HISTORY

BIO

Ing. Tomáš Hruška

Pilot since: 1996

Started flying at: Aeroklub Žilina;

Education: The University of Zilina graduate

– Air Traffic and Pilot Program major

Total hours logged: 8500 hod.

Certified on: L-13 Blaník, Z-42/43/142,

L-200, Z-126 Tréner, B737 300-800, Cessna

Citation Bravo/Encore

Qualifications: Captain/TRI Boeing 737,

Captain/LTI Citation Bravo/Encore, CFI-multi-crew collaboration MCC, CFII.

Hobbies: scale aircraft modeling, history –

especially aviation one

Z-126 OM-PLP, in which Tomas Hruska logged his first flights in Trener type.

Unforgettable skills

Now I am getting to the point of, up until now unappreciated, concept

of the universal Trener series aircraft benefitting the air traffic safety.

Currently the majority of the accidents of the modern sophisticated airliners was caused by the „loss of control“ in other words the crew’s

inability to safely control and land the airplane while it was fully air-

Some of the most memorable moments on board include reading

historic articles in Eduard Info, for instance on the Battle of Britain,

while flying over the Dover cliffs. Of course only above 10 000 ft,

exactly according to the rules! Amazing link between scale modeling and history is the best motivation for the future male and

female pilots.

worthy or suffered a failure which still enabled the crew to safely control

and land the aircraft. This was exacerbated in the cases of some flight

instruments or warning systems failures indicating wrong information

while the aircraft was fully airworthy and flying in normal regime. What

is the cause of this? The answer is the training syllabus and types of the

training airplanes used. During the training of the future ATPs the focus

was no longer put on the pilots‘ ability to sensibly control the airplane

and recognize, and safely, on-time recover from any unusual flight regime the airplane can get into due to a variety of factors.

From this standpoint Trener was an ideal airplane demanding the precise hands-feet coordination and above all „a feel“ for the aircraft. A pilot

had to literally feel under his butt what the airplane was doing and what

was its airspeed without consulting the instruments all the time. This

was specifically important for the correct landing when pilot learned to

feel the ground proximity and level out at the right altitude. Otherwise,

he was not able to land nicely and safely above all. Trener series aircraft

were also used to teach the basic aerobatics which was part of the syllabus so a pilot learned to feel and recognize, on time, an imminent spin,

stall, or other unusual regime of flight and thanks to it he could break

them or, in the worst case scenario, safely recover. Unfortunately, these

tasks were eliminated from the training program, mostly as a cost reduction effort, and several aforementioned accidents occurred.

Recently the „new“ part was introduced to the pilots‘ training programs

in the form of UPRT (Upset Recovery and Prevention Training) i.e., a training in recovery and prevention of the unusual flight regimes, something

routinely practiced in our Aero Clubs in the beautiful Trener series aircraft more than 60 years ago!

This beauty, Z-226MS OM-MPY, is operated by Aero Club Zilina.

INFO Eduard - November 2021

eduard

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