My educational journey with energy management, like most of you, began with “Flight Lesson One” (more than 50 years ago) “This is how pitch and power work.” These core aerodynamic principles are deeply imprinted and hard to adapt. The result is that change and improvement in our industry are painfully slow and we often inflict any personal learning errors on our students. It is time to give up these ancient dogmas and embrace an “integrated” view of energy management for safety and efficiency.
In a rag-wing Taylrocraft, “pitch for airspeed” is pretty intuitive, because there really is no extra power available. As Bud Davisson points out in his lectures on “Mastering the Tailwheel,” the throttle in a low-powered tailwheel is only a “volume control” – it gets louder, but nothing really happens. Most primary trainers are not too far from this. Fortunately, thanks to cracks in the original (1976) AC-61-50a explanation I eventually started to question the dogma I was taught.
Ironically, either energy paradigm will actually work “most of the time,” but both will also fail in various configurations (Stricklin crash at Mt. Home)
Leveling from climb with an immediate power reduction – I still see that on flight tests – comes from a strict “power for altitude” dogma. This is chapter and verse from the “Navy Method.” The result in a trainer, is a slow and painful acceleration for the next 15 minutes (how are those checkpoints doing?) Early on, I realized I was already “pitching for altitude” in this condition myself; it’s the only way this process works efficiently (elevators for energy transfer, chemical energy for speed). The real “wake-up call” comes on the final approach where kinetic and potential energy need to be perfectly managed. Learners without a total energy picture are wildly unstabilized and can get in real trouble. Trading energy is the only method to smoothly guide a plane to a landing (and energy errors must be properly corrected) Are we teaching this in a coherent, integrated fashion?
An article by SAFE member Juan Merkt appeared in the SAFE Magazine in 2014 soon followed by another in the AOPA Magazine. This became part of the Focused Flight Review and integral in all my teaching. This was a much more comprehensive and nuanced way of visualizing (and teaching) energy control. I had been teaching much the same thing for at least 10 years, but this clearly summarized the process and presented it in a “teachable” manner. Especially valuable was “managing energy errors.” Failure to do this is what puts airplanes into the ground, and “loss of control inflight” is the #1 killer.
Both efficiency and safety require we teach a more comprehensive version of energy management, merging the “Air Force” and “Navy” methods. Yes, physics still works in a constant dependable fashion, but the pilot’s job (and technique) varies depending on the demands of the aircraft energy state.
Your student is low and fast on their final. You burned into their brain “pitch for airspeed” so the power comes in to correct (low) and the plane obediently regains the glide slope (and more). Since we are fast, (and now high too) the student pitches up to correct that; and an unstable “energy dance” of rote responses ensues.
The FAA recognized the importance of this and boldly introduced a whole new chapter on energy management in the Airplane Flying Handbook (written by Dr. Merkt). We all know airplanes hit the ground when a pilot runs out of airspeed or altitude (or ideas). As educators, we need to discard 
our original dogmas and embrace this integrated approach to energy management; it is a more efficient model that enhances aviation safety. A simple version of this integrated theory is in this Rod Machado video or if you are more technically inclined the John Denker online explanation.
A more academic contribution in this field is called “Energy Safety Management, A Training Model to Improve Flight Safety” published in the Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering. This has much of the same material nicely presented from a “top-down” viewpoint (with few Greek letters). It is a call to action for giving up the old Air Force and Navy dogmas and teaching “Integrated” Energy Management to every new learner. This is our critical piloting task from take off to landing; gravity works always – engines only most of the time. Fly safely out there (and often)!
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