FLYING

CAR CONTROL

Now we're set for driving. Remember the word is "smooth". First I'll cover smooth steering. Proper steering is dependent upon proper gripping. The steering wheel is the control mechanism through which you direct your car. It is NOT a fancy version of those handles they put above passenger seats so that you can hold yourself in place. That is what the harness is for. The tighter you hold the wheel, the more time is wasted in letting go of the wheel so that you can turn. Also do not hang your arms from the wheel. Support your arms at the shoulders. This will be very tiring, but you'll ge used to it. Gently hold the wheel in between your finger and thumb tips. Feel how much easier it is to turn the wheel when you're not using your arms against themselves. The steering wheel should not bear any stress from the driver's end. It's going to get enough of a workout at the front wheels. This will lighten and quicken your steering and improve control.

The hand-over-hand steering that you learned in driver's ed is out. You just cannot get enough control out of one arm twisted across you body, palm facing out, to steer smoothly. The basic rule is that your hands (both hands) are on the wheel in the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions ALWAYS. From this position you can make small adjustments equally in both directions as well as execute 180 degree emergency steering wheel turns in either direction without letting go of the wheel. To turn, use a spider turn where you walk the wheel in between your finger tips. Yes, your hands get a workout as well as your shoulders. Don't move your hands from the 9-3 position. Only the wheel should move. This lets both hands take part in steering simultaneously in small, relatively smooth increments; no sudden jerks caused by the old style while changing hands which will break the tires loose. For very fast turns, shuffle steer, again, in many small shuffles while keeping your hands close to the 9-3 position. Do all of this as smoothly as possible. When you are pushing your car to the limits of its adhesion, any small jerk could break the car loose.

The next technique for smooth steering has nothing to do with your hands. It has to do with your eyes. Unless there is a car in front of you, you should be looking through each turn. If you can see the exit of the turn, you should be planning your exit as you make your entrance. If you cannot see the exit, you should at least be looking right at the point where the road comes into view as you turn. Don't look at the road right in front of you. You will spend your time making fine adjustments which probably aren't necessary and which could break the tires out. Like the carrot on the stick, drive for your goal and let your peripheral vision deal with the road under your tires. It's an odd feeling, but I guarantee that you will drive more smoothly. However, be careful not to get in the habit of not noticing the car right in front of you. I've been missing too many brakelights lately.

There is not a lot to say about smooth throttling. Accelerate smoothly. If you kick your tires out, you lose absolute control. There are two types of friction: static and kinetic. The maximum force due to static friction is the minimum force required to start a stationary object moving across a surface. Kinetic friction is the force of friction felt by an object sliding over a surface. Static friction is greater than kinetic friction. You experience this whenever you slide a heavy stack of books over a table. It takes more effort to start them moving than to keep them moving. A rolling tire adheres to the road by static friction. In essence, each particle on the tread is lowered and then raised from the road. When a tire is kicked out during acceleration, braking, or by skidding its only adhesion is kinetic friction. Since static friction is greater than kinetic friction, it holds that the greatest adhesion is obtained by keeping your tires rolling and never letting them slip. This explains the advantage of antilock brakes which keep the wheels from locking up. This also explains why you steer into a skid. You are trying to get your front tires rolling again so that you have some semblance of control.

Again with braking, don't cause your wheels to skid by locking them. Also don't throttle brake. When you remove your foot from the gas, the friction in your engine takes over and slows down. This slow down can be dramatic enough to cause the tires to break away. You only have control when you are applying the brakes or applying gas, not when coasting. When you apply the brakes you have equal control of speed at all four wheels (provided that your brakes are properly adjusted). When you apply gas you also have equal control of speed at all four wheels. The free-wheeling wheels experience very little internal friction, effectively no load. When gas is applied to the driving wheels they experience no effective load since energy is being added to the system. Therefore, when you apply gas, all four wheels experience the same effective load, namely none. When you coast the driving wheels feel a heavy internal load (engine friction not overcome by the addition of energy to the system). You now have a system with momentum where two wheels experience a heavy load and two wheels experience no load. This is a system looking for trouble. All four wheels should always experience the same effective load, either via braking or the addition of energy to the system to at least overcome engine friction.

Heel and toeing is the method by which you keep your driving wheels from breaking loose during a downshift. If your engine is pulling 4000 rpm and you shift from 4th to 3rd your wheels will suddenly be going much more slowly (4000 rpm in 4th is very different than 4000 rpm in 3rd). This will, at a minimum, upset the car's balance or can break the tires loose. What you desire to do is to rev the engine during the shift to a speed where the tires moving in 3rd at the same speed as they were moving at 4000 rpm in 4th. For example, 4000 rpm in 4th might give the same car speed as 6500 rpm in 3rd.

The way to accomplish this is none other than heel and toe, which means using one part of your right foot to brake while the other part of the foot is revving the engine. If your pedals are spread apart you should use your toes for the brakes and your heel for the accelerator. This gives you more precise control of braking. If your brake and throttle pedals are next to each other you luck out and can use the ball of your foot for the brakes and the outside of your foot for the throttle. Control of the two pedals is achieved by rolling your ankle. For those who are adventurous and wish to set their spread pedals next to each other, make sure that there is enough room on the outsides of the setup so that you are able to operate each pedal independently without binding on the other pedal. The way to determine the appropriate engine speed to match the downshift is with your ears and practice.

Don't give your tires any jolt which will break them loose. For this reason you should brake and shift in the middle of a turn as little as possible. You should set yourself up properly for a turn before you enter it. I will elaborate on this next time.

Next issue I will cover Road Handling techniques. Until next time happy flying.

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