Stump
Active Member
Recent events spurred me to toss this out there for a frank discussion for all to learn from. As a basis for perspective, i have a plethora of time single pilot IFR without an autopilot and in a dual staffed spam can with lots of bells and whistles and gucci displays...
"Aviate Navigate Communicate." 3 simple words drilled into my thick skull many years ago by some smart people. Words written in blood and guts and twisted metal. The point being fly the plane first and foremost. If stuff isn't working right, do not allow it to distract you from the primary task of flying the airplane and preventing it from hitting the ground or some other immovable object. Fly yourself to a safe place to troubleshoot, whether that be in a holding pattern, or on the ground. The closer you are flying to the ground, the more your attention should be focused on safely arriving on the ground. When flying in an unfamiliar regime, slow down, be much more conservative. Do not be afraid to ask for help. ATC exists to serve pilots, use them, make them do what you need.
Here is a scenario I recently experienced. Nasty windy weather, light to moderate turbulence. On arrival descent the gucci map display goes Tango Uniform and the autopilot ceases to track the designated course. copilot is busy handling two radios both demanding his attention. first, I point the airplane where it is supposed to going and manually take over the descent, we are still fairly high up. I see his side is working great and switch to cross court scanning. Once the plane is back going where it should, and we are still fairly high up, we take a moment to troubleshoot. come up with a quick switch to backup computer and that helps, for a bit, then the autopilot quits tracking again. ok, fine, its fired. we are a few miles from the ILS, time to switch to hand flying the plane via heading to intercept the ILS and land, we'll figure out the computer/map issue on the ground. No point in troubleshooting while trying to intercept an ILS. if we had been unable to even do the intercept/approach, it would have been time to level off, work with ATC to get to a safe hold, and get the plane to a point where we could get it on the ground safely.
Automation and pretty displays with copious amounts of information are wonderful, but suck us in like moths to a bright light, sometimes with the same result. None of it makes a bit of difference if we aren't firstly proficient with it and secondly capable without it. Sure it's nice to have terrain, obstacle databases, synthetic vision and the like. But aviation remains as fundamental today as when Orville and Wilbur broke ground. Fly the airplane. Period. You must be the master of your plane. The displays we can buy today do not make us better pilots or more capable pilots. They provide information that we must then use to perform the fundamental task of flying the airplane. That can help us, certainly, but unless we are the master of that display, we are doomed to be its slave, sucked in like the moth to an inevitable demise. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. We have fuel gauges yet people still run out of fuel. We have terrain warning yet people still fly into the ground. 8 inch glass displays, 10 inch glass, someday maybe 30 inch glass, doesn't make you a better pilot. You make you a better pilot.
I am guilty of pressing at times when I shouldn't have, either because I felt confident I could handle it or trying to salvage a bad situation and save face. The reality is I got lucky, as many of us have, and learned from my mistake before I added to the toll of blood and guts. I have lost friends because they forgot those three words.
Pride can be regained, lives cannot. Aviate, navigate, then communicate. Do not get sucked into the light...
hoping the number of your landings equals (or exceeds if you bounce like I do once in a while) your number of takeoffs...
Stump
"Aviate Navigate Communicate." 3 simple words drilled into my thick skull many years ago by some smart people. Words written in blood and guts and twisted metal. The point being fly the plane first and foremost. If stuff isn't working right, do not allow it to distract you from the primary task of flying the airplane and preventing it from hitting the ground or some other immovable object. Fly yourself to a safe place to troubleshoot, whether that be in a holding pattern, or on the ground. The closer you are flying to the ground, the more your attention should be focused on safely arriving on the ground. When flying in an unfamiliar regime, slow down, be much more conservative. Do not be afraid to ask for help. ATC exists to serve pilots, use them, make them do what you need.
Here is a scenario I recently experienced. Nasty windy weather, light to moderate turbulence. On arrival descent the gucci map display goes Tango Uniform and the autopilot ceases to track the designated course. copilot is busy handling two radios both demanding his attention. first, I point the airplane where it is supposed to going and manually take over the descent, we are still fairly high up. I see his side is working great and switch to cross court scanning. Once the plane is back going where it should, and we are still fairly high up, we take a moment to troubleshoot. come up with a quick switch to backup computer and that helps, for a bit, then the autopilot quits tracking again. ok, fine, its fired. we are a few miles from the ILS, time to switch to hand flying the plane via heading to intercept the ILS and land, we'll figure out the computer/map issue on the ground. No point in troubleshooting while trying to intercept an ILS. if we had been unable to even do the intercept/approach, it would have been time to level off, work with ATC to get to a safe hold, and get the plane to a point where we could get it on the ground safely.
Automation and pretty displays with copious amounts of information are wonderful, but suck us in like moths to a bright light, sometimes with the same result. None of it makes a bit of difference if we aren't firstly proficient with it and secondly capable without it. Sure it's nice to have terrain, obstacle databases, synthetic vision and the like. But aviation remains as fundamental today as when Orville and Wilbur broke ground. Fly the airplane. Period. You must be the master of your plane. The displays we can buy today do not make us better pilots or more capable pilots. They provide information that we must then use to perform the fundamental task of flying the airplane. That can help us, certainly, but unless we are the master of that display, we are doomed to be its slave, sucked in like the moth to an inevitable demise. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. We have fuel gauges yet people still run out of fuel. We have terrain warning yet people still fly into the ground. 8 inch glass displays, 10 inch glass, someday maybe 30 inch glass, doesn't make you a better pilot. You make you a better pilot.
I am guilty of pressing at times when I shouldn't have, either because I felt confident I could handle it or trying to salvage a bad situation and save face. The reality is I got lucky, as many of us have, and learned from my mistake before I added to the toll of blood and guts. I have lost friends because they forgot those three words.
Pride can be regained, lives cannot. Aviate, navigate, then communicate. Do not get sucked into the light...
hoping the number of your landings equals (or exceeds if you bounce like I do once in a while) your number of takeoffs...
Stump
