Go figure.

It has now become the running joke between me and my wife, "Did you run over any neighbor kids today? I noticed the safety cones aren't deployed."
Click to expand...


Do you have kids?

I'm ready to come out shooting some days when numbnuts with the Beemer Dad gave him for graduation comes screaming by doing 60 on a 25 MPH posted residential street.

I grew up playing hockey, football, and wiffle ball on the streets of Jersey. We all knew how to yell "Car!"

But if some knucklehead came flying through and hit one of us, 3-4 dads would be in trail to catch the clown for a summary beat down.

The rules have changed.
 
denverpilot said:
Big Wheel - Awesome! Had one of those.

The kinetics learned there were first applied to the first Toyota Corolla I owned, just me and the center handled e-brake and an empty parking lot late at night. ;)

Also had a Green Machine. Anyone remember that one? ;)
Click to expand...

Green machine SMOKED the Big Wheel at spinning donuts down the street. We had a 1/4 mile long pretty steep hill between me and my friend's house when we were Kindegarten on up. You could make a Green machine spin all the way down the hill, a Big Wheel was good for 3.
 
dmccormack said:
Do you have kids?

I'm ready to come out shooting some days when numbnuts with the Beemer Dad gave him for graduation comes screaming by doing 60 on a 25 MPH posted residential street.

I grew up playing hockey, football, and wiffle ball on the streets of Jersey. We all knew how to yell "Car!"

But if some knucklehead came flying through and hit one of us, 3-4 dads would be in trail to catch the clown for a summary beat down.

The rules have changed.
Click to expand...

Cars didn't speed in residential neighborhoods when I was a kid... they rarely even went the speed limit, because they new about the stickball game.

Hmm... good idea for a new Heathkit - the neighborhood speed camera - build it yourself with a webcam.
 
I'm not following. People sped in my neighborhood when I was a kid too. We got on the sidewalk or we got squished.

A second house as a kid was bordered on one side by a four lane busy road. We didn't go out there. We stayed on the other side or went up to the football field to goof off.

You'd kinda have to see the neighborhood. It's quiet. Three other adjacent neighbors are retired or semi-retired. (Retired folk don't live in "wild" neighborhoods.)

These kids have a big ol' backyard and driveway (if dad would just move the SUV out when they're riding in it), and speeders are rare. There's an elementary school three blocks away. The SUV would be a more effective traffic block, honestly.

Dad's just loopy. He's not hurting anything, it just comes off as doofy. If they're out front he or mom are too (and typically I'll sit on our front porch and keep an eye out too or be doing some front yardwork or puttering around in the driveway).

He's kinda just being Barney Fife. It's ok, just goofy. Good for a laugh. Dude works hard, middle manager somewhere. Leaves early, works long hours. I usually clear his driveway with the snowblower on the big snow days along with most of the street.

He loves his kids. The cones are just a bit much. It's quiet enough here I dropped three two-story high trees into the street and never worried about cars being inconvenienced. ;)
 
When I was a kid, I was in NYC. You learned to stay the hell out of the way of them.

The neighbors (who I finally convinced to move away) used to put out safety cones for their kids. Really? We're at the end of a dead end street.

I did go slowly out of my driveway, because usually their kids were blindly just riding in front of it, even though all my vehicles are loud enough to announce their presence as I'm coming up the hill.
 
Never really thought about flying vs riding.
I enjoy both as often as possible.
 
As a motorcycle rider I believe I have developed better awareness and most likely a little better coordination from riding, leaning, banking is a similar feeling as flying. Although I rarely do a 45+ degree turn on a bike,,, anymore. Road the Dragons Tail this past spring, LOVED the Blue Ridge Parkway.
 
Green Machines are being made again. My daughter has one. Says up to 180lbs, have no idea where they got that number from, at 200lbs(me) the thing is a deathtrap flips constantly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top