Pilot's View Requirement

[wantobe]

What is a minimum requirement of pilot's external view forward? I am looking for specific angles when an airplane is on ground, such as 20 degrees up and 10 degrees down. This will affect how high seats would be. It would be even better if there were a standard or commom practice or guidance. Anything is not worse than nothing! You got it.

[JimRice85]

Are there any such requirements? Taildraggers pretty much violate that principle with a few exceptions.

[rwanttaja]

Four words: "Spirit of St. Louis." :-)

There is no "standard," it just depends on what the pilot can be talked into accepting. Piets with Model A engines have radiators blocking the forward view, the middle wing of Fokker Triplanes make the pilot nearly completely blind forward in three-point attitude, etc.

Ron Wanttaja

[keen9]

Most pilots want to see their intended touchdown point on approach. That will set the look-down angle, but you need to know pitch and glidescope angles.

[CDS]

Here's a link to the Formula 1 Air Racing Class rules:

http://www.if1airracing.com/index_htm_files/IF1_Technical_Rules_Rev2011.pdf

Near the bottom of page T8, is the beginning of section "Vision." This might give you some idea of what to consider. Good luck.

[WLIU]

Being able to see the runway on final is vastly over-rated. Almost all of the biplanes are completely blind forward. I have my tower trained to clear me for a short approach where I do 1 continuous 180 turn from downwind to the flare. In the instances where I am forced to follow another airplane I cross up the controls and fly sideways down final until the flare. And in the flare if I see no runway on the right, and no runway on the left, by deduction I must be over the runway. Works on really narrow runways just fine.

Taxiing requires constant S-turning. Otherwise you are likely to run into another airplane or something else.

Easy to do.

Wes
N78PS

[martymayes]

wantobe, One of Dave Thurston's books (Design for Safety or Design for Flying, I don't remember which one) has guidelines for cockpit visibility (in angular measurements). I'll look it up when I get home.