Taxi out of the hanger - ride the breaks while pulling on the yolk until it jumps the chalks

AV8R_87

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Feb 1, 2024
Messages
382
Location
NE USA
Display Name

Display name:
OC
Now that I got your attention...

If I were king (FAA Administrator) for a day, I'd probably institute some sort of certificate action against pilots being caught butchering the English language that way. Multiple levels of suspensions, based on how many of these you manage to include in one paragraph. You start adding misuse of your/you're, there/they're and so on, you're getting the full Trevor Palmer treatment.

Reminds me of Patrick Stewart clashing with the rowdy guys when filming Star Trek TNG:

Anyway, share your cringe-worthy examples of language butchering that would make you suspend someone's certificate.
 
POA spelling isn't bad at all. Check out some motorbike or hotrod groups and get a real cringe.

The yoke isn't thing you hold. You hold the control wheel. The yoke is behind the panel and the wheel and its shaft rocks it back and forth. Some airplanes don't have a yoke at all.
 
AV8R_87 stirring thin soup again.

Many of these miss spellings are the result of AutoCorrect changing what we type.
AI learning aviation terminology and function from UTUBE content will make it even worse.

Fortunately, the FAA has no power to police such matters, and AV8R_87 is not in power there to overstep the rules.
 
Careful now. You should have used a semicolon instead of a comma in your ramblings their. See what I did they're?

Luckily the FAA only cares about the ability to read, speak, and understand English. When I say 4123, I may write it down as fore won too tree. And when you here it nobody is thinking of gulf.
 
Last edited:
The yoke isn't thing you hold. You hold the control wheel.
Well, the latest edition of the Airplane Flying Handbook has 24 instances of the word "yoke" used when describing control movement, and 11 of "control wheel". I think it's safe to say yoke is an acceptable way to refer to the actual control held by the pilot.
Many of these miss spellings are the result of AutoCorrect changing what we type.
If you're going to argue, might as well find a good counter-argument. Look at the pilot handwritten statements in NTSB investigation dockets, you'll see plenty of these "autocorrects". People don't know how to spell basic aviation words. And while I don't really care about the average Joe hanging out in a hotrod group, a professional pilot, maintenance tech or aviation engineer should be held (and hold himself) to a higher standard. I've seen official documents sent to the FAA with such things written on them.

Here's a couple more that I could find in a hurry. Couldn't find the one where his breaks didn't hold and he taxied into the hanger.

1707665860962.png


1707665895184.png
 
Many of these miss spellings are the result of AutoCorrect changing what we type.
AI learning aviation terminology and function from UTUBE content will make it even worse.
Your (presumably intentional) misspelling of YouTube in this thread with this context is pretty ironic. Utube.com was the website for Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment Corporation, before YouTube started and caused a bunch of inadvertent visits to the company website. They subsequently changed their domain name (in 2007). Utube.com does not currently lead to any website.

 
Last edited:
Well, the latest edition of the Airplane Flying Handbook has 24 instances of the word "yoke" used when describing control movement, and 11 of "control wheel". I think it's safe to say yoke is an acceptable way to refer to the actual control held by the pilot.
From a Cessna parts manual:

1707677867965.png
1707678010451.png

1707678100174.png

So write to Cessna and tell them that they have been calling those yokes "wheels" in error all this time.

Textbooks are often full of mistakes. They are written by people who have usually absorbed the common terminology, whether it's right or wrong. I used to teach Aircraft Systems for Pilots, in an aviation college, and the textbook, by the same name, had mistakes in it. At the beginning of the semester I issued a syllabus that included a page of corrections to the textbook. Here's the page:

1707678404261.png

Just because something's in a textbook doesn't make it correct. We can still find newer textbooks telling us about the equal-transit-time theory of airflow over a wing, even though this was debunked 50 years ago. Once something gets published and disseminated, it's stuck in the minds of students forever, and those students become instructors and spread the same misconceptions.

There are Seven Learning Factors, one of which is Primacy. I think it's the most important factor. It is described like this:

9. PRIMACY - Present new knowledge or skills correctly the first time. (Teach it right the first time.)

(a) When students are presented with new knowledge or skills, the first impression received is almost unshakeable. This means that what you teach must be correct the first time. Students may forget the details of lessons, but will retain an overall image of the skill or knowledge for a long time. Frequently you will be required to perform manoeuvres in the aircraft before a student has had the necessary background training. You must perform those manoeuvres correctly or the student may imitate any errors you make. For example, before the exercise on cross-wind landings, you and your student are required to land in a cross-wind. Any poor example shown at this time would have to be "unlearned" when the exercise came up in a subsequent lesson.

https://tc.canada.ca/en/aviation/pu...e-tp-975#part-i-learning-and-learning-factors

And yes, I was also a flight instructor. And a Canadian Aircraft Maintenance Engineer, equivalent to an A&P/IA.
 
Last edited:
And yes, I was also a flight instructor. And a Canadian Aircraft Maintenance Engineer, equivalent to an A&P/IA.
Ah, the Canadian AME, the most confusing thing for a US pilot, endlessly wondering why you'd be taking your airplane to the doctor.
Textbooks are often full of mistakes.
I really like your approach to proving your point. Proper facts and references. But, to quote a good friend of mine who has spent some 50-odd years in aviation: "My mind is already made-up, don't try to confuse me with facts!" :D
 
POA spelling isn't bad at all. Check out some motorbike or hotrod groups and get a real cringe.

The yoke isn't thing you hold. You hold the control wheel. The yoke is behind the panel and the wheel and its shaft rocks it back and forth. Some airplanes don't have a yoke at all.

I thought the "control wheel" was called a yoke because of its resemblance to an oxen yoke.

I've always found that the quality of any printed or online technical discussion is generally proportional to the quality of the grammar. There are exceptions, but they're rare.
 
I thought the "control wheel" was called a yoke because of its resemblance to an oxen yoke.
Maybe. An oxen yoke:

1707699095321.png

Doesn't look like any control wheel I've seen. I've also heard the term "control horn," which might be much more accurate:

1707700190739.png

1707700273507.png

"Wheels" predated that idea. The cockpit of a Howard DGA-15:

1707699252450.png

Those are control wheels. And so are these, in a Stinson Reliant (Gullwing):

1707699354513.png

And the Ford Trimotor:

1707700026814.png

And the Stinson Trimotor:

1707699550296.png

All from the 1930s. But even long before that, Glen Curtiss' Golden Flyer of 1909 had a control wheel:

1707699666886.png

So. The term "control wheel" is not only because they used a wheel, but since so many designs abandoned sticks in favor of wheels in the '30s, we also have a solid heritage of the term. The term "yoke" is stolen from the real part, behind that panel, and is incorrect.

The control wheels got clipped in the WW2 bombers. Tops clipped off, since they were just obscuring the instruments. Then the bottoms got clipped off, too, and the 1950s saw control wheels that were almost rectangular. Evolution.

1707700604750.png

I have no illusions that the use of yoke will change. Too many pilots, almost all of them now, call it that, and Primacy makes sure it will stay that way. It joins a lengthy list of other corruptions.
 

Attachments

  • 1707699498211.png
    1707699498211.png
    90.6 KB · Views: 6
Last edited:
Then the bottoms got clipped off, too, and the 1950s saw control wheels that were almost rectangular. Evolution.
Not sure I understand why it's proper to call a rectangle a wheel, when a rectangle is very much not the shape of a wheel, but improper to call it a yoke.
 
Now that I got your attention...

If I were king (FAA Administrator) for a day, I'd probably institute some sort of certificate action against pilots being caught butchering the English language that way. Multiple levels of suspensions, based on how many of these you manage to include in one paragraph. You start adding misuse of your/you're, there/they're and so on, you're getting the full Trevor Palmer treatment.

Reminds me of Patrick Stewart clashing with the rowdy guys when filming Star Trek TNG:

Anyway, share your cringe-worthy examples of language butchering that would make you suspend someone's certificate.

Why does the phrase "First world problem" come rushing to mind?
 
Why does the phrase "First world problem" come rushing to mind?
Because the kind of aviation we do is a first world privilege.
And we are required (as shown above in the medical form excerpt) to read speak, write and understand English.
PoA is definitely better than some other aviation forums, but some of the stuff you see, both in online conversations and in NTSB forms / FAA documents makes me feel like I'm in an aviation-themed version of Idiocracy.

1707717956903.png
 
But some have two loops like an oxen yoke.

Beech Staggerwing:
1707737857997.jpeg

Early Piper:

1707738091655.jpeg
 
But some have two loops like an oxen yoke.

Beech Staggerwing:
View attachment 125325

Early Piper:

View attachment 125327
I couldn't find a free online service or parts manual for the Staggerwing (D-17S) but in the earlier Bonanza parts catalog they call it a wheel:

1707750961713.png

Piper calls their control wheels, too.

My point is that we're using terms different from those the manufacturers use, and this is so ingrained that it will never change. It extends into other areas such as aerodynamics, where people keep talking about a "full-stall landing." In the touchdown attitude of any light airplane, the wing is not stalled. Stall angle is typically around 17 degrees, measured at the chordline. I checked one of our Citabrias and found the chordline at 12° in the ground attitude, a long ways from stall in the three-point attitude. The descent angle at touchdown won't be more than a degree or two, so the wing's AoA is still a long ways from full stall. The roots might be turbulating a bit, but that's all. A stall results in a nose-drop and often a wing-drop; how often does anyone experience either of those when they flare a bit high and drop to the pavement? That drop is merely accelerated sink, not a stall. The engineers who designed that airplane did not want it stalling during landing. As proof, I took off in several taildraggers in the three-point attitude, and the airplanes flew just fine. They wouldn't do that if their wings were stalled in that attitude.

I know, I'm pedantic. Comes from teaching, I suppose. Misspelling bugs me, too, but I also recognize that the people who struggle with it are very often much smarter in areas that I am. One can spell and write perfectly but know little else.
 
I couldn't find a free online service or parts manual for the Staggerwing (D-17S) but in the earlier Bonanza parts catalog they call it a wheel:

View attachment 125339

Piper calls their control wheels, too.

My point is that we're using terms different from those the manufacturers use, and this is so ingrained that it will never change. It extends into other areas such as aerodynamics, where people keep talking about a "full-stall landing." In the touchdown attitude of any light airplane, the wing is not stalled. Stall angle is typically around 17 degrees, measured at the chordline. I checked one of our Citabrias and found the chordline at 12° in the ground attitude, a long ways from stall in the three-point attitude. The descent angle at touchdown won't be more than a degree or two, so the wing's AoA is still a long ways from full stall. The roots might be turbulating a bit, but that's all. A stall results in a nose-drop and often a wing-drop; how often does anyone experience either of those when they flare a bit high and drop to the pavement? That drop is merely accelerated sink, not a stall. The engineers who designed that airplane did not want it stalling during landing. As proof, I took off in several taildraggers in the three-point attitude, and the airplanes flew just fine. They wouldn't do that if their wings were stalled in that attitude.

I know, I'm pedantic. Comes from teaching, I suppose. Misspelling bugs me, too, but I also recognize that the people who struggle with it are very often much smarter in areas that I am. One can spell and write perfectly but know little else.
Let’s not forget that ”my instructor is an instrument instructor, not a CFI.” ;)
 
All three of them ...
Five.

Taxi out of the hanger - ride the breaks while pulling on the yolk until it jumps the chalks


That "it" should say "the airplane." The sense of the sentence as written implies that the "yolk" is jumping the chocks.
 
Five.

Taxi out of the hanger - ride the breaks while pulling on the yolk until it jumps the chalks


That "it" should say "the airplane." The sense of the sentence as written implies that the "yolk" is jumping the chocks.
Actually, it should say until “the nose wheel” jumps the chocks, and if you’re on the brakes at the time, that isn’t going to happen, either. ;)
 
unless its a airplane with an talewheel
 
Back when technical products came with manuals, I would always be concerned if a manual was well written. Because that meant it was probably written by a technical writer, not an engineer, so it was probably wrong.

The real problem question here, though, is "who the hell starts the airplane in the hanger"? I mean, if it's 1952 and you're flying an F-86 out of an alert hut in Korea, sure. But making a game of paper, dirt, and bug chase in your hanger because you're too lazy to pull the 172 out? That's just wrong.
 
Back
Top