The ILLUSION of DEPTH

Everyone will tell you skating on thin ice is a dangerous venture. Everyone will tell you, but someone will always venture onto thin ice with defiance and macho. Such is the case with humans. Oh, this is not about reprimand or castigation. It is a bit different. It is about what we think we know.

In these days of instant information on your fingertips, many of us think we are blessed with an a gigantic vault of knowledge that would stun, to use a very oft-used word these days, even someone a few decades ago. And indeed, it might, when the arguments are nuanced with a word-extravaganza that have minimal understanding beneath the surface. But ask a question and the only answer is another filibustered sentence or paragraph that imparts very little wisdom. In fact, one can see the many talking heads on television today that have never more than a 2-minute segment to profess their wisdom. Those 2-minutes are only for the sake of eliciting a “Yes” or a “No” from the guest. On the other hand if one of these experts were to spend any length of time explaining the cause that mattered to them, well, I kid you not, they wouldn’t be able to stitch any meaningful reasoning beneath their expertise. In fact, when in doubt ask a good reasoned question and watch them spin a web that many a spider would be proud of.

A couple of guys, Leonid Rosenblit and Frank Kreil came up with an “the illusion of Explanatory Depth” concept where they asked average people about specific daily-used objects like the refrigerator or a television etc. on how they work. All said, they knew the mechanism, but, none could explain the mechanism, much less show real understanding. Upon being explained the mechanism some grew a notch of humility on their belts of understanding.

 Another duo, you might know Justin Kruger and David Dunning came up with a “Dunning Kruger “effect. Where the gulf between the imagined knowledge and the real knowledge is quite wide initially and only with toil and experience, one gets closer but never to their original level of their imagination.

Today there are thousands if not millions of experts in every field and sub-set of every field and even the sub-sub-sub-sub (ad infinitum) subset of every field. Their growth in numbers, like rabbits, would make Fibonacci proud. They pontificate and collect dollars, yuan, Euros, Rubles what have you, and even Bitcoins if you have them.

Alas the damage these “experts” do, clings to the listener/believer with such prickliness that it can ruin him or her for life.

Pick any field and you will find a burgeoning society of middling managerial experts who “know” what to do. They claim expertise with colored glossy reference material advocating a cause they can entice you to join for a “small amount of money.” And if you decline, the wrath of their emotional blackmail ensues with a venom of the most poisonous kind.

Subjects like Climate Change, Finance, Economy, Healthcare, Science, Medicine etc. are all replete with these vacuous voices. Dispute these experts at your own peril. Any disagreement is sure to pounce on you like a den of snakes (recall the Indiana Jones in a dark cave).

I find a few experts in medicine who having majored in disparate field find it completely relevant to lecture someone who has thousands of hours of expertise in the field. And similarly I find someone with limited “Book-Knowledge” who has never even taken a pulse pontificating the value of how things should be done in medicine.

You will agree, dear reader, that there is more to knowledge then a 5-minute commercial. In fact lately seeing their own glazed stupidity even the actors are doing “Doctor Poses” before advocating for a product. Surreptitiously such spewed nonsense gets cluttered in the minds of people who have worked hard all day long and come back for entertainment on television and innocently get indoctrinated with idiocy. A recent television episode of “This is Us” was broadcast indicating that a crockpot caused fire. Thousands of people began throwing their crock-pots in the dumpster causing untold economic havoc on the crock pot maker company.

Is this our state of the state of our knowledge? Do we dwell a nose-length past the obvious? Do we smell the fragrance or imagine it? Do we reach out and pull out a dictionary to understand the meaning of a word and its context? Do we even care? Are we so embedded in the world of self that except for the tiny screen that we can expand and contract an image on, the rest of the world does not exist. And whatever is on that screen is gospel for these denizens?

Here is a glaring example of rampant idiocy in the field of medicine. After creating American Obesity by suggesting the “Food Pyramid” as the nutritional guidelines, lately these experts have walked back to a “Food Plate” yet they persist in their thought process. Now they suggest we have a “Pre-Diabetes” and that patients should be monitored for the same. Using arbitrary guide-lines they have ventured into “forecasting” health. The simplest answer is of course too complex to understand, which is encourage low carbohydrate intake and limit calories and one will never go past their “Pre” phase. In fact, it will reverse some of the most resistant obesity related Type II Diabetes as well. But no, the experts skirt that issue. Wonder why? A similar trend is growing in the “pre-hypertension” category as well. Same rules apply if obesity and lack of exercise is the issue that feed the demon, not the nurture the pill-popping hydra.

Cancer care unfortunately follows a similar path Every new cancer medicine is laced with a unique low “n” to prove the p-value in the direction of “Less is More” i.e. less than 0.05. If you can manipulate the variables to arrive at that number or one lower, then voila…fortunes are made, drug prices skyrocket while lives keep getting lost. This is a deeper subject that I have glanced at, many times in previous blogs.

There are times, in these times that one might consider that the runaway train of shallow flows of ice cannot sustain the future. Just because it shines, doesn’t mean it is wholesome. So, if you must skate find a frozen lake, frozen to a depth that will sustain your weight many times over. Look at the foundation, the scaffolding and not just the dressed-up shiny mannequin in front of you, for there in those darker depths exists real knowledge.

Okay, I will now get off my pompous podium and take my humility pill as well.

But please consider this, if you have read thus far, fight for real knowledge, not some empty-headed slogan. For life is grand. Life is interesting. Life is exhilarating. Life is full and vibrant. We can still learn from a Gecko’s webbed feet to create glue, from the spider’s spin for a fabric, from the grace of a dolphin to glide through oceans, and from the flight of a bird to fly an aircraft. Indeed, it is all around us to explore, if we could only give it our time.

Thank you for reading.

THE FALLING LEAF

There is a certain grace in the fall of a leaf. It floats and then it does not. It flies and then it ceases to fly and having spent all its kinetic energy, it falls inexorably to its fate by the pull of gravity. The falling leaf symbolizes the dance of nature. It is a slow graceful dance to behold. Plucked by the breeze drifting slowly, but filled with beauty. A portent of struggle, between the lift and the drag and also perhaps of unusual potential transfer from one force over to the other. It is a disorienting phenomenon filled with potential gifts of capacity, experience and facility and learning for a pilot.

The Falling Leaf maneuver is similar in every respect, except it is not meant to fall all the way down to the earth, but be held up in the air by the pilot. It is disorienting in nature but cannot be executed by an unfocused or untrained pilot.

CAUTION: DO NOT TRY THIS ON YOUR OWN WITHOUT AN EXPERIENCED INSTRUCTOR!

Let us look at a Stall first…



If you carefully fly into a slow coordinated flight and bring the aircraft to a stall, what happens? Most of you would say, that the aircraft first buffets a bit giving you a warning. In the big irons the “stick shaker” will be the corresponding alert. Once the shudder is past, the aircraft nose simply falls down. What exactly is happening there?



Noting that Lift is created as a consequence of the angle of the airfoil to the Relative Wind. It is a dance between the "pull" of the Lift being created by the wind over the upper surface of the cambered wing (Bernouille) and the "push" of the wind on the underside of the wing (Newton). The higher the angle of attack, the more the lift but equally with increasing AoA, the more the drag. That drag, is mostly a form drag that keeps increasing, ultimately exceeding the Lift when Stall occurs. There is separation of airflow from the upper surface of the wing starting from the trailing edge of the wing (airfoil) slowly migrating to the leading edge. Once the separation is complete, the drag takes over and gravity plays its part. Ok, so having figured the mechanics of that out, if one were to ask, how would you recover from a stall? The answer is simple, isn’t it? Put the nose down, let the wings gain lift and it will fly again. At low altitude added thrust (power) and the correct positive attitude with right rudder to counter the p-force etc. (per the aircraft being flown) is required. Remember the Center of Gravity or CG is forward of the Center of Lift or CL. As the Angle of Attack increase  past the criticalAoA, the Lift decreases and the Gravity pitches the nose down (Aircraft designers are pretty smart - the CL initially becomes the fulcrum, so to speak). This nose down is further helped by the loss of the horizontal stabilizer efficacy, being buffeted by the high angle of attack. And with the nose down, the wing flies again. Remember, if it buffets accidentally (wind shear etc.) nose down and power up (i.e. if engine is running).

Quite simple, isn’t it? Next time, ask your instructor to demonstrate this to you. It will remove the demons that irritate and create unnecessary fear, off your shoulders.



Now assume you have mastered the Stall characteristics and the recovery mechanism (before you dare to go any further). Again, with a trained and able instructor by your side, who has experience in the maneuver, go fly up at a decent altitude say 4500 feet AGL and put the aircraft into a stall. Now instead of recovery keep the back pressure on the yoke.



What happens next? One or the other wing of the aircraft will fall away from level flight (usually the left one). When that happens, most pilots even with many thousands of hours will do the same thing...use the ailerons to level the wings. Here is the warning, Using the ailerons to level the wings, increases angle of attack and deepens the stall by increasing drag and lift loss and further aggravates the situation. The correct method is to use the opposite rudder to the low wing.



Let us look at it from a perspective of understanding. A falling leaf maneuver is a dance between multiple potential, imminent spins corrected by the judicious use of the rudder. You are not falling out of the sky, so to speak, just have less lift, more drag and you are controlling the loss of lift by coordinating the creating of the lift (as wings level momentarily) and losing it (when one wing drops and the other sustains the aircraft transiently) and doing the dance with expertise. The pitching and side to side motions can be abrupt and I don’t want it to sound gracefully benign but with expertise it can be made to look and feel comfortably benign.

No heavy lead feet needed in this maneuver. Just judicious anticipation and effective use of the opposite to the lower wing, rudder to keep the wings level (preventing a wing-over into an incipient spin is the key. Delay in opposite rudder input can deepen the roll). Remember there is grace in a falling leaf.



You might ask, “what is the benefit of putting myself through this ordeal?” Good question! The answer is quite simple, it helps understand that even during a stall the VSI stays at a 500+/- rate of descent, which means the aircraft is still flying, albeit poorly! It teaches the importance of the rudder use and gives you, the pilot, confidence. Or simply put, it teaches you to dance on the rudders with a deft touch when needed. It will also help you make expert, coordinated turns without skids and slips (which create drag and slow you down). So, learn to tap-dance gently on those rudders.



The "falling leaf" maneuver is a series of full stall where you never release back pressure, but play the forces of the aerodynamic lift of the aircraft, relative wind, the angle of attack and form drag of the aircraft, all the while keeping the wings level. During the maneuver, your plane should look like a leaf gently rolling and falling but continue in its flight! Learning the Falling Leaf maneuver will help prevent you from making preventable mistake and inadvertently falling to the ground. 

CAUTION: DO NOT TRY THIS ON YOUR OWN WITHOUT AN EXPERIENCED INSTRUCTOR!